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?

Long and low

The main aim of my lessons in the last couple of weeks has been to get Legacy to work long and low and stretching down. In the past she's always had the typical racehorse head. When I ask her to do something she isn't keen on (like working) she will throw her head up, there's even been a few times where I thought she was going to hit me.

There has been a few times where I've got her working in a happy rhythm on the right rein on a 20m circle where she's started to stretch down before.

Since having my last lesson I've also started to think that I've been stopping her to allow to stretch down and drop her head by keeping her on short reins due to her running off when I've ask for trot before. Although once we've gathered a nice rhythm and I've been comfortable I have allowed her to work with long reins.

From what I've seen on the lunge she also seems to get into a rhythm much quicker on there and is willing to drop her head down. I'm not one for using different type of lunge accessories and gadgets, I'd rather her learn and work properly the natural way. I don't mind if that takes us much longer to get to, I'd rather the outline come naturally. 

In my last couple of lessons she's been working well with teaching her to stretch down, and the small set back we've had is me trusting her enough to ask her for trot on a long rein and her not running off with me. I'm fully comfortable to trust her about halfway through the lesson to change transition on a long rein when she's warmed up and listening. I'm still struggling to do this at the beginning though. This is something we'll both have to work on in the lessons and other schooling times.