Skill Building for Horse and Rider/Warrior

The following are the Class Notes from a class I taught at Æthelmearc War Practice in 2011.  This was developed from training that I conduct with my own warhorses and students.

Exercises for Horses:

Essential skills/traits of a good war horse:  

Neck reining:  Enhance performance through use of bosal during training, use of steering stick for those resistant.
Obedience -   The horse must be completely obedient, willing to face scary obstacles, move into the correct position, stand when needed, and change gaits.  Practice as if you want to compete in a Command Class.  In fact, your trained war horse should be ready to go out and win this type of class, as well as Trail classes, based on the other training you will do.

The following exercises are suggested for training a horse for use in specific activities:

1)  Heads course:  Do sword drills, Figure 8 (extensively), familiarity with weapons, free of distraction.  Practice the pattern….always ride it the same way. Understand that the horse may have a tendency to weave a straight course….when start this straight run, which should be practiced, establish that the run will be straight with strong leg aids.  Drill this so the horse understands the difference.

2)  Quintain:  Practice long lance familiarity, train the horse to travel straight, be responsive to leg pressure (outside leg pressure essential),  and train the horse to not respond to increased rider leg pressure on inside leg which is natural when the rider strikes the quintain. Teach the horse to not duck its head away from the quintain, thereby moving away from it.  Train for steady forward motion.

3)  Rings: Training for this is similar to the quintain, but train for consistent gait as this is critical in this game. Especially at trot and canter….even cadence is the key. Train for it. It helps to anticipate the movement of the lance tip with relationship to the rings (or target).

Combat at Æthelmearc's 10th Anniversary event.

4)  Fighting:  Horse maneuvering skills are essential.  Train in lateral work-leg yielding is used to help adjust position. Improve neck reining skills and work on desensitization to noise and distraction. "Sacking out” exercises are especially beneficial. The horse needs to be a chair upon which you fight.

5)  Challenge courses-obstacles:  Desensitization exercises are paramount.  Expose the horse to a lot of obstacles and scary things.  The other essential skill needed for this is obedience.  The horse needs to respond to leg aids, moving close to obstacle.  Ride directly alongside, stop at the point where  your body is next to the object in order to eliminate the need to reach out for the obstacle.  The outside leg maintains the horse’s closeness to the obstacle while reaching out (which inadvertently puts pressure on inside leg).

6)  Archery:  Train against desensitization to most general distractions  and noises.   Start shooting next to the horse. Once mounted, practice making a lot of noise on the horse before attempting bow work. Horses trained to accept spear throwing will readily accept the sound of the arrow hitting the target.

7)  Barding and decorations: Sacking out exercises and stable blanket wearing prepare a horse for wearing most caparisons or barding. Hang bells and wind chimes in the barn, near stalls, near entrances to barn, ringing them especially at feeding times. Play with ringing bells as an obstacle while mounted.

Rex standing quietly and modeling his new caparison.

8)  Jousting:   Besides the use of leg aids to maintain straightness on approach and position in the lists, the most important thing the horse has to learn is to charge another horse.  Horses low in the herd order and submissive have a lot of difficulty with this.  Aggressive horses or those higher in the herd hierarchy don’t have as much a problem with it. Most of the time, we ride alongside another horse going in the same direction. Horses like to go with others; it is against their nature to charge towards another horse as we do in jousting.  In the ring, we usually all ride in the same direction.  Change this up and ride in opposite directions.   Don't let the horse veer out when approaching another horse, but maintain outside leg pressure to keep the horse going straight. Set a ground rail, and ride, starting with the walk and moving up to canter, in opposing directions with another horse, without weapons.

Exercises for Riders

Basic principles:  Practice stretching and develop core strength.  Do exercises for abdominal strengthening, such as crunches. Also focus on leg strengthening for strong leg aids, so your legs don’t tire. Leg aids and yielding are essential to positioning the horse and maintaining position while executing certain actions. For example,  the outside leg maintains the horse’s proximity to an obstacle while the rider reaches out (which inadvertently puts pressure on inside leg). Do arm strengthening exercise to build forearm and upper body strength for handling long lances.

Balance exercises on horseback are very helpful.  For example, during the heads course with a sword, as the horse weaves, the rider leans to the target to strike and tend to press the horse’s inside for balance which pushes the horse away from the target. Work on balance and independent seat so that you can move your upper body without influencing the horse’s balance (show/explain  the lean-horse shifts to compensate demo) and inadvertently give the horse leg aids/signals. 

Specific exercises: Demonstrate toe touch, reach to sky and butt, leg lifts and scissor-leg, twisting in saddle, complex hand movements while riding.

Weapons handling:  Practice what you want to do on horseback on the ground.  Spear throw from the ground, practice archery, do sword drills such as the figure eight.  Be familiar with your weapons. Train like the warrior you want to be.

Riding obstacles:  This is by far the most important practice you can do.  You need to train yourself to be able to tackle a variety of challenges. Set up a field of obstacles to train your horse as well as yourself. Be creative and imaginative with these obstacles. The better you both are at this, the better prepared you will be for all types of equestrian skill tests. The more the horse is exposed to, the more obedient it will be when you compete. Practice several steps: Look at the task, assess the skills needed, walk up to or approach the obstacle. For those tasks where it is appropriate---Stop squarely beside the obstacle, with your leg next to the obstacle -not behind or in front of you causing you to over-reach, exerting leg pressure and asking your horse to move away from the obstacle. Execute the obstacle before allowing your horse to move on. For tasks done in motion-ensure your horse keeps a steady pace throughout the task.

Consistent training of you, the rider, as well as the horse, will result in a skilled pair who will be successful in the SCA equestrian arena.  this is true if you are competing in skills tests like the Ring Tilt or Quintain, or in combat such as Mounted Combat. Every hour spent in the training ring will be well worth the time and effort.

Results of hard training- Æthelmearc King and Queen's Equestrian Champions 2014.