Training idea #9: The bow-tie warm-up exercise, with variations

I owe this one to Pamela Byers, the riding instructor who taught my sons at Gallery Farm when we were in Oklahoma. Pamela had all her students start with the bow-tie warm-up exercise, because it’s deceptively simple. Anyone can do the basics, but it takes a good rider to make the horse actually step under itself and bend, even for the simplest version.

And before I go any further… it’s possible that I am not presenting the bow-tie warm-up exercise as Pamela taught it. I never took lessons, and being at times a Bad Mother (or at least, a lax one when it comes to tiger-mothering), I didn’t really pay attention to my children’s lessons. After all, the entire point of paying someone else to teach them is that I wouldn’t have to do it. (And it’s never a good idea for a parent to be the teacher.) I have also adapted it in many ways. I’ll mention a few of them below.

Other suggestions for warm-up exercises can be found on my Training Idea Blog Post Page.

Why do the bow-tie warm-up exercise?

I always suspected that Pamela had kids do bow-ties because it occupied horse and rider. Bored riders do things they shouldn’t (talk, stand, fail to warm up the horse) and bored horses get naughty (shy, jump, decide to ignore ineffective beginning-rider asks). This is a definite advantage; the bow-tie warm-up exercise beats walking around on the rail every day.

Basic bow-ties are also good warm-ups because they encourage the horse to bend and step under itself. To do them properly, the horse must move it’s rib cage to the outside and flew through the neck. Bow-ties can be the beginning of leg-yielding, shoulder-in and -out, haunches-in and -out, even half-passes. I actually do all of these within the parameters of the basic bow-tie (see below).

How to do the basic bow-tie warm-up exercise

Caveat: I am not a riding instructor. I am only going to show you where the horse’s feet should go (approximately). Use the diagrams below as suggestions for learning and doing! If you need help, ask your riding instructor!

Above: The basic idea is to move the horse off the rail, change its bend, and loop back to the rail. For very beginning riders or beginning horses, you would move off hte rail by simply opening the inside rein. I use my legs & etc.

Above: You can see why it’s called a bow-tie!

A simple variation

Of course, this is no more than changing directions without breaking gait. You can do it at the jog/trot (simple) or at the lope/canter (more complex, because you must change leads).

Advanced versions of the bow-tie warm-up exercise

In the diagram above, I suggest starting with haunches-on, because I teach that before shoulder-in. But you could also start with shoulder-in, alow the horse to straighten, and continue straight through the bend (easiest), or switch to shoulder-in in the new direction. Make large loops at the beginning, until your horse gets stronger.

Above, you have one of the challenging patterns I’ve started doing when I want to torture my horse. (Not really torture! She sometimes needs to work to get her brain straight). The possibilities for modifed bow-ties are endless..

In the video below, I am keeping the same bend throughout the bow-tie (in this case, a right bend). You can do this all sorts of ways, varying from haunches-in/out to shoulder-in/out.

Below, I claim to be doing the same thing the other way. But I made many videos of this, not sure if this is the correct “other bend” one!