Bringing Your Horse Back into Work

Bringing a horse back into work after a period of time off can be a challenging and daunting prospect. Inevitably, the path to full fitness can be a winding one, and horses wouldn't be horses if they didn't give us a few bumps in the road on the way.

However, this time is also a fantastic opportunity for a new start and one that I’ve been through recently with my own horse, Toby. I thought you might be interested to seeing how I brought him back into work, so in this article, I share with you how I did it.

Time for a Holiday

Following our lecture demonstration at Moulton College last September, where Toby played a starring role, I decided to give him the winter off. He had his shoes taken off in October and was turned out in the field and for a few months I just let him be a horse. He grew his winter coat, got covered in mud and thoroughly enjoyed himself.

I think it's good for horses to occasionally have time off work and Toby certainly benefitted from some down time and so did I.

Making a Plan

I often get asked, what is the best way to bring a horse back into work, and how long should it take? The honest answer is, it depends on your horse, your situation, the reason why they had time off, how fit they've been before etc.

The plan with Toby was to bring him back into work gradually, starting with in-hand work in January, and then building up in February and March. The aim was to have him fit and ready for the nicer weather and lighter days, so we could enjoy hacking, go on some fun rides and potentially get out to do some show jumping and other activities too.

Back to Work

In January, we started off with walk work. I think walk is a really important gait and has so many benefits. This is a topic that has been covered in a previous article Understanding & Assessing Your Horse's Movement: Part 1 - The Biomechanics of Walk

This pace is also covered in detail in the on-demand recorded webinar The Biomechanics of Walk. This recorded webinar studies the variations between different types of walk from collected to extended and the Spanish walk to free walk on a long rein. 

It also looks at problems in the walk from irregularities such as a lateral walk to asymmetry and straightness issues. This on-demand webinar is full of techniques and exercises to improve the gait and top tips for improving the walk to gain higher marks in dressage tests.

The Biomechanics of Walk

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Getting those steps in but not under saddle is such a good thing to do, so long-reining, in-hand work and lungeing. For Toby and I, we did all this early walk work on long lines. I would count the laps of the arena that we were doing. Also, at this stage, because he was barefoot, sticking to the softer surfaces was best for him.

This video below is me explaining and demonstrating with Toby the walk pole routine that we were doing at that stage of our fitness journey.

Time to Trot

In February, I started to introduce trot, again on the long reins. I know a lot of fitness routines recommend that you get on the horse and all your initial trot work should be in straight lines. However, I'm a bit of a believer that the horse needs to be muscularly fit before we get on board. I felt that from a posture perspective Toby wasn't quite ready and I wanted to get him stronger and fitter before I started riding him.

I think it’s really important that we make sure that the horse is comfortable and able to perform the movements without the rider first.

The trot work included lots of figures of eight and trot poles were introduced too. It was really interesting to see how much Toby’s trot improved using the trot poles. The first time he went through the poles he had a short over-track and his trot was quite uninspiring. But in just one session, his stride length improved and his outline - he came up at the base of the neck, dropped his head and worked better through his back.

This video shows you Toby on only his second session trotting and doing polework.

In the third video (see below) we demonstrate more advanced trot poles that we moved onto later on in his fitness programme. I hope that you can really see the difference in the quality of the trot pace and how the polework really helps.

Upping the Fitness

I also introduced canter on the lunge without a rider. The advantage of lungeing in canter versus long reining is that on the lunge, you can get a bigger circle. Of course, the horse is constantly turning, but on a bigger circle you are closer to a straight line and you are able to get them going a little bit more forward. You can get, perhaps get them going a little bit more forward on the long range.

A really good exercise that I enjoyed doing with Toby is to go over the trot poles, pick up canter for half a circle, then back to trot and through the poles again. Using canter, trot, canter transitions, as well as periods of time cantering really stimulates the lumbar sacral region and gets the back moving in a positive way. Also, the change of back movement between the two gaits is quite stimulating.

This exercise does get the horse thinking forward but also thinking about their feet. When they come to the trot poles they have to half halt and rebalance to negotiate the poles well. This exercise can be good fun and you can set yourself and your horse a challenge to see how close you can get to the poles before you ask for the transition to trot. Below is a video of us working on the canter, trot pole exercise.

Canter work is an important part of fitness and I've spoken about this quite a lot before, horses need to be cardiovascularly fit. This is something that we all need to factor into our training whatever discipline we do.

Take your Time

I also get asked how long does it take to get a horse fit. This is a difficult one to answer – it could take six weeks, or eight – maybe 14. There are many factors to consider, such as how long has your horse had off, how fit do you want your horse to be. You also need to consider any setbacks you may encounter during your fitness work. I think it's important not to have a time pressure, because you're then tempted to push through regardless of any problems that may arise.

It wasn’t all plain sailing and there were a few bumps in the road for us. It was a really cold, wet, miserable February. I found that particularly tough and not inspiring for getting going again. Also, Toby had an allergic reaction to something where his whole body came up in lumps. Fortunately, this didn’t last for long. You can read more about his allergy issues in my article, Managing Allergies. He also had a period of time where he got a bruised foot. As with all horses, they're great levellers, but it's a matter of taking your time and listening to your horse.

Bringing Toby back into the work did take longer than I would have liked, but it's been a fantastic journey. The first time I rode Toby in the arena - wow, he felt fantastic. From a training perspective, he felt like he hadn't had any time off at all. In fact, I think he came back better for the break. Before his holiday we had been working on teaching him flying changes, and I think that they're even better than they were before I turned him away.

If you have enjoyed this slightly different article that is more of a behind the scenes look at what I do with my own horses, please let me know in the comments. Also, if there are any topics you would like covering, pop your ideas below.

Happy Riding Everyone!

Love Gillian xx