Bringing back into work? Advice please.

[pistolpete]

Not sure when or even if my horse will come back into work but would love to hear how you guys did it after a long lay off. He is 14 a happy hacker mainly before all the drama. It's weird now to think of tacking him up after months of nothing
He goes out in hand and on long reins. Experiences please?

 

[pistolpete]

Anyone?

 

[Diddleydoo]

In the absence of anyone with any experience or actual knowledge you'll have to make do with me.

I used a 'get a fat pony fit' article I found in a magazine. Basically 8 weeks of gradually increasing work. No schooling until about week 5.

I think it went something like this
Weeks 1-2 walking, mostly in straight line building up from 15 minutes to about 45. 3-4 times per week
Weeks 3-4 Introduce some trot and increase the frequency and time in week 4. Work 5-6 days per week
Weeks 5-6 Introduce canter and gradually increase the overall lenght of the sessions from 45 minutes up to about 1hour 15. Again working 5-6 days each week
Weeks 7-8 Some schooling and at least 1 hack that is between 1:30 and 2 hours. Including walk trot and canter.

From there on you were pretty much ready to increase to whatever is a normal workload for you and your horse.

This worked ok for us, but mine was a bit keen and tried to introduce both trot and canter a week earlier than the plan said.