Schooling ideas for bringing an unfit horse back into work

[Missladypotter]

Hi I am new to this forum so advise would be really helpful. Soon I am exercising a 15.2 ID mare for a woman. Due to work commitments the horse is unfit.She is a quite type so thats not really the problen. But I am unsure of how to introduce her to schooling ect .
Thanks,
Miss L.p

 

[Tern]

You don't state when horse was last ridden. However.

However I would start by hacking - 30 minutes of walk for a week. This will harden her legs and prepare her for things later on. Start building this up 5 mins at a time until you are walking for an hour and trotting for less than 5 minutes without problems. - It will probably take about 2 weeks.

You can then at this point be adding more trotting and longer walking. After about 4 weeks you'd want to start introducing walking and trotting in the school. Lateral work can be good to stay in walk and brief trot.

Once you are walking for about 1.5 hours and trotting for may 30 mins you can start introducing small canters here and there and then building them up.

Really, it is quite easy if she hasn't been off for months but to avoid injury do lots of walking to start off with!

 

[Missladypotter]

Thanks sorry I forget to say the mare is occasionally ridden very lightly. I love hacking so that's good to know I can start with that!