Would anyone like to join in a ‘bringing back into work’ thread?

[EngageDressage]

My 22 year old Dutch Warmblood gelding has had about 6 months off work with inconsistent work before that, due to my and his health issues. Now bringing him back into work and wondered if anyone else is on this journey at the same time?
He’s doing 20 minutes walk work on the lunge at the moment, either bridle only, over poles or with the equi-ami on..

 

[mavandkaz]

I can join in.
My boy 'broke' last may and was diagnosed with suspensory issues and changes to some of his vertebrae. After 2 months of inhand work, he was actually worse, so last October he was turned away.
This June, he had his check up ( I was fully expecting to retire him, or even PTS) and much to my and the vets amazement he was sound!
So since end of July he has done some in hand walking, just out and about on the roads and tracks.
We were up to an hour long walk once or twice a week, with 20-30min walks 3 or 4 times a week.
Beginning of September I was able to move him so he is on the same yard as my other horse (yey!) but I also started back at work as a teacher (boo ).
So the last 10 days we have dropped to 20min walks out and 15min 'lunging' sessions - out on a paddock, going very large. But we are now doing some trot.
Tomorrow I am going to attempt to ride and lead, so he can go out for longer walks, and will look at getting back on him in some form.

 

[Wheels]

Me too please

My boy was off work with mild lami and then other foot issues although I've been leading out in hand and gentle ridden work for a number of weeks.

We are up to 45 mins walk work, some days (bad weather) in the arena, some days in the field and some hacking out (I only have on road hacking). When we start to up the trot work that will have to be done in the arena and field.

 

[EngageDressage]

Oh crikey @mavandkaz what a journey. Glad you’re making such good progress now and that you’ve got them both on the same yard, so much easier.
@Wheels glad he’s recovering well from the lami, is he good on the road? Gage is frightened of everything and therefore really not safe on the road at all..

 

[Wheels]

Oh crikey @mavandkaz what a journey. Glad you’re making such good progress now and that you’ve got them both on the same yard, so much easier.
@Wheels glad he’s recovering well from the lami, is he good on the road? Gage is frightened of everything and therefore really not safe on the road at all..

He really is great yes, he gets a bit tense and will have the odd spin if a large lorry comes towards us too fast, same with the really big tractors but they tend to be few and far between. We stay in the field/ arena on those days that the convoys of tractors and huge grass trailers are out on the road. Hes absolutely fine with everything else.

 

[mavandkaz]

Well, ride and lead was successful! So we can crack on and hopefully get him going a bit further. And we escorted my friends 3yr old on an inhand walk to introduce her youngster to traffic. Been a good few days

 

[BunnyDog]

Me too!!! I've finally ridden Chad the last 2 days. His first ride in 2020 was in June and before that some light riding last fall.

Nothing has been wrong I just haven't had as much time. Work has been crazy, Cudo was the priority and I kind of felt like the youngster could wait a bit and chill out.

He's been quite good in his 2 rides thus far, but we've still a long way to go.

Emily

 

[[59668]]

Yup! My mare came down with a mystery virus last thurs. Went downhill in a matter of hours. Resps 38 (!) and a high temp. Emergency vet visit and pretty much back to normal in 24 hours and 5 days of bute and antibiotics. She will have 2 weeks off and a very slow return to work. It was very scary!

 

[EngageDressage]

@BunnyDog look forward to hearing your updates
@[59668] crikey that’s scarey. Hope she’s doing well now.
we did some lunge work and in-hand hacking this week, and lungeing over poles today. Mainly in walk with some very small trots because he’s itching to do more! Had the dogs helping out on the hack, he’s much braver with them along:

https://www.facebook.com/2211178712502320/posts/2826306547656197

 

[[59668]]

Thank you she is doing much better. She was getting bored by thurs so I spoke to the very and he said get on. So I did a 10 min hack on thurs and 15 on fri.
I'm away now so she will have a week off and I'll continue to slowly build when I'm back.
Love the pics! Got to say I was expecting big massive guard dogs lol!!!

