Tips on exercises to build muscle

Hello, and congratulations on your new horse!

Hacking out and walking up hills, or going through the woods over logs and stones, builds muscle very effectively. It makes the horse use its whole body.

Walking very slowly downhill also strengthens the whole horse, and is especially good for the muscles that hold the horse back. The key is that the horse slows itself down, because that is what builds strength. Ideally you might walk slowly alongside the horse downhill, only checking it if you feel it wants to push on more.

You can do both of these while you hack out. Since you mention the horse has been ridden mostly in the indoor school, hacks that also build strength strike me as an effective way to keep your horse motivated.

If you would rather have a pole exercise, I like the one where you lay the poles out as an L, but doubled. So two interlocking Ls, with a gap to ride through between them. You can work both over the poles and between them with turns and the like. In the turn inside the L the horse has to shorten its steps and really step round with the hind legs. That is brilliant for both the topline and the hind legs. Walking through the L and then trotting over the poles is one way to train it, but you can vary it endlessly.

Good luck 💞