Showjumping Fitness Plan

[Moosegoose20]

I’m trying to put a fitness plan together for my horse to get us motivated for the upcoming season. He’s a 6yr old warmblood, we were competing successfully at 1.05 up until the end of October. He was super fit through the summer with competitions most weekends but managed to get a mystery liver inflammation illness that put a stop to any plans for a bit. After battling the weather, the liver inflammation, pulled muscles from galloping around the field and lost shoes, we are finally in a position to get going again (he has had about 10 weeks off in total). He has been ridden a handful of times mainly in walk over the last couple of weeks but neither of us enjoy the endless walking around the arena so normally give up after about 20 mins . We can’t hack out during the week due to lack of daylight.

I guess my question is, will light schooling be ok in walk and trot for maybe the next couple of weeks - I have to try and keep his mind occupied otherwise he has different ideas (easier said than done in walk). When should I start to incorporate poles again? When should I ramp up the training to get us jumping again? any idea about when we should be aiming for our first competition? Ideally we would like to be ready to jump at the Spring Champs at Arena UK at the end of March.

Everything I read says listen to the horse which is fine but if the horse is a young showjumper who is used to being a show off at all times with some pretty dramatic shapes, it’s sometimes a little difficult to figure out what they are wanting to tell you and to keep them calm in walk

 

[YourValentine]

Hard to say really not knowing your horse, but if I was you I think I'd focus on building up stamina and general conditioning of muscles and legs etc with long hacks at the weekend, and during the week do 2 - 3 schooling sessions working on core strength and flexibility. They dont need to be long 20-30min max, think of them as weights sessions at the gym - short but quality.
So lots of leg yielding, bending and flexing, shorting and lengthing. Put a couple of poles out several meters apart and march down them in walk, then collect the walk and see how many strides you can fit in, same in trot. Make sure he is off you aides etc all stuff that will be useful later isn't too strenuous on him now while you build up fitness.
Slowly build up how much you ask for vs breaks on a loose rein.

I'd avoid tight turns or small circles, basically anything abrupt while everything strengthens up to avoid tweaking a muscle or tendon or something like that.

Though if he's galloping round the field he is probably OK to start a bit of gentle canter round the outside of the arena or down the long sides in the not too distant future. But it all depends on how he feels, how much muscle he's lost etc.