Is this vet insane??! Work/ recovery plan for PSD...

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angela_l_b

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My lad was diagnosed with PSD to a hindleg in late December. Since then he has been on box rest with shockwave treatment. The work plan the vet originally gave him was starting with 5 mins walk twice a day, increasing to an hour, and going to just once a day. Then replacing walk with 5 mins trot in the first week, 10 mins in the second week and so on until we got to 40 mins trot and 20 mins walk each day.

Now the vet has looked at him again and said so far so good, the unevenness behind has vastly improved and we can turn him out in a small paddock and introduce canter. He has given us pretty much the same plan - starting with 5 mins canter per hour session and increasing the amount by 5 minutes per week, for the next 8 weeks.

This means that by the end of 8 weeks we'll be doing 40 minutes canter, and 20 mins of walk/trot, per day!! Can this be right? I don't think I have ever cantered that long in one session. I thought 40 minutes trot was quite a lot, to be honest, never mind canter!

And we have to do it all on good ground, in straight lines. Where on earth can I canter for 40 minutes in a straight line?? Does anyone else have any experiences of daft recovery plans??

Champagne, strawberries and sunshine for anyone getting this far...
 
That sounds like a fitness plan for eventing, rather than a rehabilitation programme. But maybe that's the point, he wants the horse to get super fit.....
I'd ring up and ask for clarification.
 
Sounds crazy to me! I've no experience of the sort of work such an injury might require but this sounds excessive, seriously excessive. Did you understand your vet correctly? Surely he's not advocating such an intensive programme. The horse was only diagnosed four months ago.
A 5 minute canter takes you roughly halfway round Badminton, and he's suggesting you start with that!
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See what others on here say but I'd get another opinion.
 
I used to canter polo ponies for 30-40 mins at a time, as part of a fittening programme.

Sounds excessive if your not racing/hunting/top level eventing etc though.

I'd double check
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He doesn't say clearly (I have just called to ask for more details; waiting for him to call me back). I can only imagine that I would alternate a few mins canter with some trot and walk before going back into canter again.

40 minutes straight is surely more than most horses in full work of any sort do, except perhaps hunting?

Thanks for the replies; it has reassured me that my doubts might be valid!
 
Surely he must mean 40 minutes as in interval training? I.e. 4 minutes in walk and then 4 minutes in canter 10 times ish....God, but that is a lot = 80 minutes.
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No that's mad... 2 minutes do you think??
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We have an eventer at the yard and he has to do 25 minutes Interval training twice a week....i.e 4 minutes walk and 4 minutes canter x 3.
 
My horses recovery plan did not require this! I was just told when I got to canter to start with only a couple of minutes and gradually build it up to my 'normal' schooling session
 
Agree with fingers_crossed when my horse came back in to work after PSD I was told to start with one - two minute canters and build up my 'normal' amount.
 
that's definitely not right. my horse is hunting fit and i still only gallop him for 4mins at a time when fittening him. finding somewhere to do that was hard enough. even out hunting we only canter for 5/10mins at a time doing a total of about 30mins of cantering over a few hours.

my old boy had PSD and we started canter work it was for literally 30seconds, then gradually building up to his normal amount. he was doing 20mins of trot work by this stage which was more than i'd ever have done with him before, but figured they wanted him super strong in trot before introducing canter. i didn't see the point in having him doing any more canter work than i needed him to though. why try and get him racehorse fit when he's a cob doing a bit of dressage and jumping for fun?
 
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