Training a horse isn’t always easy. Whether you’re practising the basis or you’re training on the highest level. All levels have their own challenges.
In addition to those challenges, you can also choose for different forms of training and you have the choice whether you do this indoors, outdoors, on the road or perhaps even during an outdoor ride in the woods.
Despite the fact that the preference of most riders is still for an indoor or a closed arena, training your horse on an outdoor ride is extremely valuable.
Why do we train in an arena?
When we are actually training our horses, and therefore focus on improve movements or teaching our horses something new, it is important to make choices where you’re going to train this. A closed arena is ideal when you want to train your horse in “freedom” for the first time. Also, a closed arena often gives a "safe" feeling so that many people, and therefore horses can also relax more. Training in an arena also has the advantage that you can often influence the soil so that you can realize the optimal training conditions. However, not everything can be trained in an arena and for the variety and mental state of your horse it is good to move your training occasionally.Benefits of training on an outdoor ride
An outdoor ride is often seen as a “getaway”. Something you can do for fun with others or just with your horse. You can just completely relax while your horse, with his ears forward, is cheerfully walking through your surroundings. Where a startle reaction of your horse in an arena can cause tension, the same reaction in the forest, for example because of a passing dog, does not matter and the relaxation returns quickly. On an outdoor ride it can, of course, also be quite exciting. Especially if you have a horse that does not know this yet and has to learn how to behave on an outdoor ride. That is precisely why it is good to go on an outdoor ride. You can train an infinite number of things outside. For example, there are a number of points that you train automatically:- - Mindset
- - Flexibility in focus
- - Relaxation
- - Better balance
- - Interest