Bringing back into work

[skully]

I'll try to keep this brief although I have a tendency to ramble

Will soon be bringing two ponies back into work, both geldings 10-15 years old one has previously been used in a riding school where he was worked very hard and one was a decent competition pony a couple of years ago but was outgrown. Due to lameness/tooth/shoe problems the ex riding school one has been on and off out of work for 4 months ish and the other hasn't had much exercise during this time. For the last couple of months they've been hacked out for 1-2 hours three times a week with some trotting and the occasional canter. They were both quite fit before all the problems ie hacking twice a week, schooling twice, jumping twice. Now wanting to bring them back into work slowly.

Does anyone have any rough estimates on how long it would take to get them back schooling and jumping again and any advice on exercises or ideas to help? Hope this post made sense, thanks!

 

[be positive]

If they have been consistently hacking 3 times a week for up to 2 hours then I don't think you really need to bring them back into work as such they should both be fit enough to just increase to a few extra days each and get on with doing some schooling, as they do more schooling then start to introduce some basic jumping, they should be fit enough to do plenty of work within a month if you do 5 days instead of 3.
Plenty of ponies will be working at the weekends only during the winter, if they were fit previously they don't drop off too much if they are out in a field and ticked over a couple of times a week.