My horse has been out of work for a couple years because she has had health issue after health issue after health issue. We have been cleared to start getting a bit more training in which i am doing through groundwork, lunging and going for walks.
She has obviously lost a lot of muscle mass over the years of not working, mainly her topline and backend are lacking muscle mass. I am doing a lot of hill work and transitions with her but also recently starting doing trot poles.
My question is, do the flat poles also work well enough in the beginning to build muscle on her topline? Every website/blog/training plan i’ve seen only mentions raised poles but no flat poles so i’m a little lost.
I do eventually want to move up to raised trot poles but she has never done any sort of pole work before and she is still struggling a bit with placing her feet correctly and not jumping over the poles. So i don’t feel comfortable raising them at this moment.