My friend's new young horse has a stifle injury right now, and while we don't think it's serious, it really got me thinking about strengthening Walker's stifle.
Lately I've been really trying to attack the holes in Walker's physical fitness. It is impossible for him to perform the way I want him to if he isn't strong enough, and I think that sometimes I forget that I have to completely rebuild all those muscles that existed before he got sick.
On Friday I decided to do some hill work and work over caveletti at the walk in order to strengthen his stifle, and I was really impressed with how he took to it. Besides the fact that he did not want to leave the other horses and go up and down hills a billion times, I could really feel him using himself better. When we would turn to go up the hill, he would immediately round up onto the bit as he used his butt.
Because he was so unimpressed with this plan of mine, we only went up and down my chosen hill about 5 times because every time we got back to the top, we had to have a "conversation" about how he was going to keep doing this exercise and not return to his friends.
Five times wasn't really long enough for me so I set up a few caveletti in the arena when we got back and walked over those as well. Walker successfully managed to kick each and everyone of them with his back legs. We will get it.
The other big thing I'm working on is Walker's stiffness. Riding Walker these days is akin to riding an ironing board. And now it is starting to affect other things, like picking up the incorrect lead, not wanting to do circles, ignoring my inside leg, etc.
Obviously I have simply been counteracting this with a ton of bending and circle exercises, but I also got the princess a massage Friday night. Unfortunately, he was a little lame/sore from all the hill work (which was on gravel - i.e. the devil to Walker's toesies) but I think I'm going to get him regular body work this time instead of on an "as needed" basis.
So today the princess got a day off. Lucky devil.
Hill work is my fave, that being said, body work on a regular basis sounds nice, I always hope one day I can afford to get body work done on ME on a regular basis! :D
ReplyDeleteI have tried both now, and I prefer hill work. It's a nice cool down or warm up for me, and I don't feel like we're working that hard.
DeleteI cannot afford to get body work done regularly, but I cannot afford anything so I just keep charging my life to my VISA.
Stifles are the bane of my existence, meh! Wish we had hills at my barn :)
ReplyDeleteYeah. To be honest, I have never put much thought into them since I wouldn't necessarily assume that that WP is that demanding on stifles, but now that we are branching out, I feel it is my duty.
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