 

[meleeka]

I’ll be following this for motivation. I can’t really join in as I haven’t got round to doing anything yet! Mine is also 22 so I’m very aware I’m running out of years

 

[BunnyDog]

For those who don't know me from following my other horse "Cudo" who I post about on this board also, I am an American in Pennsylvania. I took from December to July off because of Covid and just thinking it wasn't a bad idea for my horses to have an extended break to just be horses.
"Chad" is a 6 yr old that I imported from England. He came from roughly around Devon area. (I promise I may not be 100% correct on this since we have a Devon here and we have a rather large horse show there so in some conversation when I was buying him I latched on that he was near Devon. Who knows)

He is a 6 yr old KWPN. I have talked to a man who had him before the girl I got him from and he was apart of a 'lot' of young horses from Holland. He's got nice breeding and is a half brother (Same dam) to a sire in Holland and he's by a popular stud here in the USA, Zirocco Blue VDL, out of an Indoctro mare. So his breeding is very "in" here and he's a lovely personality also.

To recap he came over 2 years ago next week. We rode him Oct - Dec 2018. (Then winter hit) then we rode him late Feb 2019 - May 2019. Then he just had horrid luck. He reacted very badly to our grass and hay. He broke out in hives all over. They finally settled down and then he stood on something in the field and punctured his foot and spent a week in the hospital (Where I work thankfully) and we go him through that. Then we started riding him again (August-Sep 2019) and the hives came back. Then they got better, then he lost all the hair above his eyes on his face and I gave up and chucked him out. I said... "2019 is not your year...we'll try again in 2020." And then Covid hit.

So I have now made it to a whopping 7 rides in 2020. I rode him one day in June to see how he was, and he was good but (understandably) a bit tense. Then I focused on Cudo. Now I am making time to ride them both and we will try to keep them in work, even if it's just hacking on roads, through this winter.

So yesterday a friend came out and I let her ride Cudo. But afterwards she was nice enough to get some footage of us playing around with poles on the ground and very low jumps.

My goal for the next few months with him is the really get his butt and hind end stronger and to have him play with little small things reasonably often so as to minimize the specialness of jumping. Hubby is going to build me some cavaletti as well and we will work on exercises with stepping over things and so on.

In this video I do not look so super confident and as strong of a rider as I feel like I do on Cudo. But it's an honest depiction of where we are. I really believe in showing what it looks like, warts and all, so folks can see that we ALL struggle sometimes. Chad is a LOVELY horse but he's not Cudo and though I have owned him 2 years I still don't know him all that well thanks to our setbacks and my own choices to not ride. So we're working on becoming a team and making him into a nice young horse.

He was produced well in England, so I am playing catch up and finding how to get back to what he knows. Oh, and he grew from 16.3 when he got here, to 17.1 now and still growing. He's filled out a lot and he's a very handsome boy.

So here ya go.

Emily

 

[Northern]

I will attempt to join in!

8 year old chestnut TB mare, has had almost 2 years off during which we found and medicated KS and SI issues etc. She's been out on grass for most of the time she hasn't been ridden. This is her last ditch attempt to come back as a riding horse. So starting out with slow easy rehab work and will lead up to lunging and gentle schooling to build up the muscles she needs. Shall see how we go, if she's not up to it she can continue being a babysitter for the baby (which she is good at, as you can see!). She's pretty chilled out and I have always been able to hop on bareback and go for a wander up the road, so I hope with proper work she can come back to some level of comfort, even if it's just ponying baby off her!

 

[BunnyDog]

So Chad had his first excursion of 2020. He went for a brief cross country school at Boyd Martin's farm last night. (It's 5 miles from us and very easy to enjoy with a variety of heights, questions etc.)

I've entered him in a low (0.70m) jumper class on 10/18 and a low (0.70m also) event on 10/31. Its a great event that we're about to lose, so it's worth taking him to be able to ride around the course one more time.

After last night we can all be sure that jump height will not be a problem. But we knew that already.

Em

 

[LEC]

So Chad had his first excursion of 2020. He went for a brief cross country school at Boyd Martin's farm last night. (It's 5 miles from us and very easy to enjoy with a variety of heights, questions etc.)

I've entered him in a low (0.70m) jumper class on 10/18 and a low (0.70m also) event on 10/31. Its a great event that we're about to lose, so it's worth taking him to be able to ride around the course one more time.

After last night we can all be sure that jump height will not be a problem. But we knew that already.

Em

That is a smart horse and looks ready to crack on.

Boyd martin has the most amazing round water pen - that looks amazing for horses especially building muscle and topline. I really want one! I have seen a NZ design that could work. Slightly less fancy than Boyd's which you can change the water level on.

