Fitness regime... advise thoughts!

[horsefeed]

My mare worked and competed quite a bit over the winter. SJ/DR/Arena eventing.

We then did 4 ODEs (up to 80) last being Elmwood on 2nd May where she jumped double clear and finished 6th.

She was fit and was cantering for 9/10 minutes solid at 425/450mpm.

She is a 14.2hh welsh type and gets porky quickly.

She felt exhausted after Elmwood she is normally quite forward but she really wasn't that day, so I gave her 2 weeks off, she still felt flat. Got vet out for bloods and they came but inconclusive for pregnancy (stallion got in with them last summer and we jabbed her but the vet said still a small chance) She was not deficient in anything etc, she also started producing milk, vet advised to not scan and give her a few weeks off.

So I turned her out and left her, today12 weeks since last event (10 since bloods) still no foal, pilled on weight (mostly belly) and running milk so we scanned this morning... no foal and a small cellular growth which has been cleared out and she has been given drugs to force her into season. More bloods have been taken.

Vet advised to get her working as she is now very fat!

The plan is to lunge in tack tomorrow and Friday in tack. Then pop on and start hacking from Saturday, a week of walking building up to about 90 minutes over about a week.

After that how long should I be trotting etc? How quickly can I build her up again after 12 weeks off?

 

[ponynutz]

Did you find out what was wrong when she came out of work? Problem could still easily be there when you try to get her back into work.

Are we 100% sure there's no foal? Or an entopic pregnancy? Just because I've known of a few people who have done insemination and said that horse wasn't pregnant/foal had been lost and then a foal pops out one day.

I'd say you'd want to do a week of walk, week of walk/trot (all hacking to keep it interesting). Week of basic flat work, week of more flat and some jumping, and then keep going like that until she's back. I'd say you're looking at about a month for normal fitness and just over for where she was before.

 

[horsefeed]

Did you find out what was wrong when she came out of work? Problem could still easily be there when you try to get her back into work.

Are we 100% sure there's no foal? Or an entopic pregnancy? Just because I've known of a few people who have done insemination and said that horse wasn't pregnant/foal had been lost and then a foal pops out one day.

I'd say you'd want to do a week of walk, week of walk/trot (all hacking to keep it interesting). Week of basic flat work, week of more flat and some jumping, and then keep going like that until she's back. I'd say you're looking at about a month for normal fitness and just over for where she was before.

She was scanned this morning and the Vet was very thorough and in there a long time! He found this small growth/cell cluster (it's tiny and he claims some would miss it) which he believes made her body think it was pregnant which is possibly why she was so tired after Elmwood. I am confident she is not pregnant after seeing the scan images.