|
Name
|
Age
|
Type
|
Job
|
|
Lottie
|
14
|
Irish Sports Horse
|
Dressage/ Allrounder
|
Ruth bought Lottie five years ago from a local riding
school after having regular lessons together. The pair competed in a few unaffiliated
dressage competitions where they started to show some promising results. The
following year Ruth decided to affiliate to British Dressage, quickly going up
through the levels and regularly gaining fantastic scores of over 70%. Lottie
is actually a brilliant allrounder as she also a loves to jump, enjoys a hack
and has proved bold on the hunting field. Ruth planned on competing Lottie at
medium level British Dressage in the 2020 season.
Ruth decided to bring Lottie to Moulton Equine Therapy
Centre in March 2020. With the lambing season ahead and a busy work schedule Ruth
did not think she would be able to maintain Lottie’s fitness regime for the
coming competition season. Lottie had been swimming and used an aqua treadmill
before so there was no doubt that she would cope well with the programme that
we designed for her.
Lottie stayed
at the Equine Therapy Centre for two weeks. Her comprehensive programme
consisted of working in deep water on the aqua treadmill to increase hind limb
engagement and build core strength and condition along with a tailored swimming
programme to increase her cardiovascular fitness. At the weekends, Ruth took
advantage of our off road hacking so Lottie had a very varied and pretty
intense work programme during her stay.
Before
After
This year has been very disappointing for most in the equestrian industry and is particularly frustrating for Ruth as an owner that was so committed to her horse’s development and wellbeing that her extra effort in sending her horse to a centre such as ours to kickstart her season essentially ended with Lottie being turned away while the county was in lockdown
Hopefully with restrictions eased, Ruth will
now be able to get back on track with Lottie’s training at home and will manage
an outing by the end of the year. 
