My mare has been out of work for awhile and I have to recondition her. When I owned my horse before I was able to work with him daily and this time around, at least right now, I am not able to because of my work schedule and she is boarded an hour away from me. I AM able to work/ride her at 4 days a week weather permitting. Luckily, she is responsive to this amount of work and our training and bonding has been going great so far.
On trail rides we are always far last because she is so slow. Her former owner told me Addie hates crops and suggested I should ride with spurs (I would rather not - I feel I would have better contact in an English saddle, or would rather stay in the Western saddle and ride with a dressage crop. I think she may just not understand what is being asked of her with a crop, she's still very young).
Anyhow, I know changes don't happen overnight but does anyone have any routines or ways they work on getting their horses into great shape? I plan on working with her for at least 30 minutes as a warm up and a light hack including a 15 minute trot every day we see each other. I'm worried this may be too much too fast, but we've also been going on pretty long trail rides, which while she's been going slow, she's been not getting puffy and doing great on.
I've been able to get a nice athletic walk out of her in the round pen with my body language, but not under saddle. I haven't taught her any cue for the walk, but I plan on teaching her a verbal cue (she's very responsive to verbal cues, even under saddle) and was hoping that with a dressage crop, or possibly the lunge line I use with pressure in the area I would be cuing her with my legs would be effective in teaching her to walk out more quickly.
What do you guys thinks about both things? I know that once she's in shape she will naturally quicken, but I would like to start training her from the ground on cues to quicken when I want her to pick up a faster walk, trot or canter as well. She's honestly pretty well trained with beyond the basics from the ground but I am looking for ways to communicate with her, bond with her and establish respect from the ground.