Conditioning the older horse

[fototropic]

My daughter will be using our older TB mare, Lily, that we rescued about 2 years ago. Lily has recovered nicely and we've found, to our delight, that she is very sweet, well trained and willing under saddle. She still lacks muscling, especially along her topline and is hard to keep weight on. Anna, my daughter, has made learning how to properly condition an older horse as one of her 4-H goals. Can anyone here suggest a program for conditioning or point her in the right direction for sources?

[monicabee]

When I was getting Cedar going under saddle I read a fair amount on conditioning a brood mare, including Jessica Jahiel. We did not think Cedar had been a broodmare, but starvation drains the body in a similar way and she had a serious lack of muscle. At first, ten minutes of walk was clearly quite tiring. By the time of the show, she was cantering, though I could feel her getting tired at the end of the day.

After two years of recovery time, your mare probably doesn't need quite such a conservative program, but here's the article from Jessica Jahiel - the gist of it is "go slow so you can go fast later!" I know you are thinking about the lack of muscle, but she points out that it is the things you can't see, bones, tendons and ligaments, that take the longest.

www.horse-sense.org/archives/recobroo.php

And Cedar's start and show debut:

blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsebytes/archives/134251.asp

blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsebytes/archives/146957.asp

Another resource that gives some pointers on figuring out whether you are stressing your horse (its about young horses but applies equally well to restarting them):

theinsidepoop.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=31:

Christine King has some more articles on her website.