I'm definitely a fair weather rider so I find it hard to find the motivation to ride when the colder & wetter autumn/winter days hit. I don't mind the mucking out as I'm inside out of the rain and I warm up quite quick doing that. Especially starting off with about 4 layers on including a thermal base layer. 

This is the 4th winter I've had Legacy and she's been in every winter I've had her, but as she's on a livery yard they have always put her out in the morning and brought her in at night and given her food. After mucking out in the past winters I've always struggled to find the motivation to ride or even bring Legacy in for a groom as I liked her to spend as much time out in the field as possible, rather than cutting it short for a groom. This motivation wasn't even there on the days of the week I would muck out before work.

So this winter hoping it will give me a little more motivation to do more work with Legacy throughout the winter me and my mum have decided to put the horses out and bring them in ourselves. 

I will be the one up early to put them out, depending on what shift I'm doing in work I'll either be up at 6:45am or 6:15am to do them. The earlier time I'll just be putting them out and my mum will muck out and bring in after work. The later time I'll be putting them out and mucking out when my mum will bring in after work. 

I'm really hoping that having to put them out will give me that little extra get up and go in the mornings. If all goes to plan I'm also hoping that I could get a quick lunge in there for Legacy too so she keeps up with the workload, rather than being worked once a week if we're lucky on weather.  

How do any of you keep up motivation to keep your horses exercised throughout the winter?

The Windy Lesson

After last week's fall I had a chat with my instructor about what's going on with Legacy and we have come down to a possible answer of she's not getting worked enough. In the past she's never been the type of horse that does need to be worked constantly as I have left her out of work for 2-4 months before and getting straight back without another thought. But it seems to be that with us now having lessons she's starting to get into a routine of at least being ridden once a week, and she must be liking it. So after deciding that could be the answer to theso many questions of why? I had my fall on Tuesday then lunged her Thursday although she wasn't the most cooperative we sort of got there as when I changed the rein to lunge she came up lame.

I'd arranged another lesson with her on the Monday so I decided to give her until then to come up sound which she did. We just had some awful wind on the Monday and the 2 horses were bolting and doing laps around the field, just to give me that little bit of confidence just before my lesson, thanks Legacy. After explaining to my instructor what had just happened and knowing that Legacy could be a little spooky by the arena due to sheep trailers clanging in the wind I didn't want to get back on her in those conditions.

We decided to give her a lunge to see what type of mood she was in that day. After having a good lunge and not playing up once I decided that I would be brave enough to get on her. During the lesson she then went really well, she was a little slow and lazy and made me work to keep her going but I would much rather that than what I had last week.
Towards the end of the lesson she was stretching out and staring to lower her head, it felt a little odd for me to give her more reins so she could lower her head as I'm used to her ears nearly hitting me in the face. And we did some transitions where I didn't shorten my reins before asking for trot as this has become somewhat of a safety thing for me as I never know what she will do.

So it definitely feels like we're onwards and upwards now, myself and the instructor have decided on working Legacy 3 times a week. We feel this would be enough to get the energy out of her. I'm aiming to ride on my 2 days off and give her a lunge on either the Thursday or Friday. But obviously when it comes to the winter I will have to work harder at sticking to working her the 3 days and possibly not be so much of a fair weather rider. How that will go, I don't know. We'll have to see...