The many stages of rehab

[WavyRider]

In your experience, what are the “stages” of rehabbing a horse after a significant period off due to an injury or illness before the horse gets back to “normal”?

Examples I’ve heard about from other people:
Acute injury, horse is miserable
Horse is out of life threatening danger but very subdued
Horse’s personality starts to return, but is very needy and over emotional
Horse returns to work and is an angel
Horse’s workload increases, horse feels great physically but struggles mentally with the increased workload and needs more stimulation than normal during rides - varied routine, poles, extra transitions etc

[Scribbler]

@WavyRider

In your experience, what are the “stages” of rehabbing a horse after a significant period off due to an injury or illness before the horse gets back to “normal”?

Examples I’ve heard about from other people:
Acute injury, horse is miserable
Horse is out of life threatening danger but very subdued
Horse’s personality starts to return, but is very needy and over emotional
Horse returns to work and is an angel
Horse’s workload increases, horse feels great physically but struggles mentally with the increased workload and needs more stimulation than normal during rides - varied routine, poles, extra transitions etc

This is going to depend so much on type of injury or illness, horses general energy level and your facilities. I’ve never had to do serious rehab (touch wood). Watching other people’s horses though, my observation is that a hot performance horse with something like a moderate suspensory injury on stall rest quickly loses its mind and needs tranqs to do the prescribed 10 minute rehab handwalking without blowing up a reinjuring things.

After any significant time off a horse will lose performance muscles and need to return in a graduated way to things like jumps and collected work.

[WavyRider]

Yeah… in a lot of ways, it seems like the horse regresses not just physically but also mentally. I assume bringing back, say, a 10 year old who feels like a 7 year old during rehab will take a lot less than three years, but it still almost seems like restarting the horse.

[Texarkana]

@WavyRider

Horse is out of life threatening danger but very subdued

This made me LOL!

“Subdued” is something I have never experienced at this stage, unless with chemical assistance.

[WavyRider]

That particular case was a major illness. I assume the horse was still not 100% well after the illness but was no longer in life threatening danger, just on the upswing.

[Texarkana]

I laid up hundreds of horses for every reason under the sun in my younger years.

Stages are more like:

OMG I might lose my horse to this.
OMG my horse isn’t going to die, but is most definitely going to kill himself.
OMG my horse is probably going to kill me, too.
OMG horse is back to normal but I’m a ball of anxiety.
Things are finally back to normal for real.

[Gardenhorse]

@Texarkana

I laid up hundreds of horses for every reason under the sun in my younger years.

Stages are more like:

OMG I might lose my horse to this.
OMG my horse isn’t going to die, but is most definitely going to kill himself.
OMG my horse is probably going to kill me, too.
OMG horse is back to normal but I’m a ball of anxiety.
Things are finally back to normal for real.

I think you left out the:
OMG I’m going to kill this horse if it doesn’t stop self-sabotaging it’s own recovery stage

That’s the one I’m currently in.

[theresak]

@WavyRider

That particular case was a major illness. I assume the horse was still not 100% well after the illness but was no longer in life threatening danger, just on the upswing.

I feel like illness rehab is totally different from rehabbing something like a soft tissue injury. Depending on the treatment for the illness, the horse could still be dealing with some side effects of the treatment/medications. Also depending on they illness, lots of base fitness could have been lost. I would just do more walking than you think, try engaging them mentally with something like clicker training, and keep investigating if the horse has any secondary effects/pain from the illness or treatments that haven’t resolved yet.

[erinmeri]

@Texarkana

I laid up hundreds of horses for every reason under the sun in my younger years.

Stages are more like:

OMG I might lose my horse to this.
OMG my horse isn’t going to die, but is most definitely going to kill himself.
OMG my horse is probably going to kill me, too.
OMG horse is back to normal but I’m a ball of anxiety.
Things are finally back to normal for real.

I concur!

[Scribbler]

Speaking from personal experience.

When I get a viral disease the recovery can be long and slow (flu, COVID). I’ve never had an insect borne illness but people report long term malaise from that.

When I’ve broken a bone, the enforced immobility has made me clumsy and out of shape after recovery. But it hasn’t had the same malaise as viral illness.

[IPEsq]

@Gardenhorse

@Texarkana

I laid up hundreds of horses for every reason under the sun in my younger years.

Stages are more like:

OMG I might lose my horse to this.
OMG my horse isn’t going to die, but is most definitely going to kill himself.
OMG my horse is probably going to kill me, too.
OMG horse is back to normal but I’m a ball of anxiety.
Things are finally back to normal for real.

I think you left out the:
OMG I’m going to kill this horse if it doesn’t stop self-sabotaging it’s own recovery stage

That’s the one I’m currently in.

SAME!