Charmin
Well-Known Member
My mare's been on holiday all winter and then came back with a splint, she's been rested on box sized field-rest for 3 weeks and has lunged sound, and is now having another week off before I bring her back into work.
She's been out of work since November, has been out in a big field with a herd so didn't lose all muscle tone, but the rest didn't help with muscle tone. So was planning on treating her as baseline very unfit.
My usually fittening plan after a holiday goes something like this (hacking is all roadwork unfortunately):
Week 1 and 2 - hacking out in walk, with a bit of lunging/long reining in the school in walk and trot
Week 3 - schooling in walk and trot in school, hacking out for longer periods (try and find some hills!)
Week 4 and 5 - step up schooling slightly and introduce canter work, as well as long reining, and hacking. Some raised trot poles in school at trot and canter
Week 6 - move raised trot poles up to small cross poles, start more rigorous canter work, continue hacking
Week 7 - interval canter work, moving jumps up a bit bigger
Week 8 - more of the same, higher intensity
From then onwards is business as usual, will start going out from about week 9. But it's quite a lot of roadwork and I'm a bit concerned about her splint and concussion on it. She's currently unshod which will reduce some of the concussion, and I don't really trot on the roads anyway.
Are there any alterations that could be made? Should I take it slower, or crack on as is and see what happens? I would like to squeeze some events in this season, but her long term soundness is more important! The vet said that as soon as the splint is fused it shouldn't cause any more issues, but should I be warier of harder ground etc?
Thank you!
She's been out of work since November, has been out in a big field with a herd so didn't lose all muscle tone, but the rest didn't help with muscle tone. So was planning on treating her as baseline very unfit.
My usually fittening plan after a holiday goes something like this (hacking is all roadwork unfortunately):
Week 1 and 2 - hacking out in walk, with a bit of lunging/long reining in the school in walk and trot
Week 3 - schooling in walk and trot in school, hacking out for longer periods (try and find some hills!)
Week 4 and 5 - step up schooling slightly and introduce canter work, as well as long reining, and hacking. Some raised trot poles in school at trot and canter
Week 6 - move raised trot poles up to small cross poles, start more rigorous canter work, continue hacking
Week 7 - interval canter work, moving jumps up a bit bigger
Week 8 - more of the same, higher intensity
From then onwards is business as usual, will start going out from about week 9. But it's quite a lot of roadwork and I'm a bit concerned about her splint and concussion on it. She's currently unshod which will reduce some of the concussion, and I don't really trot on the roads anyway.
Are there any alterations that could be made? Should I take it slower, or crack on as is and see what happens? I would like to squeeze some events in this season, but her long term soundness is more important! The vet said that as soon as the splint is fused it shouldn't cause any more issues, but should I be warier of harder ground etc?
Thank you!