Faraway Farm LLC

08/28/2025

07/21/2025

Why lessons here... start with walk warm ups!

Warming Up Your Horse Before Exercise and Competition: How To Avoid Injury and Muscle Strain

What is a warm-up? The term 'warm-up' accurately describes what happens when we transition the body from a resting state to a state suitable for activity: the muscles are literally 'warmed up', receive increased blood and oxygen supply, gain flexibility and therefore reduce stress on tendons and ligaments. This also allows time for joint lubrication.

A warm-up will also ensure increased oxygen supply to the blood and the elevation of the heart rate from a resting rate to an activity rate. If you warm up your horse gradually—instead of 'jump-starting' his heart-rate—you will also have a calmer, more relaxed, and more willing horse.

Sufficient warm up before exercise, training, and competition is essential, in order to avoid injury to muscles, ligaments, and tendons. A simple routine can save lots of pain and dollars spent on vet visits.

Why should I warm up my horse before working?
Just like your own muscles after a full day sitting in your cubicle or driving your truck, for example, the horse's muscles are unflexible and his movement will be stiff after a day of lack of activity in his paddock or stall. This even more so in the winter, where movement is even more restricted and the horses cannot kick up their heels on pasture. Many horses spend most of their day in a stall year round, which limits the horses' movements even more warm up your horse

Our bodies-rider's and horse's-are made up of mostly fluids! Warming up body fuids inside muscles reduces the internal friction of a muscle and therefore prevents injury. Mobility and elasticity of muscles is increased, which minimizes the strain on ligaments and tendons.

Avoid muscle spasms, discomfort, stiff gaits and in extreme cases torn muscles or tendons or anxiety and unwillingness to work by warming your horse up properly at the beginning of every ride.

A simple basic warm-up for recreational riders of all levels:
- Warm up your horse on a long rein in the walk
- Alternate the pace of the walk
- Start with straighter lines
- Then continue with large circles, squares, serpentines, & shallow loops (20 meters, through the width of the arena)
- After 10 minutes, make squares, circles and serpentines smaller
- Warm up a total of 15 minutes at the walk for best results

For more advanced warm up exercises for FIT horses at least 8 - 10 minutes into their walk warm up:

Ride Walk Single Ground Poles
Ride Walk Shallow Loops on the Center Line
Ride Walk Shallow Loops Down the Long Side
Ride Walk 4 Loops Down the Center Line
Ride Walk 2 Loops Down the Long Side
Ride Walk Shoulder Fore and Counter Shoulder Fore
Ride Walk Leg Yield Right to Half Pass Right
Ride Walk Leg Yield Left to Half Pass Left
Ride Walk Leg Yield In, Half Pass Back
Ride Walk 10 meter Circles
Ride Walk Shoulder Fore and Counter Shoulder Fore (one of my favorites!)
Ride Smaller Walk Squares (Integrates a Few Steps of Turn on The Haunches)

As a note, in the warm up I usually limit the lateral work to a few “baby steps” as the purpose of these exercises during the warm up phase is to supple and loosen the horse up purely for their benefit. If you feel your horse become more anxious or tight, re-evaluate how you are utilizing the exercise or consider waiting to do the more difficult exercises later on during the work session once they are better warmed up.

I would also encourage you to experiment with a few minutes of in-hand or lunge line walking for a start to the warm up from the ground before adding your weight to the horse’s back. I’ve seen some very positive differences with horses by allowing them a few minutes of walk warm up time without the weight or interference (or micromanaging) of the rider so an option I highly recommend playing with in the warm up phase as well! This also allows you extra time to evaluate from the ground how your horse is doing physically and mentally that day, puts both horse and rider in a more relaxed state of mind instead of rushing to jump on and ride, and allows you to make any tack adjustments, if needed.

05/30/2025

05/26/2025

We all have those days, even those of us teaching it!

“This makes me feel like I don’t know how to ride!”

I hear that all the time when I’m teaching and I always have to chuckle. There is nothing I can relate to more deeply!

There is a huge difference between mashing a horse’s body around, and actually riding them.

When my teachers taught me to truly ride generating energy from behind and steering the shoulders, not the mouth, it became very apparent I was relying entirely on the head for control. It was extremely humbling, and very frustrating. I had many lessons that felt like purgatory - not advancing until I could learn to direct with my seat onto a track of travel, learning not to let my Tourette’s hands get involved and to actually funnel the energy through.

I went from overactive, micromanaging riding to being floppy and ineffective, afraid to be at the helm. I’ve been at this a while, and I always remind my students of this : I did not pop out of the womb understanding this- and if you are naturally gifted at it, I’m happy for you - but don’t be alarmed if it is hard.

If it were easy, everyone would be doing it!

