Varying the surfaces on which you exercise your horse can help produce a strong, well-rounded equine athlete

When training your horse, you likely put in a lot of work developing his skill set for a chosen athletic endeavor. Yet, similarly important is the degree of conditioning your horse achieves over time. Conditioning offers multiple benefits, including building the musculoskeletal tissues of the limbs, core, topline, and neck. It also improves the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, nervous system, proprioception (awareness of position and placement of limbs and body), and balance; provides mental stimulation; and builds a horse’s confidence.

Varying the surfaces on which you exercise a horse can bring additional benefits that develop the physical strength of a well-rounded equine athlete mentally engaged in his work.

Conditioning to Prevent Injury

Brianne Henderson, DVM, Dipl. ACVSMR, specializes in sport horse medicine and injury rehabilitation at Rivendell Equine Services, in Ontario, Canada, and says she believes most of the injuries veterinarians see in horses are due to repetitive strain and an accumulation of microdamage. “Even the majority of ‘acute’ injuries have, in fact, been developing for a time. If we examine how we work and train horses with this in mind, then the use of various surfaces allows for varying strains to be distributed across various musculoskeletal tissues—bone, ligament, tendon—thereby minimizing repetitive stress.”

She notes that young horses’ bones and soft tissues are highly adaptable and strengthen in response to exercise on varying surfaces. For older athletes, use of different surfaces minimizes the amount of daily microdamage to musculoskeletal structures while allowing time for injury repair.

Introducing horses to new riding surfaces gradually is important. “Early in the show season, we commonly see horses that are acutely sore after their first multiday show,” says Henderson. “Often this is because they are worked on one type of footing at home—sand, for example—and are then asked to compete and school on a completely different type of footing, such as fiber.”

With initial exercise on a new surface ridden at reduced intensity, such as flatwork and comparatively easy exercises, a horse adapts gradually to new footing.

“As a rule, it is best to expose a horse to the same surface as the competition surface twice weekly for at least six weeks to give muscles and other soft tissues time to adapt,” says Judith Koenig, Mag Vet Med, Dr Med Vet, DVSc, Dipl. AECVS, ACVSMR, associate professor at the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College.

Of great importance is the effect of repetitive exercise on the same surface day after day. “Using the same exercise regimen without variation increases wear and tear on joints, while bone remodels with adaptation only to a specific constant surface,” Koenig says. “This leads to a potential for bone stress fractures, especially in horses involved in speed-related sports. Additionally, repetitive exercise without variety is likely to have mental impacts on both horse and rider.”

A horse might become sour and resistant, for example, or a rider might become bored or frustrated with lack of progress. Changes in scenery and variety in training can work wonders for both horse and rider ­temperament.

How Long Until Benefits Appear?

Fitness development is in part related to how fit a horse is prior to a layup period or if moving to a new surface. Henderson says horses detrain rather slowly and can maintain fitness longer than human athletes. She recommends pursuing at least three weeks of low-intensity exercise to establish an aerobic base. Follow this by long, slow distance training to build a sound foundation. Then the horse can progress to moderate-intensity training. When subject to these conditioning strategies, she says, the horse undergoes cellular changes that begin around Weeks 4 to 6. By Weeks 6 to 12, muscle fiber types start changing to adapt to the athletic endeavor.

“Once a solid conditioning base has been established, it is time to incorporate interval training, which optimizes skeletal and muscular strength,” says Henderson. “Bone responds best to short (five- to 10-minute) intervals of high-impact loading three times per week.”

Dirt road riding can be useful for this if done in moderation. “During periods of inclement weather, road riding is mostly done at walk; however, adding in five to 10 minutes of trot achieves maximum bone response without damaging cartilage and soft tissue structures,” she says. “Too much road pounding damages joint cartilage and starts the path of osteoarthritis.” She adds that tendon tissues are more adaptable in young horses (1-2 years); then, a subsequent conditioning objective is injury prevention. Cross-training in different tasks and on different surfaces prevents microdamage accumulation that can lead to soft tissue injury.

“In addition to development of the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular benefits from conditioning, one main goal of cross-training is to minimize muscle imbalances while maximizing core and back strength in an equine athlete,” says Henderson. “Development of sufficient strength in these areas provides muscle power and improved proprioception. A horse is then able to work correctly in balance and postures appropriate to the athletic effort. Without this strong base, it is possible to overwhelm cartilage and ligament structures that take on extra strain and may injure more quickly.”

Another important benefit of strength training is it prevents pushing a horse beyond its fitness level to a fatigue state that then results in musculoskeletal and/or metabolic injury, such as exertional rhabdomyolysis or exhausted horse syndrome.

Varied Terrain

Besides practicing skill sets in an arena, part of your weekly training strategy for a horse can include trail riding in surrounding fields, woods, and hills. Riding on different surfaces augments variations in training. A horse can be worked in a frame periodically and asked to do lateral movements even when ridden outside of an arena. This builds core strength and sharpens the rider’s equitation skills. Henderson stresses it’s important for a horse to have a break from training and drilling exercises in the arena.

“Nature is the perfect way to introduce different surfaces and proprioceptive exercises by negotiating hills, rocks, shrubs, and fallen trees,” she says. This is good for a horse’s mental health, as well. She gives the example of three-day eventers, which have the most “built-in” cross-training that ­combines dressage in a sand arena with hillwork and canter sets on a grass track or incline, plus gymnastic jumping work. There is no reason other athletes such as a cow horse (reining, cutting, roping) can’t be schooled in dressage or perform other sport-specific conditioning exercises. Beyond its physical and mental health benefits, the variety of cross-training can invigorate athletic equestrian pursuits for both horse and rider.

