Finding time to exercise can be a challenge at this time of year: farm chores, yard work, summer vacations, competition, you name it, it’s on your plate. Unexpected downtime due to back injury or strain would really put a kink in your summer plans.

For this article, I interviewed yoga for riders specialist Louise Sattler of Galloping Yoga. We discussed various concepts and exercises that come from the yoga tradition and align very nicely with sport and conditioning practices for developing flexibility. For a busy rider, the exercises below are accessible and easy to do almost anywhere.

A strong core is especially important because riders ride mostly with the torso. Whether you realize it or not, your limbs are completely secondary aids to your seat, weight and torso orientation.

I had the privilege of interviewing three-time Olympic dressage team member Gina Smith about her views on equestrians as athletes. Smith and her horse Malte were a part of the Olympic dressage team that won bronze in Seoul, Korea in 1988, with team members Cindy Ishoy, Eva-Maria Pracht, and Ashley Nicoll.

As riders, younger children are best introduced to as wide a variety of equestrian disciplines as possible. There is plenty of time for them to specify as they mature and start to show clear strengths and tendencies. In the meantime, fostering a healthy sportsmanship and leadership attitude, and other qualities such as patience and self-discipline early on, will provide them with psychological tools to excel under pressure later in life.

In the previous article, we shared the first half of an interview with para-equestrians Lauren Barwick, Karen Brain, and Judi Island. In this, the second part, they share more about what they do to stay fit to ride and compete, advice for developing riders, athletes, and parents, and how to “be all you can be.”