If you’re feeling frustrated, inept, stuck in purgatory, and so on, try to remember this is not easy. It’s very simple - but it is the most difficult task you could undertake: mastering your body and mind to ride in a harmonious way with a horse. There are no shortcuts, no easy get out of jail free cards for learning how to direct fluidly without interference. Buddhist monks study a lifetime at a monestary to get control of their minds - so you have to direct that kind of energy and dedication into it, within the walls of your own arena.

It’s hard, and you will struggle and make mistakes, but you will be just fine, and so will your horse. It will come together in glimmers, in tastes- you’ll get motivated by a little feeling here and there, and you can remember that feeling to get you through the next plunge back into purgatory.

05/09/2025

Dressage is not a sport of spectators.
It’s a discipline of solitude.

You can be surrounded by trainers, riders, judges, and still, you're alone.
Alone with your thoughts.
Alone with your horse.
Alone with every choice you've ever made in the saddle.

Most people quit dressage because they expect progress to feel like applause.
But here, progress feels like stillness.
Like tension giving way.
Like a breath you didn’t realize you were holding… finally let go.

The horse doesn’t care who’s watching.
And eventually, neither do you.

05/07/2025

𝗧𝗿𝗼𝘁 𝗣𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘀

To negotiate trot poles sucessfully requires increased momentum, flexion of all the limb joints, power and spring.

Trot poles encourage your horse to push equally from behind, and are an excellent exercise for developing an equal stride length and for improving symmetry, straightness and coordination.

𝗦𝗲𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝟭.𝟮 - 𝟭.𝟳𝗺 𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁

05/01/2025

04/20/2025

Some rides are fantastic. Some are a touchstone on what needs to be worked on more. If we wanted consistent and easy, we'd ride bicycles!

Dressage is tough. It’s technical, mental, and sometimes frustrating as hell. You’re constantly working to improve not just your horse, but yourself. And that means you’re going to hit walls, have bad rides, and feel the pressure to get everything right.

But perfection isn’t the goal progress is. Mistakes aren’t failures, they’re feedback. Even the top riders screw up; the difference is they keep showing up, learning, adjusting, and moving on.

Your horse doesn’t need a perfect rider they need a consistent, fair one. The real work happens in the struggle, in the repetition, and in those small breakthroughs that no one else sees.

So when it’s hard, when the pressure is on, just keep showing up. Ride the horse you have that day. Put in the work. Trust the process.

You’ve got this.

04/17/2025

The best way to have good habits of balanced position, is not having to un-learn bad habits of rushed basics!

Most riding students today start their lessons at a discipline centered barn. Few of these barns begin with the fundamentals of general riding such as balance. Instead, these discipline focused programs teach the forms and positions of their specific discipline. This leaves voids in their training that they discover many years later when they try to switch to some other discipline or type of riding.

The best way to teach riding begins with teaching the fundamentals of horsemanship. In addition to riding, driving or other activities, authentic horsemanship includes teaching basic elements of horse care and horse training. For example, the first thing I teach new students about horse training is that we are always training or untraining a horse when we ride. Regarding horsemanship horse care, I teach basics like getting a horse out of a pasture, how to safely approach a horse, hoof cleaning, careful saddling and bridling, as well as how to do a simple assessment of a horse's condition and state of mind that they are about to ride.

Effective riding instruction begins with having the student add new skills or tools to the student's equestrian toolbox. Balance comes first. Much later, when a student develops an effective balanced seat, we stop adding tools and refine their use of their acquired tools so as to help them achieve unity of balance and movement with their horse.

Once they achieve a degree of unity, we stop adding new tools unless new tools are required for specific discipline. Much later, when the student learns to ride consistently in unity, we optimize the use of their acquired tools to allow them to do more with less. Optimization of their acquired tools eventually expands the range of some tools' applications such that the applications overlap with other of their tools' uses. This is when we begin to remove tools from their toolbox because they can do more with fewer tools.

I believe that the elevated fear and the many injuries riders experience today are the result of having never learned the fundamentals of balance and shared movement with a horse. Instead, they learned to be a Hunter Jumper, or a Reiner, or some other specialty without ever establishing a solid, effective, balanced seat. They are rightfully fearful and get hurt because balance is essential, and it should be established before learning specialized methods.

basic related post on safely approaching a horse -

www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid02sP2HpSPwofCPTcoa6J9ziob4Y1dhbvUWpfBiA9bJUZmADwQBqRKn6VjMUjqxtpcYl

related post beginning riders stirrups length -

www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid02973AXNj7tcRCTrr6s9WQASUtLA3rJSGmSnXc6gwyFasQTtMyQWdivRsd63htxJidl

related post for advanced riders -

www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid02tfc9K6eQSzFgRzigsGUnvypafbnsFhf4PBNqjrEnFR9eo2daoaMnkbFY1Af9zQBdl

04/14/2025

Ready for spring to keep on springing!