Bringing a semi-fit horse back into work after time off being ridden

[Dancingponies]

Hello, I'm looking for some advice ...
My 20 year old pony was in full work and very fit, but she was loosing weight so we had to stop riding whilst she built her weight back up again and we adjusted her diet. During the seven weeks she was off work she was long reined (only walk for the first few weeks but for the last 2/3 weeks we started to trot her again and canter and introduced pole work and raised poles). She's fit and able on the long reins, but now with a saddle and rider (instead of a roller) what should we do?
I have ridden her three times, once for the saddler 5 days ago for about 20 minutes in walk with a brief trot on both reins, once for a 30 min hack in walk, and once in the school for 35 mins with about 8 minutes of trot and she seemed to cope fine.
Any advice on how to build her fitness would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

 

[daydreamer]

It sounds like you have the right approach. 7 weeks off isn't too long especially if you kept up some work with her. I guess I would just play it by ear and mainly start with walk hacking and then build that up slowly and add trot and canter depending on how she is. A great American Equestrian Denny Emerson is a massive advocate of lots of walk hacking to build up fitness as he says it muscles them up and that it is quite difficult to do damage at walk! At this age they do tend to lose muscle faster than younger horses I think so I'd just be a bit slower about asking her to do too much work in an outline. The pole work would still be really useful so I would keep that up. There is a great book called 55 corrective exercises for horses which has lots of pole and body work exercises and there is a schedule in there to follow with older horses. I guess I would also try and get some bodywork done on her (massage/Masterson method/whatever you prefer) to help her out.