Gelding lost is schooling mojo

[owain]

I have a 13 year old thoroughbred gelding who used to absolutely love schooling and dressage but recently he has gone school sour. He recently had a foot abscess and ever since he has been school sour (I followed my vet and farrier's instructions on treatment and rest and before he was brought back into work I had both check him to cancel out any possibility of lameness). Hacking out and jumping he is as happy as can be but as soon as I want to school him he is completely unhappy. His back has been checked (he has regular visits from the physio, dentist, farrier etc), his tack all fits him correctly. I'm honestly so lost on what to do because he enjoys everything apart from schooling. When I do lots of lateral work, after a while he will come round over his back but he will not come onto a correct contact. Lately I will school him about once or twice a week (only about 10-20 minutes of lateral work just to keep him supple) and will mainly hack, with lungeing and jumping mixed in to keep him interested. Any advice would be much appreciated because he used to be absolutely fantastic at dressage and it would be such a shame to stop competing

 

[Auslander]

I would put my hand on my heart, and say that he is uncomfortable/in pain. There are many things that could be wrong which would not be identified by physio/farrier/dentist/saddle fitter, so if it was my horse - I'd be going straight to the vet.

 

[be positive]

I don't think a horse will just decide it no longer enjoys doing something it previously did well unless there is an underlying issue, the abscess may be a coincidence of timing so I would want a proper lameness assessment to look at the other limbs, he could well be starting with arthritic changes somewhere that are less of an issue when hacking in straight lines or jumping when the adrenaline is up, lateral work is far more demanding on the joints than hacking and light jumping will be.

 

[maximoo]

Can you not turn him away for a month or two then bring him back into work slowly starting with just light hacking and building him up from there then see if he is better frame of mind for schooling could be that he is bored of the schooling and just needs a break most horses like variety in there training seen to many that are drones and sour through constant going round in circles