Horseback riding burns between 140 and 420 calories per hour depending on the gait, with a casual walk at the low end and sustained cantering or fast trotting at the high end. That range is wide because riding at a walk is closer to a slow stroll in effort, while faster gaits push your body into the same metabolic zone as jogging or playing soccer.
Calories Burned by Gait
The speed your horse moves at is the single biggest factor in how many calories you burn. Research from a Texas A&M study using portable gas analyzers on riders measured the following metabolic equivalents (METs), which reflect how hard your body works compared to sitting still:
- Walk: about 2.0 METs, burning roughly 140 to 175 calories per hour for most adults
- Sitting trot: about 3.2 METs, burning roughly 225 to 280 calories per hour
- Long trot (posting or extended): about 6.2 METs, burning roughly 400 to 500 calories per hour
- Canter: about 6.0 METs, burning roughly 385 to 480 calories per hour
Your exact number depends on your body weight. A 150-pound rider will land near the lower end of each range, while someone closer to 200 pounds will be near the upper end. The long trot and canter produced nearly identical calorie burns in testing, averaging about 6.9 calories per minute for the riders studied. That’s comparable to a moderate jog on flat ground.
Why Faster Gaits Burn So Much More
At a walk, the horse does most of the work. Your body sways gently and your muscles stay relatively relaxed. Once the horse moves into a trot, everything changes. Electromyography studies that measure muscle electrical activity show that your abdominal muscles fire in a rhythmic, two-peak pattern with every stride to stabilize your trunk and swing your pelvis forward as the horse’s body shifts from downward to upward motion. Your upper back muscles (the trapezius on both sides) activate hard during the impact phase to keep your neck and shoulders stable. Your biceps, triceps, and forearm muscles cycle on and off throughout the stride to keep your hands steady on the reins.
This means trotting and cantering engage your core, back, arms, and inner thighs in a continuous, rhythmic contraction pattern. It’s not the same as lifting weights, where you do a rep and rest. Your muscles are constantly adjusting to a moving, unpredictable surface, which keeps your heart rate elevated and your calorie burn high.
Riding Discipline Matters
Not all rides look the same, and the type of riding you do shapes your total calorie expenditure in different ways. A 45-minute walk-trot-canter session, the kind you’d do in a typical English lesson, produces a higher total calorie burn simply because you’re working at moderate intensity for a sustained period. Western disciplines like cutting and reining, on the other hand, produce short bursts of very intense effort. Peak metabolic output during cutting and reining matched activities like jogging and playing rugby, but because those bursts are brief, the overall session total was lower than the longer ride.
Think of it like the difference between a 45-minute jog and a series of short sprints. The jog racks up more total calories, but the sprints push your body harder in the moment. If your goal is calorie burn, longer sessions with sustained trotting and cantering will give you the most bang for your time in the saddle.
Calories Burned Before You Mount Up
The ride itself isn’t the only part that counts. Grooming, carrying a saddle, tacking up, and mucking stalls all add to your daily total. Saddling, grooming, and general riding combined burn about 238 calories per hour. A Western saddle weighs 25 to 50 pounds, and you’re lifting it to shoulder height, so the physical prep work is real. If you’re at a barn for two hours total, with 30 minutes of prep and cool-down tasks on either side of your ride, you can add 60 to 80 calories on top of whatever the ride itself burned.
How Horseback Riding Compares to Other Exercise
A walk on horseback is roughly equivalent to a slow, flat walk on foot. It’s light activity. But sustained trotting and cantering, at around 6 METs, place horseback riding in the same category as cycling at 12 to 14 mph, recreational singles tennis, or a moderate hiking pace. Peak efforts during fast work reached metabolic outputs comparable to jogging and team sports like soccer.
Where riding differs from these activities is in what muscles it targets. The constant trunk stabilization and pelvic movement build core endurance and inner thigh strength in a way that’s hard to replicate at a gym. Riders also develop fine motor control in their arms and hands, since the biceps and triceps alternate activation throughout every stride to maintain steady rein contact. It’s a full-body stability workout disguised as sitting down.
Getting the Most Out of Your Ride
If you want to maximize calorie burn, spend more time in the trot and canter. A ride that’s 80% walking will burn in the range of 150 to 200 calories per hour. A lesson heavy on posting trot and canter work can push past 400. Riding without stirrups, a common exercise in English lessons, forces your legs and core to work even harder to stay balanced, which increases the demand further.
Frequency matters too. Riding once a week gives you a decent workout, but three or more sessions per week, especially combined with barn chores, starts to add up to meaningful cardiovascular and muscular conditioning. Riders in studies consistently showed heart rate responses during trot and canter work that qualified as moderate to vigorous exercise by standard fitness guidelines.