In Hand Exercises To Get Her Bending

[HollyWoozle]

Following on from Belle's bucking fit, the vet advised 3 weeks off, to start her on Cortaflex and to do some exercises in hand to improve her flexibility.

She has now had a week off (with no exercises due to one thing and another) but has been started on Cortaflex a week ago. Tonight I just spent 5 minutes getting her bending left, right and down as she is very stiff in her neck and struggles with inside bend, particularly on left rein. Tomorrow I'd like to start doing some good sessions with her to see what improvements we can make. It certainly won't hurt us to spend time doing groundwork anyway!

Can anybody please suggest some in hand exercises that I can do with her to help with this? Vet suggested things like bending poles but I'm waiting for her to send a list of other ideas.

Thank you.

 

[PingPongPony]

carrot stretches?

 

[fidleyspromise]

I also use carrot stretches - start off gradual and build them up.

 

[ISHmad]

There's a great book by Oliver Hillberger called something like "Schooling Exercises In Hand", normally a good price on Amazon. Found it really useful for in hand work with our horses.

 

[rosie-ellie]

These are the exercises my chiropractor gave me to do, again carrott stretches:
http://www.todayshorse.com/Articles/HorseCarrotPractics.htm

 

[HollyWoozle]

Thanks for all the recommendations, that's great! Hopefully we can make good progress.