Getting Horse Fit After Injury

[CatchMeIfUCan]

My 9 yr old, OTTB eventer has been on complete stall rest (no turnout or handwalking) since April 25 due to a laceration on his hock. If you want to see the healing process pictures, here's the album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014600&id=1153950040&l=0b910e657f

He was just cleared for full work and turnout by the vet yesterday. I have never brought a horse back to work after stall rest like this. What type of work should I start him up with to bring back his level of fitness? I was thinking of starting him off with just a lot of walking with a bit of long and low trot mixed in. We do have one "big" hill and a couple of rolling ones to walk up as well. How many weeks do you think it will take to get him back in shape for training level?

We are almost qualified for AECs, just need to have 2 clean cross country rounds, and I would really like to be able to go because I live close to Lamplight! Would running him at Maui Jim on the weekend of July 9-12 be too soon if I didn't press him for time? Obviously these questions are hard to answer without full knowledge of my horse and I, but I'm just looking for other opinions or WWYDs on the topic as I want to do the 100% best for my horse without pushing him too hard. AECs aren't worth it if it will hurt my horse in the qualification process! I just moved away from my eventing coach and have not found a good eventer in the Madison area to take lessons from (just hunter/jumper trainers) or else I would ask my trainer first. I am going to start riding him today and get a feel for his what his fitness level is like as of now.

Background info on the horse:
I have had him since he just turned 3. He has evented since he was 5, with a maximum of 7 shows a year, and has been showing training level for 3 years. He knows his job, is pretty good at dressage, is a pretty fit guy, and has no problems with heat (he does sweat a lot though, but always drinks a ton of water and is on daily electrolytes). He had most of the winter off, with light hacks and dressage schools. I started riding him again 5-6 days week in March, he had done 5 gallops sets (we do 10 min walk, 20 min trot, 3x3 canters at training speed with 2 min walk in between, 15 minute cool out), and had 2 stadium jump schools before he was injured. Here are all of his pictures just to get a feel for what he looks like normally: http://community.webshots.com/user/catchme419

Sorry this got a little long! I just wanted to include all information that might be helpful. Thanks so much for your thoughts!

[GotSpots]

If he's been on complete stall rest for the last two months, then yes, I would say Maui Jim is way too soon to consider running. Remember that in that time he's been sitting he's not been doing anything to keep his tendons tight or his joints moving, and you will never hurt yourself going slower rather than faster. Here's what I would start with, if he was mine:

1st week: Handwalk the first couple of days, then turnout for half day in small paddock (possibly with ace the first couple of days if he's one who wants to be stupid). After the first 3 days of TO, start walking under tack for 15 minutes.

2nd week: transition slowly to full day turnout, walking under tack 20 minutes, possibly add a couple of very short trots.

3rd week: back to regular turnout schedule, start upping feed again, walk/trot flatwork (no lateral, but some connection), a few short canters.

4th week: recheck by vet to make sure we're in good shape; w-t-c full work.

5th week: start back jumping (first time should be very easy); return to full work.

This is conservative, but with a horse who has been on complete stall rest, I err on the side of being conservative - the last thing you want to do is re-injure something or create a new issue from stressing something that became soft. For a comparison, I had one who did an avulsion fracture in his hock the last week in February. He was on complete stall rest for two months (all of March, all of April), and then followed a similar program as above. He wasn't back to jumping until early June, and competed at a level below where he had been competing at the end of June. Fractures are different from lacerations (and different issues - we were lucky that we did not have any soft tissue involvement) but prolonged stall rest is, I think, hard on them.

[Peggy]

Typically, you're looking at spending the same amount of time getting them back to where they were as the time they spent off. Yours had about two months off, so it will be two months to get him back.

For one in our barn that had about the same amount of time off due to a suspected injury, but had been hand-walked the entire time, it went something like this: saddle walk a week, then saddle walk with increasing trot increments, building from 5 to 15 minutes of trot, then start canter in 5-minute increments.