From: Linda Rickman
Hi Jessica:
I have been reading your letters with great enjoyment for several months now, and I always seem to find at least one letter a week that I save for future reference. My question is this ...
I have a 5 year old (very high strung) TB mare who successfully underwent colic surgery three months ago. Following all doctor's orders, she has been on turnout (first alone and restricted, and for the last month with my gelding ... still restricted hours) for the last two months. Today we are planning to begin her reconditioning work. This mare has been quite a challenge (bordering on dangerous at times) since I bought her out of a field of cows where she had been standing for her first three years, but we really thought she had turned the corner and was turning into a horse (my daughter had taken her to her first hunter show in November and took reserve champion) when she coliced and underwent surgery December 7. She has reconditioned herself somewhat in the field as it is hilly and she is very rarely idle when she is out. I plan to begin with AT LEAST two weeks of walk-work in the arena beginning at about 15 minutes and increasing her time and the bending and flexing exercises she does during that time, but I am unsure exactly where to go from there. Being a young mare who conditions easily, I want to be careful not to go too fast, but I need to find some way to accomplish my goal while keeping both the mare and my daughter interested in what they are doing. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Again ... thanks for being there for so many of us who are looking for help!
Linda Rickman
Conditioning takes time -- horses don't lose their conditioning as rapidly as humans do, but no matter how quickly a horse can gain muscle strength, that isn't full conditioning. Muscles can be built and re-built comparatively easily and quickly -- VERY quickly with some horses -- but it takes a year or more to build up bones and support structures (tendons and ligaments). If this mare was worth the investment in colic surgery, she's worth taking the time to build up slowly.
Two weeks of walk-work in fifteen-minute sessions is a good idea. If you know how to longe a horse correctly, or if your daughter does, this is a good way to provide some gentle exercise without the rider's weight added. It will also allow you to work on obedience at the same time. If you do this, use only a longeing cavesson and longeline and whip -- no sidereins or other "accessories" -- and keep the mare at walk and gentle trot, on the largest possible circle (your longeline should be at least 30' long).
Once she's had a few weeks of walk-trot longeing, with the sessions gradually increasing in length until she is working quietly for ten or twelve minutes in each direction, she should be well able to handle fifteen or twenty minutes of ridden work. Slow work -- walking -- on straight lines and wide turns should be the goal for the first couple of weeks, until you've built up the time to an hour by adding five minutes a day. When you get to an hour, don't add more time, but begin to incorporate trots -- just a few minutes at first, then adding a few minutes of trotting each day until her work sessions are about half walk and half trot, with lots of transitions. At that point, start in with ring figures -- large circles, smaller turns, elementary lateral work.
You don't have to work her every day -- in fact, she'll benefit from a day or two off each week (with extra turnout time instead of ridden work).
Talk to your veterinarian about this, and about her diet -- he'll be able to help you plan her feeding program so that she can get her full complement of nutrients and lots of roughage (probably soft hay that won't challenge her incision), without getting so much high-energy feed that she jumps out of her skin. Horses have NO concept of convalescence; if you feed her like a horse with high-energy needs, she'll bounce off the walls and set herself up for an injury.
Keeping the mare interested won't be difficult -- she'll respond to the handler's level of interest. In other words, her interest and attention span will be PRECISELY as long as your daughter's! ;-)
Keeping your daughter interested will be another matter entirely. I would suggest two things: one is that you put a tape-player in the arena, so that she can do her longeing and riding to music -- it really helps. The other is that she keep a journal, and write down the details of every session and every ride -- what they did and how everything went. If she really wants to have fun with the journal, she -- or you -- can take pictures of the mare every two or three weeks, doing the same thing (walk and trot, for instance, on the longe and under saddle), and watch how the mare's body shape changes in response to her exercise/conditioning program. It's a lot of fun, because although your daughter may not be able to feel or see an enormous difference in a horse she sees every day, a correctly-worked horse gets better-looking all the time, and she WILL be able to see the development and the difference in photos taken at two- or three-week intervals. This can be VERY encouraging to a rider. ;-)
Jessica
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