Bringing back to fitness after long stable rest.

[Lilly Harvey]

Hiya,
my Welsh pony (Harvey), has recently been confirmed well after a very long spell of stable rest (due to laminitis), and I was wondering what type of fitness programme I should be using to bring him back to fitness.
I have also noticed he is a bit lope sided (if that makes any sence) so what type of things should I be doing to get him level again.

Any help will be appriciated.

[Esther.D]

The main things I did to bring the 2 shetlands back into work after a bout of laminitis last year were:

1, get the farrier out to check the laminitis was 100% gone and to trim the hooves so there was no unevenness
2, used lots of turnout (strip grazed with electric fencing) to allow them to exercise themselves without getting too much grass
3, started very gently at first - a few walks to start out with to see how they were..no trotting on the road for a good few weeks until I was 100% sure they were up to it.

[galadriel]

This series of articles is really good :)
http://www.horse-sense.org/index/Riding_and_Training/Conditioning/

If you over-work the weak side of a lopsided horse, you make him lopsided the other way. The best thing to do, I think, is just to make sure that you ask him to strengthen up and supple up on both sides, and if you do a fair amount of work on both sides, you will eventually get a pretty even horse.