3 Steps to Successfully build an Exercise routine for your Overweight Horse or Whoa-Horse

When your horse hates exercising… There are 3 things you can do to help your horse enjoy your exercise regime, and building a bond at the same time.

3 Steps to Easy Movement Training

Here’s how you do it:

1. Make exercise EASY
2. Make daily exercise FUN
3. Make it predictable, in a GOOD way 😉

3 Tips to Succeed and accomplish your GOAL

It’s really simple and this makes it easier to implement an exercise regime that works and lead to results: a fitter horse and/or one that is more forward, without having to nag your horse to keep up speed. It’s still a challenge, but with these three you make the chances high to succeed in your endeavor of a fit, forward horse!

Tip 1: Make it EASY for your horse

Easy makes, it easier to start and to keep doing it. When you start training where your horse is at, instead of where you want/wish your horse is or “should be”, you tailor it to your horse and you will get much better results! (Unless you use coercion to exercise your horse, but then you’re in the wrong place!).

Keep in mind that you don’t keep it easy forever! It’s just the best way to START. When you accomplish your (tiny) daily exercise with your horse, you feel more accomplished than when you feel like a failure on day 1 already. Be realistic AND make it easy!

Expand your horses comfort zone slowly! Making it easy to start, supports also tip 2.

Tip 2: Make it FUN for your horse

When daily exercise is FUN for both YOU AND your HORSE, it’s more likely to keep going at it.

You can easily make exercising fun by implementing positive reinforcement (R+). That way your horse gets something that he values (most overweight horses are very food motivated! Use that fact to your advantage!

If it’s fun, it is easy to repeat it tomorrow! By the way: you use food rewards to START and to make exercise something fun. The goal is to fade out the food rewards to a minimum. You won’t keep clicking and treating for every step, I promise!

Maybe at first it feels like your horse will get more calories than he burns in training, but when you fade out the food rewards you work towards the tipping point where he burns off more than he takes in. By the way here is a tip for using food in training overweight horses.

It’s the consistency that really counts! Which brings me to point 3: predictability.

Tip 3: Offer Predictability. In a good way

Your horse will start to anticipate on his FUN, daily training that is predictably short and easy you can build CONSISTENCY in training!

Your horse learns quickly that he won’t be over asked or have to do something that is hard. He also learns quickly that there is something in it for him: a treat (which can be a few simple grass pellet or a hay cube).

Horses also learn that exercise is not endless circles and before they know it, it’s over. At least that’s what you make him think with setting it up that way.

Slowly and over time you raise criteria, like speed and duration of your Movement Training. It’s the consistency that will lead you to success! You can start with 3 hours in the first week and stop because your horse is reluctant, and you get frustrated… Or: you can start with 5 minutes of hand walking a day, and built slowly up to an hour.

PRO TIP: Keep track of your consistency with a training journal!

I bet the second way is more likely to lead to long term success and accomplishing your goal: a fit horse that is in shape or a horse that offers forward movement easily. Slow and steady wins the race… (the race against equine fat. Pun indented, you are allowed to have FUN!)

Why this way works so well

The reason this works is that it becomes a HABIT. Once exercising your horse on a daily basis becomes a habit for you, you’re on a streak.

You don’t want to break your streak, do you? However… life happens, so be prepared. This is a rule I use ‘Never skip 2 days in a row’. With this rule you give yourself some slack, and you make it a no-brainer to go do it! You already have decided to exercise your horse every day. Even when this means you start with 5 minutes a day to get into the habit and to prioritize your horses’ health.

From Fat to Fit for Kyra

My horse Kyra became overweight and had a body score of 9 out of 9! When she got laminitis I started her recovery with R+ movement that I developed out of necessity. I refused to use R-/punishment to get her moving!

I started where she was at: 20 minutes of hand walking… At least that was my goal. At first we stood stopped and stood still longer than we were walking, but after a few days of clicker training ‘forward movement’ she started to OFFER walking!

This was a huge tipping point: now we could really start! Our 20 minutes daily walk turned into 18 minutes of walking and 2 minutes of standing/stopping, instead of the other way around. By having low, but realistic expectations and tailor it to her needs, it became fun to do. We even bonded over the whole laminitis bout!

Kyra fully recovered and never foundered again! All because we started with that 20 minute walk which was 14 minutes of standing/stopping at day 1!

Having her Grass Trained already was a huge advancement!

The Secret Sauce: Tipping points!

There will be *Tipping points* where the scale tips over from HARD to EASY, from gaining weight to loosing weight. From losing weight (which takes EFFORT) to maintaining weight (which is much easier)!

