KATHERINE BENENATI
THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Barbara Williams watched her student closely.

“Relax your shoulders … ride her straight to the rail … inhale up, exhale down.”

Sarah Webb King was fine with the instructions. But 11-year-old Bridgette had other ideas.

The appaloosa/quarter horse mix turned a little too slowly, lingered a bit too long on a command and meandered a tad before finally ambling over to the fence along the arena’s edge at Little Rock Equestrian Center, which Williams owns with her husband, Raymond.

The two other stable residents, Troy, a 4-year-old haflinger, and Mark, 10, an Anglo-Arabian, jockeyed for position along the railing.

As King relaxed into the ride, Bridgette seemed to as well. Toward the end of the lesson, Williams had King perform a series of stretches: extending her hands past Bridgette’s chestnut ears; reaching behind the saddle with both hands, lifting her chest.

But the workout started before King, 25, entered the ring – she spent a good 10 minutes grooming Bridgette. Brushing her coat in sweeping circular motions.

Horse owners know that just taking care of their four-legged charges entails so much physical work it amounts to a form of fitness training.

“Let me put it this way, I quit going to the gym,” said Robin Bray, 41, who co-owns Bray’s Training Center in Benton with her husband. “I used to go the gym daily. Of course I used to do a lot of things [before owning horses].”

Between riding, which works her thighs and core, and the other chores from mucking stalls and grooming the big animals to carrying hay – which works about every other muscle – she feels like she gets enough exercise at home.

She and husband Jay have two employees to help care for the 20 horses at the center, which boards and provides riding lessons. “You can’t do it yourself, not with that many horses.”

Cleaning that many stalls alone can “almost be an all-day chore.”

The horses need new bedding daily and must be fed twice a day – feedings can take an hour, and feed bags weigh 50 pounds. The horses have to be turned out in rotation, and when it rains for a while, that extra indoor time means dirtier stalls, Bray said.

Water buckets must be cleaned.

Horses need brushing, and if it’s cold, they’ll need blankets.

“Cleaning the stalls is a workout,” particularly in the summer heat, she said.

And “it’s not just the care of the horses,” that makes owning horses “labor-intensive,” as she puts it. Pastures need to be mowed, weeded.

And there’s all that walking back and forth to turn the horses out.

“Even with employees it’s still a lot, a lot of walking and doing,” Bray said.

People who dream about owning a horse find out just how much work is involved after they get their dream home, she said. “They think it’s going to be so easy and it’s not,” she said. “There’s a lot more involved than a lot of people realize.”

A horse throws a shoe – the owner’s home waiting for the farrier.

Vacation? Good luck finding a friend who’ll horse-sit.

Rain? Sleet? Snow? Horses always need to eat.

“Most people get so much out of it that it’s worth it,” Bray said. “We do it because we love it. It is sort of labor-intensive. It is a lot of work, but so is a boat. It takes as much time as going to the gym.”

The benefits of horse riding are well established by researchers and about anyone who has been in a saddle for an extended amount of time.

Horse owners may build arm strength by cleaning stalls and carrying supplies and build leg muscles by walking out to pasture or squatting to lift pitchforks full of manure.

But they can also get a great core workout by riding.

Earlier this year, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Georgia State University in Atlanta released a study comparing the health of jockeys to that of collegiate athletes.

The California State Racing Commission commissioned the study because of on-track injuries among jockeys, said one of its authors, Dr. Mike Hutchinson, of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Findings from screenings at four different racetracks weren’t all that surprising, Hutchinson said.

While virtually no jockeys did core training, their core strength ranked the highest among the men and women in the sports groups studied included gymnasts, basketball, softball, baseball track and field, volleyball, soccer, swimming and diving. “They would be comparable to a healthy, well-trained gymnast.”

“They’re up on this enormous animal, just to maintain that position, that’s core training itself,” Hutchinson said.

He suggests that everyday riders try to ride high – “get up in the stirrups” – to get a better core workout. Riding will also exercise the hamstrings, quadriceps, inner thighs and buttocks, he said.

MUCKY LUCK

As for the upper body – average riders have one advantage over elite jockeys. Humble horse owners don’t have a stable full of groomers and trainers who’ll take care of the dirty work.

Why is that a good thing?

For starters, grooming is a great upper body exercise, Hutchinson said. So is mucking and shoveling.

Earl Pepper says his lifelong love of horses and working with them is the main reason that at 65 he’smore mobile than many of his peers.

“I see a lot of people the same age who are not as active and have more problems than I do – I’ve got my share,” said Pepper, who’s the state equine chairman for the Arkansas Farm Bureau and the assistant head farm manager for horses with the Arkansas Department of Correction. The department has hundreds of horses that guards use on work-duty patrol, among other things. Inmates primarily care for those.

Pepper looks after 10 of his own horses: “It’s a pretty good physical activity.”

The least enjoyable and most laborious task is mucking stalls, he said. How much work he has to do and how long it takes can vary. But he said horse care can pretty much eat up all of one’s spare time.

SADDLE UP

“I count myself fortunate that I’m still able to saddle a horse and go to work,” he said.

Saddling a horse, as simple as it sounds, is no small task.

An English saddle may weigh only 15 pounds, but a Western saddle can weigh 25 to 50 pounds, Williams said.

Since her horses spend much of their time in her pasture, it only takes about 30 to 45 minutes a day, per horse, to keep up the stalls and feed the animals.

After King’s lesson, Williams walked her three tenants back up the hill into the stables.

The saddle and reins needed to be returned to the tack room.

The trio would get treats.

And Bridgette would need to be brushed down.