Bringing back to work

[Mermaid2]

Hi there, my horse has been on box rest for four weeks following cut to tendon area. He's back out in field now and i've got to get back into routine.

Any ideas where best place to start, was gonna try lungeing and go from there. Don't want to rush anything. Never had badly injured horse before.

I would go under saddle to start with. If you lunge it puts lots of stress on his tendon, which I'm assuming was damaged with the 4 weeks box rest? Plus he can mess around so much on the lunge. Even steady horses in work can decide that running round at a million miles an hour on a tight circle is good fun.

Also walk him in hand. Both in the paddock so he can graze and out and about. Long reining might be an idea as you have more control.

Good luck with the injury.

Hi Calisto, by under saddle do you mean ride him, haven't heard that phrase before.

good idea about holding off on the lunge. Have tried long reining before so once he seems ready will give it ago.

He actually had a nasty cut on his pastern which was very close to going into his tendon sheath so we were very lucky.

We've brought horses back into work and also started from scratch with unbroken horses.

In both cases we'd recommend long reining. More control and not so tough on them as lunging. You could start with 10 minutes a day and then build up to 30 minutes.

I agree that gentle ridden walking exercise -ideally on the road - would then be the next step.

You may want to ask you vet about tendon boots or bandages to wear whilst long reining etc - depending on the sensitivity of the tendon area.

Yes, under saddle = ridden. A slow build up on road work is really good at hardening tendons and ligaments. I would just treat him like he has been turned away for 6 months. He is bound to be a bit skittish after being stuck in a stable for so long so I think the more control you have the better to start with.