Here are some tipping points to look forward to:

• After the start you’ll need less treats and get more movement!
  The point that it feels worse NOT to exercise, than to stay put. Endorfines will get on your side!
• From a reluctant horse to a happy horse
• Where you only need to maintain the new bodyweight of your horse, instead of letting your horse lose weight. This is where you can change to a maintenance program that takes way less effort.

Do you want to keep in touch with me about R+ Movement Training for your Overweight or Whoa-Horse?

Join my Facebook community Exercising EMS/Laminitis or Overweight Horses with Clicker Training! I would love to meet you there! In the group I have lots of resources and in 2024 I offer free Masterclasses to get your horse moving with clicker training!

Ready to take your Clicker Training to the next level?

Join the HippoLogic Academy! I coach and support you personally getting your dream results with positive reinforcement, so that you can bond with your horse in the process. Create a connection build on mutual trust and understanding, a clear two-way communication built on love.

In 2024 the focus besides giving you a solid foundation is R+ Movement Training: Exercise your horse with positive reinforcement and transform your WHOA-horse into a GO-horse or get your Fat Horse Fit in a Few Months. Like all good things, learning a skill takes time. Therefore you’ll get one year personal support in the HippoLogic Academy.
Click the image to go access the application form ↓

Not sure? Start with a free clicker training assessment to get taste of what it feels like to work with me. When you have a specific struggle that you want to overcome, don’t hesitate to contact me.

In this assessment you’ll discover what’s holding you back from accomplishing the things you want with your horse. After our conversation you’ll know exactly what to do, in order to move forward towards your goals.

Happy horse training! You are the trainer!

Sandra Poppema, founder of HippoLogic and creator of R+ movement Training for Overweight and WHOA-horses.

Treats in TRAINING for Overweight Horses?

I can hear you think already:
“But…

– my horse is already overweight
– my horse can’t have treats
– my horse has EMS/ Cushing’s/ is ill”

Clicker training uses food rewards

Clicker Training uses “treats” in training, but not the way you might think… 

•  The ‘treats’ you use for exercising obese/recovering laminitis horses can be normal horse food: grass pellets, hay cubes or whatever you serve your horse. It can be herbs or grass or even simply hay!
• You Click and give a food reward for everything your horse does well at first. After your horse understands the desired behaviour(s), like forward movement (walk, trot) you fade out clicks and treats
•  Fading out clicks and treats makes behaviour even stronger, if you do it right.

But, a Click makes my horse STOP

Or my horse stops for a treat… This is not ‘Exercising’.

 Yes, that’s right! And that’s a good thing for 4 reasons:

1) Your horse probably LOVES to have a break. If he wasn’t, you wouldn’t be here. So click and treat, AND have a break is extra bonus for those reluctant horses.

2) When he STOPS moving, he gets ANOTHER opportunity to offer DESIRED behaviour: start moving

3) YOU get another opportunity to click and treat. Your horse learns by repetition! The more you repeat, the more you reward, the more your horse gets interested: Hey there is something GOOD in it for me!

4) Safety: it’s way safer to feed a standing horse, than a horse that moves.

It DOES NOT STAY like that: click-stop-treat

Remember: this is ONLY in the first phase that you click and give treats very often and have a high Rate of Reinforcement (click & treat). Once your horse knows the behaviour, you go to the next phase. In my course you’ll learn all 4 phases of training a behaviour with clicker training.

The goal

The goal is to teach your horse that Exercise is Fun, so he will offer the behaviours walk, trot ,canter on cue and by choice! No more coercion!

Once a behaviour is on cue, you don’t click and treat for every walk, trot, canter anymore. You can build on duration and ‘quality’ of the movement! That’s also a lot of fun!

My horse Kyra from Fat to Fit in a few months

Advanced benefits of At Liberty Movement Training

Sandra Poppema, BSc
Founder of HippoLogic & creator of the Confident Clicker Trainer

Become a Confident Clicker Trainer

When you want to do more with positive reinforcement and feel confident training your own horse, this is the course for you!
The Confident Clicker Trainer course is a high quality, online training program that you can do yourself. You’ll become automatically confident in your skills when you get predictable results. This course is aimed at novice and advanced clicker trainers who want to make their foundation really, really strong so that they can train everything else you want, faster and easier.

Enjoy Your Horse More

When you implement more positive reinforcement in your training and daily interactions with your horse, you ‘ll develop a strong bond. You’ll enhance the communication and built mutual trust and understanding. Clicker Training is so much more than a training method!