From Dangerous to Pony Club - A Water Treadmill Case Study

Sleibh, a 5 yo Connie was purchased for a teenage girl to move up from her smaller pony and to do pony club activities. 

But as he was young and green his owner thought it best to send him for schooling livery where her daughter could also go and have lessons with him so they could build their bond together.

Unfortunately there were a few small incidences of shooting forward when first mounted, this was put down to just being young and green. Until one day a few weeks in where he was mounted and as he walked forwards bronked causing fairly significant injuries to his rider. 

At this point Sleibh saw the physio who couldn’t find anything remarkable so referred to the vet for a work up. 

The vets X-rayd back and neck and performed a lameness work up. There were some findings on the X-rays of ‘undetermined clinical significance’ potentially requiring further investigation. 

It was suggested that he was potentially dangerous and his prospect of being a ridden pony especially for a young girl was low.  

Sleibh's owner got in touch with Carole who visited to see if she could see anything from a chiropractic point of view. 

At this appointment Carole found a pony that was sore around his sacroiliac but also very weak and not really strong enough to carry a rider for anything strenuous. He was also very nervous of being approached physically and quite jumpy. It was quite possible that the X-ray findings were coincidental findings and that potentially if the pony were strong enough for the job it was doing that he would be fine. 

It was decided that he would come in as a case study for 6 weeks of strengthening work and then see where we were at. 

Sleibh spent the first few days having treatment both chiro and Indiba to make him more comfortable and then set about a plan including postural training and water treadmill. 

The photos speak for themselves. Within a short period of time Sleibh was much more confident in himself but also appearing physically so much stronger. 

Towards the end of the 6 weeks we considered he was ready to start light ridden work. We first consulted our saddler Kerry Boyd who confirmed the saddle he had was far too narrow. With a new saddle we had Emily Barker a freelance lightweight rider come and ride him for the first time. He was great, all the hard work had paid off. The pony doesn’t have a bad bone in his body. 

Luckily Sleibh lives locally so Emily was able to continue riding him during the transition to home. 

Over the summer his mum had ridden him and even taken him to camp. 

Then more recently we had the best news - that he has been passed over successfully to the teenage daughter and they are doing so well together.