25/06/2026
Here is something worth saying directly to every student in your program: the warm up is not all about you. Your body matters and yes you need to find your seat and your balance before the real work begins but the horse underneath you has muscles, tendons, joints, and a back that need progressive preparation before being asked to carry a rider and work correctly. A rider who warms up their own body and ignores the horse's is a rider who spends the first half of every lesson fighting resistance that a proper warm up would have prevented entirely.
A horse coming out of a stall or paddock is not ready to trot a twenty meter circle with bend and contact any more than an athlete is ready to sprint without stretching first. The soft tissues need blood flow. The joints need synovial fluid to distribute. The back muscles need to loosen and swing before they can carry a rider effectively. Asking a cold horse for immediate work does not just produce resistance, it also creates genuine physical discomfort that over time contributes to soreness, stiffness, and a horse that starts anticipating the work with tension rather than willingness.
1. A proper warm up starts on a long rein.
Teach your students that the first minutes of every ride should happen on a long rein at the walk - not a loose flapping rein with no contact but a long allowing rein that gives the horse freedom to stretch through the neck, swing through the back, and find its balance without the constraint of a collected frame. The horse should be encouraged to stretch the topline progressively before being asked to work in a more upright frame. I actually left a dressage barn I was boarding at because the trainer yelled at me for not cranking in my horse's head the moment my butt hit the saddle.
2. The warm up should be progressive not passive.
A horse meandering around the arena on a loose rein for ten minutes with a rider who is scrolling through their mental checklist is not warmed up, it is just walked around. A genuine warm up is progressive and intentional. Walk on a long (not loose) rein, building to a working walk with some bend and direction changes. Rising trot building to rising trot with light contact. Simple transitions, large circles, and gentle direction changes. The work gradually increases in demand as the horse's body loosens and the communication between horse and rider establishes itself. By the time the lesson properly begins, the horse should be through in the back, forward off the leg, and genuinely listening - not still half asleep from the paddock.
3. Watch the horse's back and topline during the warm up.
Teach your students what a horse that is not yet warmed up looks and feels like versus one that is ready to work. A tight back that is not yet swinging. A head that is carried above the bit with tension through the neck. Short choppy strides rather than a swinging reaching walk. These are all signs the horse needs more time before the contact is picked up and the real work begins. A horse that is warmed up correctly steps through with the hind legs, swings through the back, seeks the contact softly forward and down, and feels elastic and willing underneath the rider.
4. The warm up is also information.
What the horse offers in the first ten minutes tells you and your student what kind of ride is coming. A horse that is stiff on the left rein during the warm up is telling you something. A horse that is unusually forward or spooky during the warm up is telling you something. A horse whose back does not loosen up through the warm up the way it usually does is telling you something. Teaching your students to read that information during the warm up rather than ignoring it and proceeding with the planned lesson regardless is one of the most valuable horsemanship skills you can develop.
5. Build it into your lesson structure as non-negotiable.
The warm up is not optional and it is not a courtesy to the horse - it is a welfare requirement. Build a structured warm up into every lesson plan and hold your students accountable for using it properly rather than rushing through it to get to the interesting part. A student who learns from their very first lesson that the horse's warm up is a non-negotiable part of every ride carries that habit forward into every horse they will ever sit on. That is a gift that goes well beyond the arena.
The horse carries the rider and the least the rider can do is prepare that horse properly before asking it to work. Teach your students to warm up with purpose and intention for the horse first and themselves second. The quality of everything that follows will reflect it.
How do you teach your students to warm up their horse properly?
