A consistent warm-up plan

Every time I get on any horse I start the same way. I make sure he stands quietly while I mount and and that he waits quietly for me to ask something of him after I’m mounted. Then I ask him to go, stop, turn in, move out and soften on a fairly small circle in the walk. If there is any issue with any of those in either direction I use one or more of the exercises in my book to take care of it. When everything is squared away in the walk, I move onto a little larger circle and repeat in a slow trot. When he’s performing well that way I move onto a more energetic trot, or with some horses an easy canter.

At this point we’re ready for whatever we want, any issues having been addressed in an easy way. Usually I don’t know what brought an issue on, but if I can use the basic training he’s had to work through it easily, I don’t need to.