Recently a friend of mine left the competition arena feeling down after a disappointing ride She did not understand what went wrong because in the warm up her horse felt really good. When I asked if there was there anything at all that she noticed in the warm-up," she was only able to indicate that her horse was slightly behind the leg, but in the test he just stopped and wouldn’t go forward. It call this the "Warm-up Factor".
What is felt in the warm-up will literally be multiplied by in the show ring. In your warm-up everyday riders should be concentrating on the crucial elements of training: reactivity, suppleness , straightness, and relaxation. This is what should also be the focus of a competition warm-up. However, there are other signs one must be aware of which tell you how your horse is feeling on that particular competition day. When you are in the arena, you shouldn't come to a realisation that you weren’t paying attention in the warmup.
If your horse is lazy in the warm-up, you will quite often find that he falls asleep in the test. If your horse is spooky, you can expect a full blown lip out at every car/umbrella/person, or invisible nothing. If your horse is a little too reactive to the leg in the warm-up, touch him in the test and he will most likely buck or kick out at you.
The warm-up factor is the subtle, sometimes unseen signs of what your horse is thinking and preparing. If he feels strong on the right rein, in the test it will feel like a brick. Then, there are the horses that use the warm-up factor in reverse. My horse Batialo is an example of this. If he is really relaxed in the warm-up, I can expect quite a firecracker ride in the test. Alternatively if he is a bit tense in the warm-up, he will tone it down by a factor of ten in the test, and I’ll be doing more work than he is.
So how do you learn from, use, account for, predict, and lessen the warm-up factor, in order to give yourself the best chance of finding harmony in the test?
First is experience. The warm-up is adjustable, it is a learning tool; it is the piece of armour that you have at the competition, in order to get the best sense of how your horse will be. The only way to know if your horse uses the warm-up factor, or the warm-up factor in reverse, is to get out there and take note of what you felt, and what happened in the test. Then use that to know better the next time.
It can take quite a few goes to learn the exact warm-up time and what exercises to employ during this time, and it takes thought and planning to get it right. I now know that if I get in the warm-up and Batialo does a little sqeal, or jump, even one time that put my leg on, if I don’t address that in the warm-up, and leave my leg on until he accepts it, when I touch him in the test he will react like I just unloaded my kryptonite. If he is not relaxed on the left rein, his stiffer side, then in the test I will do very leg yield-like half passes to the left.
Whatever you let a horse get away with in the warmup, will be the thing they use in the test, so you must really use this time to pay attention to what is happening underneath you. If he is jumping at the noises, then you know that in the test every noise will be a leap! If he stops to poo, you can bet your life he is going to stop right in the middle of a good half pass, and say haha “you let me stop outside, so I'm going to take my time with this one!”
Horses are incredibly intelligent and quite often when we get in the warm up, we are so busy thinking about the test that we are really not intelligent at all. We are stressing about the centreline, the halt, and what if we forget the test, what if he is naughty, that we don’t actually listen to all the subtle signals our horse is giving us.
Next time you take the warm-up arena, remember the warm-up factor! Do not tell yourself that once you get in the test it will be ok. It won’t! And chances are it will actually be much much worse.
by Sarah Warne - Photo © Rui Pedro Godinho