Bringing horse in after a month off

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EveRebecca

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Hi,
I was just wondering how I should get started on getting my horse fit again – should I just walk and trot hack for a week and slowly start schooling again.. and when should I start jumping again.. ideally I want to be doing 80/90 class by mid March. I just don’t want to do anything too soon.. Or equally take things too slowly..

He’s 7, had 4 weeks off, will be brought in from field end of Jan. I’ve had uni exams and he’s deserved a break just to be a horse for a bit. He was hunting fit, and hasn’t had any injuries, before he went out. My previous pony never had this much time off, about 2 weeks at a time, and I was told I could just get back on her and take it easy for a week or so, so I just want to do the right thing for my new boy.

Thanks for your help.

 
My routine for bringing into work involve a mix of hacking in walk and trot, lunging for 20 mins and short walk trot schooling sessions usually not more than half an hour.

I go by the two week rule ie two weeks of the same before adding more time or more complex schooling or faster work etc

2 weeks W/T
2 weeks W/T/ short C
2 weeks W/T/C and maybe adding pessoa/equiami/lungy bungy etc for lunging
2 weeks W/T/C and more complex schooling

you get the drift, every horse is different so I would tweak it to fit :)
 
My mare has a couple of months off ever year as we have unbelievably cold winters (-25 ish cold). I normally start her off in the spring again with gentle hacking in walk, progressing to short lunging sessions and flat schooling. If you can find it there is a great book by Jec Aristotle Ballou called Equine Fitness which takes you step by step through assessing and improving fitness.
 
Ok brill, thank you :) We've got plenty of private land for hacking and with my uni timetable it will still be light, when would you increase from 30 minutes of riding? Mid second week? I'm terrible at lunging! So I guess Feb is going to be my chance to have to start enjoying it!
I'll have a look for that book too thank you :) xx
 
Four weeks is nothing. It takes six weeks for a horse to start losing any cardiovascular fitness - my mare will be doing a 50 km ride at the weekend. Normally I would just give her a week off, but because she has eight weeks before her next competition, I will give her three weeks off, walk and trot her for week one, and then it will be back to normal training the following week.

I turn the endurance horses out for three months over the winter and that is a different kettle of fish, and will do four to six weeks of legging up. But for a break of only a few weeks, a couple of weeks of walk/trot hacking building up to an hour as well as re-introducing schooling should be just fine.
 
NZJenny said:
Four weeks is nothing. It takes six weeks for a horse to start losing any cardiovascular fitness - my mare will be doing a 50 km ride at the weekend.
Click to expand...

Agree with this, 4 weeks won't have done much more than taken the edge of his CV (cardiovascular), I'd hop back on and get cracking right away, no flat out gallopy/jumpy stuff for a week or so but certainly no need to crawl around in walk forever.
 
Aw really! That's fantastic, I really want to get out in March and he was going so well before he was turned out so I just hope neither of us have forgotten everything! :P Thanks for all your help x
 
As NZjenny has said 4 weeks is nothing. My top Endurance horse often got a month off. Have known another Endurance rider win a 100 miles ride turn her horse out for 3 weeks bring it back and do some gentle work then go on and win another 100 miler a week after that. Once a horse is fit they need little work to keep them that way.
 
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