Back to jumping after injury...?

livybrady

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Hi everyone!

I just wanted to ask some advice about bringing my horse back to jumping after an time off. Back in December we discovered that she had a fractured splint (how?! in her stable?! no outward mark?!), and she had a month off on box rest. At the start of January she went out in the field, then in February she started work, just walking for a few weeks, then building it up until now she is back in complete work. We've been doing some trotting/canter poles, and at the weekend tried our first x pole and she was fab (although a little confused that it was only about 5cm off the ground...). Before her injury we were training over about 90-1m sj and 80-90 xc, competing at BE80.

How quickly can we go back to training over that height again? Aiming for our first ODE of the season in June- just unaffiliated- at 80cm.
Any advice welcome!

Thanks x
 
As long as it has fully healed and she is fit enough I would just get on with training on a decent surface, it will do no more harm jumping fences within her comfort zone than jumping something hardly worth bothering with where she may end up tripping over it and bashing her leg, I would use a good set of boots to give protection but otherwise treat her as normal.
I have had 2 with fractures to the splint bone, the first was an open mess that ended up being operated on to clear out the bits, he went back to full work with no issues, the other was closed but displaced so operated on 6 weeks after the accident, he was far more complicated in his recovery so never came back to where he was previously but that had nothing to do with the splint which has healed extremely well and causes him no problems.
 
Thank you so much! This is great news- dressage is great, and brilliant for both of us to do, but theres nothing quite like jumping.
 
I have also just brought my horse back into work after time off due to soft tissue damage. Before this we were competing BE100.
I started the same as you with trot and canter poles then progressed to grid work to help build strength whilst rebuilding both our confidence. We did this once a week for a few weeks then did an arena hire to pop round a small course. Yesterday we did a combined training away from home at 80cm which he popped round easily. We will continue with our pole/grid sessions once a week and we have entered the BE80 at northallerton in a few weeks. It's been a long process for us, injured in october 2016, got back on him in June last year and slowly built him up out hacking, got back in the arena in october and did a few unaffiliated dressages over the winter then started jumping again in march.
Good luck with your horses recovery!
 
oh that sounds horrible- such a long recovery! I'm glad he's getting better now though, and you can get back on track. Thank you for your advice- I'm going to do some jumping at home on Sunday, and perhaps I'll try some grid work. There's a local venue (only about 5 mins away) that does clear round jumping every weekend so in a few weeks I think I'll go there and just pop round a course.
Good luck at Northallerton!
 
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