The warm-up area is where a competition day repeats itself in miniature: loosening the muscles, mentally switching the horse on, and aligning your aids, so it goes into the ring or the course sharp yet relaxed. The goal is never to tire the horse out, but to get it into the arena at its best — and that calls for a different build-up for dressage than for show jumping.
Basic Structure: From Walk to Discipline-Specific Work
Regardless of discipline, warming up roughly follows the same order, from calm to specific:
- Walking on a long rein. The horse gets to look around and get used to the new surroundings, sounds, and other horses. This is also the moment for you to settle down yourself.
- Building up the working paces. Walk, trot, canter in a relaxed frame, with room for the horse to loosen up over its back.
- Suppleness work. Flexions and bends, transitions between and within the gaits, a single volte — this aligns the aids and shows how the horse is reacting that day.
- Discipline-specific part. Only after this comes the work that directly prepares for the test or the course.
How much time each phase takes varies a lot by horse, weather, and how busy the venue is — there's no fixed number of minutes as a rule. Do plan backward from your start time, with a margin for a bigger venue or a horse that takes longer to get going than expected.
Warming Up for Dressage
In dressage, the emphasis is on suppleness, contact, and clean transitions — exactly the elements the judge will assess shortly. Warming up builds that feeling without using it up beforehand.
- Work toward a stable contact. The horse seeks the bit in a constant, soft way, with an active hindquarters carrying the frame.
- Touch on test elements briefly, don't ride them in full. Riding a transition or volte that comes back in the test once is useful to feel how the horse is reacting; riding the whole test through in the warm-up area takes the edge off and increases the chance that the horse starts anticipating the sequence.
- Build toward sharpness, not toward fatigue. The last minutes before the ring can be a bit sharper, with shorter transitions and more bend, so the horse goes into the arena alert. A horse that's already breathing heavily at this point has been worked too long.
See Scoring Higher in a Dressage Test for how to work on weak elements in the weeks before the start — this piece covers only the final phase, on the day itself.
Warming Up for Show Jumping
In show jumping, a practice section with jumps follows the loosening-up phase, building up in height. The goal is to get the horse familiar with the takeoff and the bascule, not to practice the course itself.
- Start low and simple. A crossrail or a low fence first, to let the horse find the rhythm of bascule and takeoff.
- Build up gradually in height. Only raise it once the earlier jumps went smoothly, working toward a height close to that day's course.
- Don't jump too often. A few good jumps at the right height do more than many repetitions. Too many practice jumps make the horse physically tired and mentally less sharp for the real work.
- Finish on a good jump. End the practice section after a jump that felt smooth, not after a mistake — the horse carries that last feeling with it into the ring.
Anyone still getting to grips with how to read and ride a course themselves will find the basics in Your First Show Jumping Course.
Etiquette and Practical Matters at the Venue
A busy warm-up area calls for awareness. The usual convention is to pass left hand to left hand, as in traffic: riders approaching each other keep their left hands toward one another. Anyone riding faster than the rest keeps to the outside of the arena; walking is best done on the inner track or a separate walking strip, if there is one.
Weather and temperature play a role in the build-up. In hot weather, a shorter and calmer warm-up is often enough, with extra attention to drinking enough and not overheating. In cold weather, it takes more time to properly loosen the muscles, and rushing into the discipline-specific part is a common mistake.
The horse's temperament determines at least as much as the discipline does:
| Horse Type | Approach |
|---|---|
| Hot, tense | Start calmly, lots of walk, avoid pace changes until the horse relaxes |
| Lazy, slow to get going | Warm up more actively, with more transitions to wake up the hindquarters |
| Inexperienced at new venues | Extra time for the walking phase, let the horse settle quietly before adding pace |
None of these approaches can be captured in minutes — it's tailored per horse and per day, and experience with your own horse is ultimately the best guide.
In Short
- Warming up serves to loosen the muscles and get the horse sharp yet relaxed into the ring or the course — not to tire it out.
- The basic structure is the same for both disciplines: walk, working paces, suppleness work, then only the discipline-specific part.
- In dressage: touch on test elements briefly, don't ride them in full, and build toward sharpness in the last minutes.
- In show jumping: start low, build up gradually in height, don't jump too often, and finish on a good jump.
- Weather, how busy the venue is, and the horse's temperament determine the exact approach — there's no such thing as fixed minutes.
See also: Scoring Higher in a Dressage Test · Your First Show Jumping Course · Horse Show Packing Checklist · Level: First Competitions