Hillwork is extremely beneficial to the cardiovascular system by ratcheting up heart and respiratory rates without requiring the speed associated with greater risk of musculoskeletal injury through repetitive microdamage. Hillwork also provides great strength training to develop the haunches, back, and core abdominal muscles. Work on downhill inclines puts additional muscle groups (both concentric and eccentric—shortening and lengthening—muscles ) into action to resist gravity and prevent the horse’s mass from moving too quickly down the grade. A horse working on downhill inclines can rapidly develop neuromuscular coordination and agility, as well as improved proprioception and balance, says Koenig.

The main precautions when working on hills revolve around stability of the footing and proactive preparation of all systems to accommodate the stress of hillwork. Mud is slippery and can lead to injury or falls, while rocks create challenging obstacles and might cause foot bruising.

A heart rate monitor is a simple but invaluable device that can be used with hillwork; it provides equine heart rate data that allows riders to control their pace to accomplish training goals. These goals might include working the horse in an efficient aerobic range or maximizing benefits gained from higher-intensity anaerobic work accomplished through uphill inclines and/or speed intervals. Another critical piece of data a heart rate monitor provides is a horse’s recovery rate, which is helpful for identifying fatigue early.

Different Footings

No single surface type works for all disciplines. In general, dressage riders prefer a surface with less impact hardness and grip than those who jump their horses. Western sports need more foot slide (i.e., less shear strength of footing material) to facilitate turns and/or spins at speed.

An excerpt from Equestrian Surfaces – A Guide (Swedish Equestrian Federation) describes the effects of surface interaction with the hoof and limbs at impact: “The hoof landing means a rapid braking effect during which the hoof slides forward and downward into the surface. The impact and braking forces transmit shockwaves and vibrations through hoof, joints, and bones in the lower part of the leg. The harder the surface and the more grip it has, the more shockwaves and vibrations the leg experiences. The hoof is pushed forward into the surface from above, while the top layer of the surface provides traction.”

Again, “a variety of surfaces is important for training different musculoskeletal structures,” says Koenig. “Firm surfaces condition bone, joints, and hooves. Proper hoof balance is important to avoid uneven loading on joints. Soft surfaces like sand or sand-mixes stimulate tendons and muscles.”

Good-quality grass turf is an excellent footing when available and when weather conditions contribute favorably. Henderson notes that injury risk increases with abrupt footing changes (e.g., from wet to dry or thawed to frozen). If you can’t control such abrupt changes through surface correction and maintenance or reduction in speed, sudden changes in forces traveling up the limbs can potentially result in injury.

The idea behind modern synthetic footing is to reduce peak forces by absorbing impact, says Henderson. The Equestrian Surfaces – A Guide authors note that even if an arena surface appears uniform, it might not be. If not designed or maintained properly with a deep enough top layer, synthetic footing becomes problematic, because it increases traction and loses consistency in texture and depth as horses move around the arena. Measured forces on the limbs increase in poorly designed and/or maintained sand/fiber footing, thereby increasing injury risk. Proper surface maintenance to reduce compaction involves keeping sand “elastic” with moisture or by adding rubbery material and then harrowing.

“Good-quality sand footing with an adequate deep layer of moisture dampens peak forces on the limbs,” Henderson says. “A goal is to reduce the impact or peak force traveling up a horse’s limb during mid-stance when a limb is fully weight-bearing. Compared to asphalt, sand absorbs energy from limb impact.

“Deep sand requires significantly greater muscular strength to push off, because the footing moves away from impact (i.e., the foot slides),” she continues. “This leads to significantly greater muscular efforts and cardiorespiratory stress—including heart rate increases by 50%—with greater risk of tendon/soft tissue injury.”

More specifically, sand 6 inches or deeper increases the risk of tendon or ligament injury. Henderson describes tendons as “cables” with fibers twisted together and grouped. Tendon fibers are kinked to allow for absorption of energy and elastic recoil. They have a maximum stretch before microtears begin to form, which might coalesce into an area of damage such as a core lesion visible with an ultrasound exam.

Soft tissues are not the only tissues at risk in deep sand; bone stress injuries and fatigue fractures of the pelvis, especially of endurance horses, are associated with training and competing in deep sand. While synthetic racetrack surfaces have improved musculoskeletal safety issues, Koenig says they are associated with increased occurrence of tibial and humeral stress fractures in flat racing horses.

Still, training in sand or sand-mixes can provide excellent cardiovascular benefits when exercises are applied appropriately and with caution. Remember that in response to training, it takes at least three to six weeks before a horse’s muscle cells and fibers adapt. According to the Equestrian Surfaces guide, sand mixed with fiber and/or rubber chips coated in wax provides the best positive attributes.

Other Strategies

Sometimes, exercise in water, even in shallow depths at the beach or lake or on a commercial aqua treadmill, can provide conditioning advantages, especially for horses rehabilitating from injury. “Working in water has many benefits from cold and compression and increased range of motion through joints,” says Henderson. “Work in water should be done at low-intensity gaits.”

“Aqua treadmills at varying water depths provide different conditioning effects on a variety of structures,” adds Koenig, noting that swimming helps cardiovascular conditioning and oxidative muscle training, but it is contraindicated in horses with back pain.

Other techniques Koenig recommends to build a horse’s musculoskeletal strength and proprioception include carrot stretches, cavaletti work, ground or cross poles arranged in different patterns, and bands of tassels or bells around the pastern to stimulate foot arc and lift. You can implement such strategies on a variety of surfaces.

Take-Home Message

“One major goal in conditioning is to cross-train and use different surfaces so that a horse has time to heal incurred microdamage and become stronger,” says Henderson. By loading multiple tissues differently on varied terrain, it is possible to mitigate tissue damage while developing overall strength.