Is Warming up Horses Necessary?

I received a phone call from Colleen, a lady who had previous called me to order some Functional Tie Rings and we ended up talking for almost an hour on ground training. This time her question was "is it necessary to warm up horses by lunging them before you ride them."

I told Colleen, that the short answer was 'yes' in my opinion, if at all practical and possible. I liken warming up a horse to me getting out of bed in the morning. Long gone are the day's I can swing my legs out, tie on some running shoes and go for a run. These days it takes me one cup of strong coffee and 50 minutes of stretching before I feel I can face my chores.

Warming up, horses or humans, helps get the blood circulating and making the muscles, joints and soft connective tissue more pliable and less prone to injuries. Warming up can also reduce pain. I think horses are no different than humans in this regard. And warming up a horse, if we pay attention, can show us where they are having problems, stiffness, lameness and such. Warming up is not just a physical thing, but again, if we pay attention, a warmup period can help focus on the horse on the handler who becomes a rider shortly thereafter. Can help make for a safer ride.

Lunging, either using a long lead rope or lunge line, or free lunging, what some people call lunging at liberty, is one way to warm up horses, not the only way. Before we even halter a horse and lead him to where we are going to saddle up, we have to approach the horse. This in and of itself is a opportunity to remind and re-establish leadership with the horse. Once haltered and leading, we can use that to help the horse focus on us - correcting an improper leading position; stopping; backing; having the horse stand when there is no feel in the lead rope; correcting the horse if he becomes distracted. I would just caution not to make a federal offense out of anything, just correct him with as minimum pressure as necessary. All this takes maybe an extra 2 minutes, so there is not really a reason not to do it.

Once I have saddled a horse, some times my warmup on him is just riding at a walk for a bit, stopping and backing, disengaging his front end, moving his front end over, giving me softness in lateral and vertical flexion. Some times, I dismounted nd stretch a horse out. Other times on other horses, who need it and could benefit from it, my warm up may be lunging usually with the lead end of the mecate reins. Any time you are asking something from the horse which is usually be directing his feet - providing you are giving him clear cues - serves the purposes of getting that horse connected to you, so warming up both is a physical and mental benefit to the horse.