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Equine Fitness: A Program of Exercises and Routines for Your Horse
Get your horse in shape and maintain his overall fitness, regardless of his age or abilities. Equine Fitness will have your horse looking and feeling his best with a series of fun exercise routines specifically designed to enhance his strength, stamina, and agility. Clear step-by-step instructions and detailed illustrations make the exercises easy to follow, and the book includes a handy set of pocket-sized cards that you can use in the ring. Jec Ballou’s simple conditioning program promises lasting results for healthy horses and satisfied riders.
- GenresHorsesNonfiction
168 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2009
42 people are currently reading
138 people want to read
About the author
Jec Aristotle Ballou
21 books15 followersJec A. Ballou’s distinct love of developing equine athletes is fueled by her eclectic background. Raised in a horse training family, she has devoted herself to the most thorough, correct, and straightforward approach to improving performance for horses and riders alike. In addition to being a nationally recognized educator about equine conditioning and gymnastic development, she is a committed rider, author, philosopher, published poet, and athlete.
Widely appreciated as the author of best-selling 101 Dressage Exercises for Horse and Rider, Jec’s aim is to meet what she sees as an enormous need within the industry for simple, clear, and practical information. 101 Dressage remains one of the top sellers of all equine instruction books and has been translated into three foreign languages. It is now available as a smartphone App and was endorsed by the United States Dressage Federation as being one of the most essential books for dressage enthusiasts to own.
Widely appreciated as the author of best-selling 101 Dressage Exercises for Horse and Rider, Jec’s aim is to meet what she sees as an enormous need within the industry for simple, clear, and practical information. 101 Dressage remains one of the top sellers of all equine instruction books and has been translated into three foreign languages. It is now available as a smartphone App and was endorsed by the United States Dressage Federation as being one of the most essential books for dressage enthusiasts to own.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 20, 2024
The exercises are useful and Ballou makes plenty of good points.
On the other hand, she doesn't provide any sources (only a "resources" section, which is not the same thing). This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine when authors insist on saying "studies show" fairly often and write as though they are operating on scientific knowledge. If you're going to talk about what studies show, you need to cite the studies doing the showing.
For example, parts of the "cooling down" section I know are factually incorrect as I've attended veterinary seminars that discuss this very topic by researchers whose whole careers are focused on equine musculature and fitness.
The idea that in order to cool down a horse you have to cool down the blood should appear false on its face when you actually take a moment to consider it. The horse's blood isn't creating heat--the muscles are. So cooling down a horse's blood isn't going to cool down your horse if the muscles are still creating heat. Where Ballou recommends using "tepid water" only on specific parts of the horse's body, applying cold water to the horse's entire body is actually more effective as it cools the source of the heat--the muscles--which is really what you ought to be cooling down anyway. Stiffness and a build-up of lactic acid should not be your primary concern if you're exercising your horse on a hot day--heatstroke and dehydration should be. In that case, cooling the horse's muscles down ASAP should be your number one priority, and cold water is the best way to do that.
Ballou also recommends trotting a horse to cool down, which has been shown not to cool down a horse at all for reasons that should be evident--you're still working the horse's muscles, so their muscles are going to continue to produce more heat (and more lactic acid, for that matter). Walking to cool down is a better option, as that will in reality contribute to a great decrease in the amount of heat and lactic acid produced by the horse's muscles.
This isn't a terrible book, and as I said, Ballou does make some good points and the exercises are great to give you ideas. But I would caution readers to take what she has to say with a grain of salt as Ballou is a dressage trainer, not a veterinarian, and does not cite her sources when discussing the more science-y aspects of equine fitness.
On the other hand, she doesn't provide any sources (only a "resources" section, which is not the same thing). This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine when authors insist on saying "studies show" fairly often and write as though they are operating on scientific knowledge. If you're going to talk about what studies show, you need to cite the studies doing the showing.
For example, parts of the "cooling down" section I know are factually incorrect as I've attended veterinary seminars that discuss this very topic by researchers whose whole careers are focused on equine musculature and fitness.
The idea that in order to cool down a horse you have to cool down the blood should appear false on its face when you actually take a moment to consider it. The horse's blood isn't creating heat--the muscles are. So cooling down a horse's blood isn't going to cool down your horse if the muscles are still creating heat. Where Ballou recommends using "tepid water" only on specific parts of the horse's body, applying cold water to the horse's entire body is actually more effective as it cools the source of the heat--the muscles--which is really what you ought to be cooling down anyway. Stiffness and a build-up of lactic acid should not be your primary concern if you're exercising your horse on a hot day--heatstroke and dehydration should be. In that case, cooling the horse's muscles down ASAP should be your number one priority, and cold water is the best way to do that.
Ballou also recommends trotting a horse to cool down, which has been shown not to cool down a horse at all for reasons that should be evident--you're still working the horse's muscles, so their muscles are going to continue to produce more heat (and more lactic acid, for that matter). Walking to cool down is a better option, as that will in reality contribute to a great decrease in the amount of heat and lactic acid produced by the horse's muscles.
This isn't a terrible book, and as I said, Ballou does make some good points and the exercises are great to give you ideas. But I would caution readers to take what she has to say with a grain of salt as Ballou is a dressage trainer, not a veterinarian, and does not cite her sources when discussing the more science-y aspects of equine fitness.
August 21, 2014
Totally great information, schooling doesn't always equate to having a fit horse. Incorporating so much of this into my daily routine with my two boys!
March 19, 2016
Some over generalizations that did not take into account the horse as an individual soured an otherwise excellent book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews