16/06/2026
🌟 Let's Talk - The Working Holiday 🌟
It's important for all horses to have planned breaks in their work; an eventer at the end of a season, a young horse after an intense period of education, and even the riding club horse competing low level year round all need a break every now and then to keep them mentally refreshed and physically sound!
But how long should that break be?
How quickly does the horse lose both cardiovascular fitness or muscular strength?
And how long does that take to build back?
❗️️ After 1 to 2 weeks, the horse begins to lose cardiovascular fitness!
❗️️ 4 weeks, base line fitness is lost!
❗️ 6 to 8 weeks off and the horse has muscle atrophy throughout it's body and a significant loss of cardiovascular fitness!
Building this back takes weeks/months!
🔹️ Groundwork to rebuild back and
Core strength before ridden work can begin.
- lunging
- longreining
- inhand poles
🔹️ Gentle Hacking
🔹️ Schooling and Ridden Poles
I'm not a fan of fully turning horses away for more than a couple of weeks unless it's for a veterinary reason (max 6 weeks for a seasoned eventer over winter), a week or two while the rider is on holiday may be ok if you're not in the middle of a busy season, but I would much rather plan a working holiday!
What is a working holiday?
A period of time, of reduced and low pressure work that is different to what your horse trains at mostly!
For a lot of horses, this might mean staying out of the arena completely for a few weeks and only hacking!
If your horse doesnt find hacking enjoyable (like my Jaffa 🤣) there is no point making this the subject of a working holiday! Maybe build in a week or two of pure Groundwork; low impact inhand poles exercises, and long reining.
The horse's working holiday may be anything between a week and 4 weeks for established horses in regular work.
It might be longer for young horses who have just been backed, or exracers out of training, these horse might do 6 to 12 months of pure hacking before continuing their education.
How frequently you plan in a working holiday is individual to each horse! Young horses have more, shorter holidays eg. 1 week every 6 weeks for the first 12 months of work. Your established riding club horse might have a couple of weeks 2 or 3 times a year built into the competition schedule. Higher level competition horses tend to have 1 longer holiday in the off season.
This allows for any physical niggles that can't even be seen to settle down before they become an actual issue, keeps baseline of fitness and strength maintained, and allows the horse to have a mental break from constant education!
The whole aim is mentally happy and physically healthy horses!
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