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?

Yard Before Work

Due to me working odd shifts in work, I only muck out the horses on my days off of Monday & Tuesday and when I don't start work until 10:45. I work odd times on the weekends and then on the other days opposite to the 'late' shift is the 'early' shift to where I start work at 8 and don't finish until 4:30. With the horses not going out until 8:30 and coming in 4/4:30ish by the time I get there after work they'd be in. Now these 2 horses seem to be the worst 2 to muck out when they're in there, always knocking the wheelbarrow over, standing in the way and making more mess. I'm lucky enough to be fussy not to have to work with this when my mum can muck them out on the days I can't, it's always handy because if either of us need a day off from doing them there's always the other person there. 

This is a quick image of what I wear when I do my yard work. The bottom half of the outfit rarely changes apart from the odd change of footwear.
The trousers I wear are Regatta waterproofs. They are similar to these Regatta Stormbreaker ones I found on ebay for only £8.69 with free P&P. For this price I'm definitely adding these to my ebay watch list for when I need another pair. Although these are lightweight and thin they are durable and last a while. The current pair I'm wearing have lasted me for 2 years. So for the price you pay they do last a long while. These trousers are great because I wrap up warm for work in the winter so those clothes keep me warm while mucking out and then throughout the summer they are light enough to not make me hot. 

On my feet I'm currently wearing my Harry Hall Yale Country Boots, these are some of the most comfortable boots I've ever worn. They are not longer for sale but I recommend if you can get your hands on a pair they're great. 

On my top half I wear a hat on my head no matter how I've done my hair ready for work. Any wooly hat does the job of keeping my ears warm and keeping the smell of dirty horse bed out of my hair, which helps keep me presentable for work. 
I then have a variation of jackets & coats to which I wear on top of my uniform. Due to how warm I can get at times when mucking out I only wear my thermals and work t-shirt under my coat. The current jacket that I'm wearing for this weather is my Dublin Trinity Blouson Jacket, then in the winter I wear my Equine Answers Regatta coat. Throughout the summer I typically just wear a hoodie to cover my uniform or depending on how hot it is I'll wear a different t-shirt and then will get changed when I get into work. 

On my hands I then wear kids gardening gloves as these keep the smells off my hands. The gloves I use are these kids gardening gloves from Wilko. They are also great as the haylage we can can sometimes get thistles in it, they are quite awful when they stick into your hands when you grab into the bale. They are great throughout the winter as they keep your hands dry and keep the chill off of your hands. 




The other alternative to wearing all of these before work is a pair of overalls. I have a pair of these from back when I was in college but I don't really wear them for yard work as they're a bit big for me, and I found throughout the winter I was needing to wear waterproof trousers and a coat to stay dry.