How to Cool Your Horse Down

Cooling your horse down after a workout is crucial, and usually involves spraying water over his entire body. Spray down your horse after a riding session with help from a riding instructor in this series on horseback riding.

Hi, my name's Lisa, I'm an instructor at Enterprise Farm, and I want to talk about how to cool your horse down after exercise. And now, I'm just going to show you how to hose him off. We just use relatively cool water, because it's summertime. As you can see, I'm starting out with his feet. I'm just running the cold water over his feet. This sort of acclimates him to the water temperature, much in the same way that you would test out the temperature of a pool before jumping in, or your shower. And, it sort of gives him, like ready, it sort of prepares him for the fact, instead of being rude and spraying him in the face or something like that immediately. I'm starting out, just like, under the dock, and up underneath in the flank. And, when you're rinsing a horse off to cool them down, you obviously want to get where the saddle was, because that's where they're most likely to have sweat marks. You want to get all of that stuff out there, because it can be very uncomfortable. And then, especially down here, it's called the heart girth down here. It's very close to where, like, a large artery and stuff would be, and this helps them cool down faster. So, I washed up around the groin area, because that also has a large vein, and it helps them cool down faster. And then, you want to do on their chest a little bit. And, you don't have to completely soak the horse to rinse them off for a cool down. You just need to get them, like, in the areas that are most in need. And, then I, as you can see, I'm just putting a little bit up by his face. If a horse were overheating, you would definitely want to get all of these major areas that I just showed you. And, that is how you wash a horse.