Bringing a horse back into work

[nomini]

Alisha damaged her coffin joint about 2 months ago, she was on and off box rest for the few 3 weeks as one minute she showed sound and the next she was lame. Had vet out after 3 weeks of on and off lameness and he diagnosed the problem to be her coffin joint, she was then on box rest for a week and was then allowed out for short periods, she is now back to semi - normality in the sense she is out all day and in at night (as she has been all winter). She came back into very light work 2 weeks ago and for the first week and a bit she was fairly calm and sensible. However, over the past few days she has started to really play up and won't listen to me in the school - i attempted to hack her out this evening and she took off with me so I am going to stick in the school. I can only walk and trot her for the next 2 weeks and she can only trot for 15mins max a day. What can I do to get her attention and keep her interested? She is on a mild anti-inflammatory now as well and I'm wondering whether this could have caused the extra excitement over the past few days? Any help would be great

 

[KBRITT10]

I have to bring my horse back into work soon who will have been off for a total of 6 months due to a back injury, Yikes!! He's a 7 year old TB (ex-racer) so think i may have my work cut out. Anyway, as to what you can do with yours, try giving her as much to think about as possible. A few ideas are:

1. Lay a load of poles out like pick-a-sticks (just randomly placed not paced out) and get her walking over them from different directions, she will really have to think about where she is putting her feet.

2. Use either cones or polyblocks and place them at different points in the school and have her weaving around them in different directions. Don't repeat the same move over and over, keep her on her toes so she really has to listen to where you want her to go.

3. try practicing going past spooky items like tarpaulin on the floor etc.

4. lay poles out so they from a sort of maze that she has to walk through and don't let her touch any of them, will work on your accuracy too

5. You could always lunge her for a short while before you get on her to 'take the edge off'!!

Anyway, hope these are helpful and good luck with her! Let me know how you get on.