 

[TPO]

Looking great @BunnyDog

Huge Chad fan! Good luck for your outings

 

[tristar]

nice schooling bunny dog, how is the horse bred please?

 

[j1ffy]

nice schooling bunny dog, how is the horse bred please?

If you scroll up to her previous post on this thread she's described his breeding and background

 

[j1ffy]

So Chad had his first excursion of 2020. He went for a brief cross country school at Boyd Martin's farm last night. (It's 5 miles from us and very easy to enjoy with a variety of heights, questions etc.)

I've entered him in a low (0.70m) jumper class on 10/18 and a low (0.70m also) event on 10/31. Its a great event that we're about to lose, so it's worth taking him to be able to ride around the course one more time.

After last night we can all be sure that jump height will not be a problem. But we knew that already.

Em

I think you do yourself down (on your previous post) - you look great on him and manage a slightly wobbly youngster beautifully! He's really filled out hasn't he? His neck looks much beefier now. He looks fab

 

[BunnyDog]

Thank you all. You're very kind. I very much appreciate that what turned out to be the best thing for Chad (and me) was to wait him out a bit and give him time to grow up.

I have delved into my picture storage because he has changed shape a bit. I don't have a lot of great side conformation shots from when he arrived though. The Chad day 2 pic (Standing in front of trees) is like the only one I have from fall 2018. The pretty pic under saddle on grass is at my house in June of 2019.

The rest are from this year. And the braided mane one was from May 3 so even that was 5 months ago.

I'll try to get some new pics.

Em

 

[BunnyDog]

That is a smart horse and looks ready to crack on.

Boyd martin has the most amazing round water pen - that looks amazing for horses especially building muscle and topline. I really want one! I have seen a NZ design that could work. Slightly less fancy than Boyd's which you can change the water level on.

It's funny I was thinking that Chad could try this next time. And Cudo won't because he doesn't like when he's asked to step into water, so he goes over it. Since he will face open water jumps at some point... we're not asking him to go into water. Not to mention there was a TikTok video from his old owner schooling him into a water jump (on a lunge) that went viral for the wrong reasons. So yea... we don't need to push Cudo. But Chad is usually game for everything.

Em

 

[Jenni_]

My mare tweaked herself in the field just before lockdown, so the best I could do due to lack of non emergency vet cover at the time was turn her away then rehab her myself. Gave her a few weeks off then introduced long reining- we did that solid for two months. Thing is, without work she is a scrawny, weak looking beggar and its only now looking back on the photos I realise just how much better she is looking. There's only 20kg of weight gain between the pictures. I got back on her to start ridden work properly mid June and we haven't looked back.

 

[mavandkaz]

So Shambles has continued to be lunges, slowly building up the amount of trot work and introducing raised poles. Although weak, he has been moving really well, so decided it was time to sit on him. Nearly a year ago to the today I had my first sit on my dude - he couldn't have cared less. ?

He is now going for a 40min hack around the field 1-2 times a week with my friend who is tiny and light weight. I'm restraining myself from riding him until he builds up more back muscle.
He also offered a trot under saddle today, and looked to be moving well.
Next step is to slowly extend the time under saddle, but will keep it to just 2 sessions a week for quite a while yet.
So much love for this boy - he has surpassed all expectations.

 

[mavandkaz]

Just a little update from me as am so pleased my boy.
Have managed to find a sharer for my other horse so now have a bit more time for Shambles, so he's done a fair bit this week. Due to the clocks changing I'm restricted to the school during the week which is not ideal, but workable.
So Wednesday he had his first ridden schooling session (walk only). But it was so nice to be back doing what we both love most, and it was like coming home. (I love my little coblet, and she tries hard but it's just not the same). He was happy to alternate between long and low, and picking up into a contact. And then we ran through some lateral work - leg yield, shoulder in and Travers. He just makes it so easy, couldn't stop grinning ?
Today, my friend rode him out for a hack with me on coblet. He was fab, chilled out but walking out. Managed to do a full loop, so out for 1hr 20, his longest to date. He came back marching out with his ears pricked. ? he keeps getting stronger. He might actually still have a career as a ridden horse. So happy right now.

 

[Ranyhyn]

Just started with my 19YO DWB. She's got arthritis so is on premier flex ha and monitoring her to see if its worth injecting her. Only for light work so i can start riding out with daughter.