Schooling exercises in walk only - bringing horse back into work after injury

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Tash88

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Two weeks ago my vet said that I could bring my 6 y/o horse back into work after two weeks off due to an infection on his hock. Before the infection he was fairly fit, hacking and schooling 4-5 times a week with a dressage lesson every other week. For the first week I did roadwork in walk every day to build him up a bit as the muscle on his back end has gone slightly, and this worked. Then he was off for a week as I was really ill with a sickness virus, to be honest mucking out every morning took all of my energy, and I was really busy with work.

So I am back to walking again; I plan to do this for the next week and then introduce short periods of trot work at the weekend. Yesterday I went in the school as there was nobody on the yard; I did 20 mins of walk/halt transitions and worked on ensuring that he was always straight when going across the school and bending properly. He is usually good in the school, although listens much better after he has warmed up properly in trot and canter; sometimes he can be quite cheeky before he has cantered. So while he is still walking I see this as a good opportunity to get him listening to me properly, so that I don't have these issues when he is back to schooling properly. Yesterday I found that he wasn't bending so well on his weaker rein (left), and he lacked impulsion, although this could have been due to the time off he's had. Today I took him out for some road work and he was much better, managed to do some lateral work as well.

Sorry for the long post, but any advice for schooling in walk would be useful; I'm thinking of this as an opportunity to 'start again' with his schooling, despite the fact that he was going quite well before. There is a fantastic indoor school at the yard and I expect that I'll be making more use of it in the winter, and so would like to use this time to really focus on his schooling.

Thank you in advance, Tash
 
Awesome opportunity :D

Shoulder in, leg yield, halfpass, travers, rein back, turn on the forehands/haunches :D

ALL lateral work should be done slowly and correctly in walk before attempting it in trot, injured or not.
 
simpler still! true and counter flexion, on straight lines and on a circle- make sure you can control his head/neck position and keep him going on 2 tracks. See if you can get him working quite deep, and then pick him up again- will help with positioning when you come around to lateral work. Be aware of doing too much lateral work in walk, esp. in a youngster because the walk is too easy to ruin!! Id do minimal lateral in walk, do bending exercises, a little bit of turn about the forehand (front legs describe a smaller circle than hindlegs) to get him going off the aids but leave proper lateral work until you can trot so his walk doesnt end up 3 beat :)
 
Zargon_91 said:
but leave proper lateral work until you can trot so his walk doesnt end up 3 beat :)
Click to expand...

Short of her horse having lost a leg in its injury I cant see how its walk is going to end up 3 beat.....

Lateral work should always be properly established in walk, it takes time to build up the correct muscles to do it properly, not just with neck bend and rushing everywhere hollow.
 
Pinched from the BD forum.....
Most of this is way past my ability but shows what you can do:

"OH There was a great reply from Sara greene in another thread about this......

here you are

Work in walk often seems to be neglected. Limited to a couple of circuits at the start of a session and then off we go in trot and canter with the occasional brief walk stretch inbetween.

The walk work can be of huge benefit in setting the foundations for new things as well as general mobility and suppleness. The right combination of exercises and attention to detail in doing them correctly (both horse and rider) can also set up a horse so well that you could go straight into a test without any trot or canter.

Most of the list below came as individual exercises from my lessons with Simon Battram over the years. They were put into practice as a walk only set some 3 – 4 years ago when my horse was coming back from injury and I had to do most of the work in a 20 x 30 indoor school.

Start with a few circuits of the school in a long rein walk asking for stretch and relaxation with the walk marching forward, not dawdling.

Pick up to medium walk and mix and match the following

* walk - halt - walk – extended walk – medium walk - halt - extended walk, aim to have crisp forward response to leg

* leg yields right across the school, increase the angle every repetition

* leg yield part way across school then back again
-from track to c/line and back
- from c/line to track and back
- from 3/4 line to 3/4 line

* leg yield on the circle

* leg yield head to wall

* serpentines with small circles at top of each loop

* down centre line and ride a series of creeping circles alternating left and right (count steps to make sure each circle is the same size)

* shoulder in - on the track, on the centre line, on the 3/4 line

* shoulder in on c/line to 8/10m circle one way then leg yield the other way on returning to c/line

* shoulder in right then shoulder in left on same line

* shoulder in to renvers to shoulder in

* leg yield out, half pass back

* shoulder in on long side, change to renvers, half 10m circle to c/line in renvers then half pass to opposite long side

* half pass, large half pirouette, half pass

* half pass zig/zags

* half pass on the circle moving in to working full pirouette

Intersperse with more long rein stretch walk between every couple of sets of exercise.

Walk work - approached inventively - is never boring."
 
Thank you very much for the replies - I'm tempted to print them out and take them into the school with me!

His lateral work isn't particularly established yet so I will be working on that, whilst focusing on improving his walk as well; my view is that this can only improve his trot and canter work. I have a few schooling books with advice on how to teach lateral work and I'm hacking out with an instructor friend tomorrow morning so will ask her advice as well. I'm actually quite excited about this!
 
Claire Lilley's book "Schooling with ground poles" has loads of exercises which would be really useful and the poles make school work more interesting.
 
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