advice please - strengthening horses back

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lauriebaker

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Hi all. I've read the forum for some time now and am often impressed with the range of advice and expertise that you guys have...and so, can I have some please?! After a long search (and a few years with lovely horses who were just not right for me...) I have finally ended up with my dream horse! She is a very sweet mare who has just turned 15 and who has had a busy decade with lots of competing. We will be taking things a bit slower (if she'll let me!) but I am keen to ensure that she's working in the correct way to keep her going as long as possible. I would particularly like some advice about the best ridden or groundwork exercises to try with her to encourage her to stretch down, improve her topline and strengthen her back muscles - she is inclined to be a bit flat at the moment which might be due to her lack of fitness right now. Any ideas anyone? Thanks lots.
 
For strenghtening a horses back, I would recommmend the pessoa to lunge in. It's great for getting them to stretch down and really work and strenghten the back muscles.
They are quite expensive to buy though, but you can get some good copies on ebay that are much cheaper.
If you lunge in the pessoa once or twice a week for up to about 20 mins, you should pretty quickly start to see an improvement.
Hope that helps.
 
Good advice from KJG - it made a marked improvement on my TB's topline
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From a ridden point of view, hill work is good for building and strengthening muscle, if you have access to them - brisk walking up and building up to trotting. Even on the flat, a good active ridden walk, encouraging her to stretch down, will also help.
 
Walking slowly up and down hills is much better as it really makes them step rather than running along on the forehand.

Be careful with too much hillwork in the beginning as it will use all the muscles in the topline so she might be a bit stiff the next day. I would alternate it with lunging (prefer equiami or chambon to pessoa as it fixes their head too much and creates lots of muscle on the neck and not much on the quarters) and would only lunge with a gadget for 20 mins once or twice a week, lunge over trotting poles once a week (much better than a gadget), then hillwork once a week then school/faster hack to build up fitness once each a week. That means the horse is pretty much ridden 4 or 5 times a week with 2/3 in hand sessions and 2/3 ridden sessions.

I would also get a chiro to check over horse as well - may as well start on a good foot and also your chiro should have some good exercises to help your particular mare, but you cant really go wrong with trotting poles, slow hillwork and faster hacks to build up fitness.
 
Cheers CBAnglo - great advice. Interestingly, a couple of people have recently recommended the chambon in preference to a pessoa which has got me thinking...

We've been using poles a lot this week and I can certainly feel her reaching down into the contact a bit more so hopefully it'll pay dividends. Luckily we're in the Cotswolds so there are plenty of hills to use too!

Perhaps I should get a before and after picture so I can see the difference over the next few months. Thanks again.
 
I think you will be amazed after 6 wks. Then you can progressively phase out the in hand work to 1 or 2 sessions a week, in the chambon or over poles and then increase schooling and junping to 2 times and faster hacks (with slow hillwork) 2 times a week to build up fitness. That pretty much covers 6 days a week with one day off, or slower hack on 7th day.

Just be sure to have your saddle checked once you get cracking with the ridden work as you won't be able to build topline if the saddle is too narrow and is pressing into the muscles.

One of mine breaks every few months as he has a sacroiliac ligament strain so I am well used to rehabbing to build up topline!
 
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