Pony Time

One of the horses I have in for training right now is a 3 yr old paint gelding. His owners had begun his training as a 2 yr old, but soon felt that they needed professional help. They brought the horse for training and everything was progressing nicely. Unfortunatly, once serious training began (mounted work), the colt began to show stifle problems. After the initial lameness began, I laid him off for 3 days and then began hand walking. The stifles soon showed no signs of lameness and training began again. In hand ground work for a week in conjunction with 15-20 minutes hand walking. I then began under saddle work, again stifle soreness. The colt is fairly light muscled and tall (15.3 hds), and to look at him he looks like a two year old. With layoff, he is sound until training escalates. So now I am going to concentrate on improving his conditioning. I have been handwalking him daily for two weeks now and I began ponying him this weekend for 30 minutes at a walk. I will continue this for a couple more weeks until he can comfortably walk/trot for an hour. His lameness strongly suggests weak stifles instead of injured stifles and hopefully better conditioning will take care of the problem. Either way, 4 weeks of in hand work will surely make him a supple and light mouthed ride. A win - win situation.