Warming up your back before you mount up

Picture this: you have arrived at Melbourne Three Day Event with your horse sweating in the float, the ground crew is calling your dressage time, your saddle is still warm from the sun on the back of the ute, and you have ninety seconds to sort yourself out before you swing a leg over. In the rush, almost every rider defaults to a few quick stretches for the legs and forgets the part of the body that does the heaviest lifting in the saddle. Your back.

Warming up your own back before you mount is one of those quiet habits that separates riders who feel loose and centred from those who feel locked up the moment they sit the trot. It matters even more here in Australia, where we travel long distances to events, deal with forty-degree days, and spend hours on the road before we even pick up a brush. A few minutes spent on yourself pays off in every phase of a horse trial, from the first halt-salute in the dressage arena to the last long rein back at the truck.

This is a simple, portable routine you can do in float parking at Boneo Park, in the back of a truck at an Adelaide Hills training day, or on the grass outside the clubhouse at SIEC. No equipment, no excuses.

Why rider mobility matters before you ride

Riding is often described as a conversation between two spines, and yours is the one you control. When your thoracic spine is stiff, your shoulders creep up, your seat bones collapse, and your lower back ends up doing all the work. Over a cross-country round at Werribee Park or a long-format day at Tonimbuk, that compensation shows up as a sore tailbone by fence three and a heaviness in the hand by fence ten.

A short back warm-up wakes up the multifidus, the deep stabilisers along the spine, and the small muscles between the shoulder blades that hold you upright without tension. It also drops your heart rate, which matters when you have been stuck in traffic on the Calder or navigating the school holiday queues at the gate. Riders who spend two minutes on themselves before tacking up consistently report softer elbows, a quieter lower leg, and a horse that settles faster in the warm-up arena.

The other thing a pre-mount routine does is give your brain a moment to land. Eventing has so many moving parts, from studs and gloves to dressage tests and course walks, that a quick mobility flow acts like a bookmark, telling your nervous system that it is time to switch gears.

Start with breath and rib movement

Before you do anything else, breathe. It sounds embarrassingly basic, but rib mobility is the foundation of every other back exercise, and most of us breathe like we are trying to deflate a tyre. Stand with your feet hip-width apart, hands on the sides of your ribs, and spend one full minute inhaling through the nose and exhaling through pursed lips so the ribs expand sideways and back.

Australian summer mornings at Boneo and humid evenings at SIEC can make shallow breathing even more tempting. Practising the lateral rib expansion against this stiffness pays back later in the saddle, where your ability to breathe deeply through a difficult line directly affects your horse's confidence.

Add a few overhead reaches with a deep exhale, reaching one arm up and over as if you are trying to touch the eaves of your float awning. You will feel the muscles along the side of your trunk lengthen. That is the same pathway your body needs to follow when you are matching the motion over undulating terrain on cross-country.

Gentle spinal waves and rotations

Once the ribs are moving, work through the spine. Cat-cow on all fours is a classic for a reason. Hands under shoulders, knees under hips, inhale and let the belly drop while the chest lifts, then exhale and round the spine like a spooked cat. Five slow rounds is plenty. If you are in float parking on a sloped bit of grass near the truck, drop a saddle pad underneath your knees for a bit of cushion.

Follow that with thoracic rotations. Sit back on your heels, place one hand behind your head, and rotate your elbow up toward the sky, then down toward the opposite knee. The Australian Pony Club warm-up that most of us grew up with almost always included a version of this, except we were doing it on cold frosty mornings in country NSW before a rally day.

Rotations free up the middle of your back, the area that gets glued down by hours of float travel and hours of computer work for those of us balancing eventing with a day job. A freer mid-back translates immediately to a softer rein contact, because your arms are no longer gripping from above.

Hips and glutes need love too

Your back does not work alone. Tight hip flexors and sleepy glutes pull the pelvis out of neutral and force the lumbar spine to compensate, especially during long sitting trot sets and the post-ride walk back to the truck. A few targeted openings here change how your back feels the moment you sit in the saddle.

Start with a low lunge, one foot forward with the knee over the ankle, the back knee down on a folded saddle cloth. Sink the hips forward gently until you feel a stretch along the front of the back hip, hold for five slow breaths, then switch sides. If you are at a venue like Adelaide Hills Horse Trials where the ground is hard, fold a woollen numnah under your knee.

Follow this with a glute bridge. Lying on your back with knees bent and feet flat, lift the hips a few centimetres and hold for a breath at the top. Ten reps wakes up the posterior chain without needing equipment, and riders who do this before mounting often notice their horse's canter departs feel more balanced, because their seat is sitting on working muscles rather than clenching for stability.

Core connection and pelvic control

The next layer is connecting the breath work and the mobility work to the deep core. Stand tall with a soft bend in the knees, imagine drawing the sit bones together as if you were trying to crack a walnut between them, and at the same time exhale and draw the lower belly in and up. Hold for five breaths, release, and repeat four times.

This pelvic tilt is the same movement that helps you sit the canter on a bucking horse or absorb a downhill drop into the water complex at Melbourne. Done regularly, it becomes automatic, so your back stops gripping to keep you upright. Riders who struggle with lower back tightness after a long day at the office, then again after a long day in the saddle, often find this drill alone gives them a different quality of trot the next morning.

If you have a few extra minutes, add a few dead bugs. Lying on your back, lift the legs to tabletop and reach the opposite arm back while extending the opposite leg, keeping the lower back glued to the ground. Five each side is a good pre-ride dose.

Quick standing stretches in the float or tack room

Sometimes there is literally no room. You are parked cheek-to-jowl in the float park at SIEC during a state championships, the kids are bouncing a tennis ball off the truck tray, and there is no patch of grass to be seen. That is when a standing routine earns its keep.

Stand with your back against the side of the float. Lift both arms overhead, press the low back gently into the wall, and breathe. Reach one arm across the chest and pull it in with the other, holding for thirty seconds each side. Hinge from the hips with a flat back, hands on the float side, and let the head hang heavy. Stand up slowly, roll the shoulders back three times, then forward three times.

You can also use the bonnet of the ute as a prop for a supported downward dog, hands on the bonnet, feet back, hips up, head between the arms. The bonnet stays cool in the shade, the metal is solid, and the stretch through the back of the legs and the spine is glorious after a long drive through the heat of the Riverina.

These three moves take less than ninety seconds and can be done fully clothed, in a helmet, even with boots on.

A five-minute routine you will actually do

Consistency beats intensity. Here is the sequence I do before any ride, whether I am heading to a casual hack around the agistment or lining up for a Prelim at Boneo. Breathe and rib expansion for one minute. Cat-cow and thoracic rotations for one minute. Low lunge and glute bridge for one minute. Standing core connection and dead bugs for one minute. Standing stretches against the float or ute for one minute.

Five minutes. That is the length of a single trot circle in a Prelim dressage test, and it changes everything that follows it. The first time you do it before a long-format event, you will feel the difference in your warm-up trot alone. Your horse will too.

If you would like to keep that feeling going after you dismount, KC has put together a helpful piece on horse and rider recovery that pairs beautifully with this routine. Pop it on your phone before your next event and run through it while your horse is cooling off.

Give the routine a proper trial over the next few weeks. Try it before a Tuesday night lesson, before a weekend clinic, before a long-format three-day in the Victorian high country. Notice what changes in your seat, your hands, and the way your back feels the morning after. There is a real chance the difference will be bigger than you expect.