Bringing a horse back to work after time off - what do you do?

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Booboos

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There have been a number of threads recently about horses coming into work after a long-ish break with the bad weather and I have been a bit surprised to read about horses coming straight back into schooling work (or within a week or so). What would be your exercise regime if your horse was coming back into work after a rest period (not injury related as in that case presumably we'd all do whatever the vet suggested)?

This is what I was taught but is it considered old fashioned now?
- A fit horse can take up to two weeks rest without loss of fitness so continue as normal
- After that, for every month off, you need a week's worth of walking on hacks (i.e. straight lines). So 3 months off, need 3 weeks of walk work. Keep each hack relatively short, i.e. 45mins to an hour, but ideally work the work 5-6 times a week.
- For a maximum of 6 weeks (i.e. horses resting for 6 months or more don't need more than 6 weeks of walk work)
- Then you gradually start introducing trotting periods, hacks may now be a bit longer, i.e. up to 1.5 hours
- Increase the periods of trot over 4 weeks
- Now the horse can start some canter work which can be done while schooling, so you can start introducing circles, more engagement, collection, etc. but I would only school twice a week at this stage and keep up the hacking on other days.
- Gradually increase the frequency and difficulty of schooling.
 
I agree with you but so many people around me don't bother any more and iv also heard " I hunt my horses to get fit" which shocked me as I get my horses fit to hunt. I also see to many people with unfit horses being worked in side reins and such like.
 
Yeah, I agree with you. I know a girl who's horse had a month or more off work, I asked how she was going to get him fit in time for a show she wanted to do, she turned around and said, "am going to do loads of trotting on roads, I shouldn't, but he has strong legs so he'll be fine". Hmm....
 
thatsmygirl said:
I agree with you but so many people around me don't bother any more and iv also heard " I hunt my horses to get fit" which shocked me as I get my horses fit to hunt. .
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My horse was supposed to be coming back into work 2 wks before christmas after 3-4 months off and my friend asked would I be hunting on boxing day? My best friend and I just looked at each other speechless and then took the time to explain to her that that was a very stupid idea regardless of what she did with her horse :mad:

I've been doing as you say thatsmygirl, but just playing it as how he is, rather than sticking to a fitness regime, the trot fitness seems to be taking much longer to come back...
I started schooling in our 2nd wk back in work, but only in walk for about 20-30 minutes as otherwise he'd have not gotten the exercise... :)
 
Lots of walking, gentle hill work in walk and build in trotting after a couple of weeks. It depends massively on the amount of condtion lost for me, if there is a change in musclature I take it very steady and do ground work and walking backwards up hills in hand etc.

I do whatever is needed to look after my beau.
 
I wouldn't take it quite so slowly - you always have to go by the horse, but I'd generally have aimed for the first week or so in walk, steadily increasing the time (start at half an hour and add five minutes a day), adding short trots from week two and gradually increasing the trot time, and starting to introduce short canters by week three or four, again building up slowly. There will always be cases where you need to go more slowly, but in general I'd say weeks and weeks of walking is a bit excessive - you need to start raising the pulse rate to make real gains in fitness, and once you've got the muscles and tendons used to carrying a rider again, you need to start increasing the tempo a bit or fitness won't develop at all.
 
My horse is just has been back in work for a few weeks after six weeks off. Unfortunately, lack of daylight means I can only hack at weekends. So I opted for walking in hand in the school, followed by some loose schooling. Then it was some Pessoa work on the loosest setting and some gentle pole work to encourage him to use his back (still doing this once or twice a week). Graduated to ridden work and we are just building up periods of trot and going for 1 hour hacks at weekends now. Would rather do this outside, but if needs must, I think it can be done in a school :)
 
At the yard I work at there has been 2 horses that were lame for quite a while and I have been helping them get back into work;
• 2-3 weeks of walk hacking, maybe ridden 3 times a week
• 2-3 weeks of walk schooling, large circles (20m)
• about 4 weeks trotting to get fit on large circles to start and progress smaller
• when they're ready cantering and also pole work
• again, when they're ready start jumping ect :)
 
Theocat said:
I wouldn't take it quite so slowly - you always have to go by the horse, but I'd generally have aimed for the first week or so in walk, steadily increasing the time (start at half an hour and add five minutes a day), adding short trots from week two and gradually increasing the trot time, and starting to introduce short canters by week three or four, again building up slowly. There will always be cases where you need to go more slowly, but in general I'd say weeks and weeks of walking is a bit excessive - you need to start raising the pulse rate to make real gains in fitness, and once you've got the muscles and tendons used to carrying a rider again, you need to start increasing the tempo a bit or fitness won't develop at all.
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More like this. half an hour walking for a horse which has not been injured/ on box rest is nothing! Won't get them fit, so is only useful for a week or two then you need to up the tempo. Every horse is obviously different and you should obviously go off how your horse feels (breathing, heartrate, sweating etc) But if we went to the gym and came back without a drop of sweat or having been remotely out of breath then it would be hard to improve fitness. Same principle with horses in my books.
 
When Pickle came back from 8 weeks box rest on strict vet advise I did the following

- 2 weeks walking in school everyday
-2 weeks walking with very small trots only in straight lines, hacking and school
-2 weeks walk and trotting up to 45 mins
-walk/trot/canter work mostly hacking at this point as we were bored of the school!
He didn't jump again for another 2 months! I may be over cautious but I do have a sound horse now.
 
^^ I'm doing this too on vet/EP advice after a long break and we started on 4th Jan. We're up to walk/trot a bit of canter on hacks with some hills thrown in and he offered canter last week so I just went with it. No schooling yet for us, mainly straight lines going very forwards! I can still feel he is a bit unblanced so we are doing lateral work in walk with some si, qi, ly, tof, toq just to add a bit of interest.

If the school EVER dries up, I might even start lungeing next week then maybe some polework the week after in trot.
 
I need to bring my rising 19 overweight and slightly arthritic in his hocks cob back into work. He lives out 24/7, and is a very good doer. Would you approach his fitness work in a different way to a stabled horse? For instance, would you start to trot him earlier than a stabled horse (of course only short trots) as living out he is on the move all the time?

Through the winter he's been ridden out about once a fortnight. We can go about two miles in walk (just over 30 mins) and he doesn't sweat, and it's not a flat loop.
 
You can do more with a field kept horse, they already have some level of fitness from constant walking and the odd charge about. (plus your field has a slope doesn't it?)
I think you just see how he copes and adjust the regime accordingly. If you trot slowly up a hill and he seems fine, the next day go further. Short canters won't harm, it's not as if he has been locked in a stable for weeks on end, I bet he flies about when the hunt get near!
 
I think I need to clip him though despite him moulting - he mistook three motorbikes for the hunt last week, and came back dripping and curly coated (walking hack again!), nothing for it but to turn him out to roll!

Thanks, will start with walking and short trots so we don't both seize up - saddle has now been adjusted/padded etc, so we're ready to go!
 
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