Help with schooling after rehab/injury

emfen1305

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So after getting the all clear from the vets in November to "crack on" after our navicular diagnosis and rehab period, I have subsequently spent 2 months making a number of excuses to not ride and only do ground work. "looks a bit drizzly/windy/cold/sunny/Jupiter is crossing in front of Saturn and the vibes aren't right" which reads "I am too scared to get back on my own horse! Sick of watching everyone else go out and have fun and spurred on by the the Equestrian Training Diary for Christmas and have been filling it all out, I have booked back in with my instructor for weekly lessons and vowed I would start riding more consistently!

Ideally I would just hack which I have been doing but I can only do that at weekends so want to add a couple of schooling sessions in the week plus my lesson but I don't want to take advantage of his good nature and him feeling well. What has everyone else done when bringing a horse back into school work? How long and what type of work? Today I just did around 20 minutes, mainly walking, transitions, no small circles and then some trot including big circles and transitions. I don't know whether I am babying him a little bit but I don't want to do too much with him too soon so looking for some ideas of length and type of work you would all do!

He's not been totally left alone, i've been doing groundwork and walking him out at weekends but he's not been properly schooled since the end of September!
 

SaddlepadHoarder

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Personally when I have brought horses back into work I basically do what I do when starting youngsters. I lunge, long rein and loose school but keep it short and sweet (sometimes just 10 minutes sometimes 30 minutes if they are naughty/spooky). I don't start canter work until they are strong and fit in trot. If I feel like they are struggling in trot I take it back to walk. If they are struggling in walk I get off and do it from the ground.

Circles,serpentines, figures of eight, calavetti and poles(walk or trot whatever he is okayed to do from the vet)are great for suppleness and engaging them.

There is also this exercise that really confuses my youngsters that sort if looks like the ying and yang sign. You go onto a 20m circle and half way round curve through the circle to the opposite half mark before curving to the opposite rein (so curve left then curve right for example). I hope I've explained that so it makes sense!

Bringing horses back into work takes time and it all depends on their fitness now and what the vet says about what they should be able to do.

Don't rush and take your time. There is no point in taking advantage of him being able to be ridden again and possibly causing more problems that put him out of work again.
 

milliepops

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I don't know whether I am babying him a little bit but I don't want to do too much with him too soon so looking for some ideas of length and type of work you would all do!
I think when they've been off work for medical reasons then taking things steady and building up in a progressive way is never wrong.
He hasn't been out of the school for that long and it's good that he's been in hacking work as you aren't starting from scratch. but equally they do need to be conditioned to working on a surface and using themselves correctly.

I think what you've started out with sounds sensible to me, I think I would try to draw up a logical plan where you increase the duration and intensity gradually (say, do what you've done 3 times and then next time add in a few more minutes and a bit more in the way of "work", then perhaps the next week add a bit of canter and so on. Having structure means it's easy to keep track as a rider, and also gives you something to concentrate on for your sessions which might help with the mental side of it?

It's different because we're rehabbing a tendon but with Kira I started out with 10 mins walking large, each week we added on 5 minutes until we were at 30 mins walking, and then I added long sides in trot, then added full laps of trot, then added laps of canter.
I use my phone timer to keep track of 10 min intervals so I can measure what we are doing.
This week she does 10 mins of walk as I work her from the stable, then in the next 10 mins she does 8 laps of stretchy trot (4 each way) and 2 circles each way, and then some lateral work in walk on the track.
In the next 10 mins she does 6 laps of more collected trot and 4 laps of lateral work, and 6 laps canter with a couple of flying changes to change the rein, and then we finish with 5 mins of walking.
This month we will be increasing the canter spells.
you don't have to be that gradual (or that anal!) but that plan really makes it easy for me to track our progression towards full fitness.
 

emfen1305

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Thank you both - for some reason I wasn't notified of replies! So this week's plan is totally out of the window due to this bloody storm so will be starting from scratch in my lesson (pray for me!)

The problem is with the vet is they haven't been very prescriptive, just "yes he's sound now crack on" but I partly think this is due to the fact he wasn't out of work for very long and the only treatment he's had is a couple of shockwave sessions, tildren and some fancy shoes and then just to manage it because its navicular and just need to be careful what we do in future. I'm not knocking the vets or the treatment as it has definitely made a difference but they've sort of just left me to it. My physio saw him at the beginning of December and agreed he felt fine and was in a good place to start but again, no real plan, she just said to avoid poles for a bit as he prefers to take them on a long stride and she was worried he might over do it but otherwise, again, just crack on and I'm very much a plan kind of person, I need a very prescriptive 5 circles on this rein then 5 circles on that rein followed by... otherwise I lose a bit of motiviation so that's a good idea @milliepops, now just need to work out the appropriate amount of everything but I suppose I just go off how he's feeling! My aim is to get some intro tests uploaded to the online dressage by the end of Feb so I guess I just need to work backwards from there to make sure he is fit enough and happy!
 
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