Holistic Horse

18/04/2025

15/08/2024

Bones of limbs and sacrum - an adult horse and stillborn foal.
It is incredible how those immature bones look! Sometimes their shape is not even close to what it will look in years and look at those growth plates!
(Note - not to scale)

28/04/2024

Understand Horses contributors, Rosa Verwijs and Justine Harrison, have consulted with The British Horse Society Horse Care & Welfare team to produce a useful new guide explaining what stress is, what causes it, how it can impact the horse, how to recognise signs of stress and what you can do to reduce it.

ℹ️ You can find the guide on the BHS website here 👉 bhs.org.uk/horse-care-and-welfare/behaviour/equine-stress

06/08/2023

Reposting this diagram, as there’s a few posts around at the moment about lunging to encourage a horse to be supple… 🫣

From this super diagram from Gail William’s book, you can really appreciate how limited the lateral flexion ability of the thoroacolumbar and sacral portion of the spinal column is very restricted. So when we’re asking a horse to lunge, and they’re not strong enough in their core and gluteal muscles, the likelihood that they will overflex through their neck in compensation and fall in through the shoulder is high. Will constantly straining the body in circles whilst the weak muscles aren’t able to switch on make this any better? Not likely.

This is where specific groundwork patterns and exercises come into play in order to develop the correct muscles, so that when a horse executes a turn they are prepared in their body to do so in good balance without detriment to joints.

This leads me onto why lunging is classically not good for an arthritic horse. The repetitive strain on joints isn’t good, but (especially in chronic cases) compensatory muscle patterns create the development of negative postural muscles which mean that a horse isn’t able to engage the correct ones during lunging, leading to almost a double negative effect on pathological joints.

In these cases, consider a groundwork programme that includes low intensity mobilisation exercises at the guidance of your veterinary physiotherapist to develop key postural muscles for positive posture and engagement. I talk about this more in the groundwork programme I’ve produced on the website via the online shop. Link here: https://vetphysiophyle.co.uk/product/stage-1-groundwork-programme-e-book/

23/06/2023

https://www.avivacommunityfund.co.uk/p/healing-the-environment-healing-the-people

💛 Rewild an outdoor therapy space on a barren plot of land to encourage reconnection, relationships and well-being through nature and nurture

07/06/2023