In Feb my horse suffered the exact same injury. My rehab experience is discussed in my blog as well, but here’s the details:
My rehab plan is a year long plan and I have been told to expect a return to full work (eventing).
I’m in my sixth month rehabbing (SDFT core lesion). We are just adding in trot work. Note, I think above all the rehab plan depends on what the injury is, and what is right for that horse.
In my case, we stalled for the first 60 days.
I followed a strict rehab protocol that my vet gave me, it originally came from UC Davis, there is a vet there, I’m thinking her name is Carol Gilis (I might have spelled her name wrong). The sheet I have is a general rehab protocol we tailored to my horse.
I did stem cell and PRP.
I used a game ready for the first 30 days to deal with the acute trauma/swelling phase.
I also did cold laser, but that’s a huge discussion and I don’t know enough about it to really explain it and I think there are lots of different lasers on the market, being used differently by different vets. I think it helped and I think it was beneficial.
First 30 days: 15 mins of hand walking, twice a day.
Days 30-60: worked up to 40 mins of hand walking.
Day 60: check up ultrasound, with significant healing.
Days 60-90: worked up to 60 mins hand walking.
Day 60-90: supervised turn out, with hay as a distractor in a 24x24 pen for up to three hours a day
Day 90: turn out in a small pen 16x 36 24/7
Days 90-120: rode at a walk 30 mins/day
Day 120 - check up ultrasound with even more significant healing - the lesion is only barely visable at an acute angle of the ultrasound wand - ie. you’d have to go looking for it
Days 120-150: worked up to 1 hour of walking/day
Starting at Day 150 we changed his turn out to a large grass paddock, about 80x120 (alone) about 16 hours overnight and stalled during the day because of the summer heat.
Days 150-180: add 2 mins of trot each week, so week 1 you trot 2 mins a day, week 2 you trot 4 mins a day, etc (at the end of this month, you’re up to 8 mins of trot/day)
Days 180-210: continue to add trotting at 2 mins/week, add in canter (my plan says to add 5 mins every two weeks, I will probably do it in two min/week like I did trot) (at the end of this month you’re up to 16 mins of trot/day and 8 mins of canter/day)
Day 210-240 (we’re up to month 8 at this point), same as days 180-210, adding in (at the end of this month you’re up to 24 mins of trot/day and 16 mins of canter/day)
Day 240-270 full flat work (month 9)
Day 270-300 (month 10) begin jumping
This is all assuming no flare ups and continued clear ultrasounds.
I have 