CoRE Horsemanship

12/04/2026

14/02/2026

Will you be my Valentine? 💘

©️Emily Cole Illustrations

22/01/2026

Razzle would like to report a crime…..🫣

07/01/2026

Just a reminder! Especially when there’s no running water and just keeping horses alive is apparently an all day exercise 😅

Let’s normalise being depressed in January.

It’s cold, it’s dark, our bank accounts are on life support, and somehow this month lasts about 74 days. The horses are all either fresher than the current arctic blast or as miserable as Doris from HR (or both), and for some reason New Year’s resolutions are a thing which means we’ve all decided to quit eating, drinking, doing anything remotely joyful and all join the gym we will never visit and eat kale smoothies.

Alongside this festive cheer has disappeared off leaving nothing on the horizon to look forward to apart from Easter eggs. (Side note, when is too early to eat your first Easter egg? Asking for a friend…) and most of us are back at work (or never escaped work in the first place) and have now resorted to googling exotic holidays that we absolutely cannot afford, all while reflecting on the questionable life choices we made 20 years ago — back before anyone warned us that owning horses would cost not just our money, but our hopes, dreams, and entire soul.

So if you’re feeling low, behind, tired, unmotivated, or generally held together by biscuits — you’re not alone. You don’t have to smash every resolution in January. You are allowed a gin, a snack, a nap, or all three at once if it helps.

And your horses? They do not care if you don’t ride. They’re too busy plotting chaos or sulking about the mud/ice and would rather you not take their rug off anyway. Honestly, they’d prefer if you just delivered snacks, scratched their forehead, and quietly apologised for your existence like a good human.

31/12/2025

The sun setting on 2025. Happy New year from our herd to yours, here’s to the year of the horse 🐴💕

18/11/2025

A horses first experience of a saddle doesn’t need to be stressful or explosive. It can, and should, be a positive experience.

Below is Ru’s first session wearing the saddle girthed up and moving at a walk and trot in preparation for him going away to be started under saddle, and to enable me to complete a full saddle fit to ensure he had a saddle that fitted well for the next stage of training.

There were 2-3 sessions leading up to this that helped to prepare him for this moment. We started with ensuring he was confident with the rope being thrown over his back on both sides, then progressed to a saddle pad being thrown on and off on both sides, then repeating with the saddle on both sides, observing his body language throughout and working at his pace.

Once he was confident with all of these, we then did some girth simulations with a rope around the girth area, ensuring he felt confident with pressure being applied to tighten it and then loosen it at a standstill and when moving. And then we pieced all of these bits together and the result was a horse who felt safe and confident enough to experiment with his movement whilst staying emotionally regulated!

10/11/2025

Lovely Irish Draught Halley, my biggest client who must be over 17hh and built like a tank! Isn’t she beautiful?!

We’ve spent the summer bringing her back into work and have recently started getting her back under saddle too. She has been an angel, but is surprisingly athletic and often shows off her acrobatic skills on the ground during our warm ups!

08/11/2025

Last Sunday I spent 4 hours swearing, sorry, I mean fencing, so that I could get the herd moved into the winter field. It was so worth it to see them running, exploring, playing and just doing what horses should be doing! Not that they didn’t do this before, but it’s always different with the added excitement of a new field and fresh grass. 🐎🐎

09/10/2025

Some important info on Acorn toxicity. Cases are very high in our area at the moment so bets not to take the risk!

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐦𝐧 𝐒𝐚𝐟𝐞𝐭𝐲 𝐀𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐭: 𝐀𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐎𝐚𝐤 𝐓𝐨𝐱𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐬

As the autumn leaves are falling, we want to remind horse owners to keep an eye out for acorns and oak leaves in their pastures. While they’re a familiar sign of autumn, acorns can pose a serious health risk to horses.
Acorn (oak) toxicity in horses causes a form of toxic colitis - more specifically, it’s often referred to as tannic acid–induced colitis or oak-induced enterocolitis.
Here’s what happens:
Tannins (and related phenolic compounds like gallotannins) found in acorns, oak leaves, and bark are caustic to the gastrointestinal mucosa.
When ingested in significant amounts, these compounds cause inflammation, ulceration, and necrosis of the intestinal lining, particularly in the large intestine (colon).
The damage leads to protein loss, fluid imbalance, and endotoxin absorption, resulting in severe diarrhoea, colic, dehydration, and sometimes secondary kidney injury due to tannin metabolites.
The condition is best described as acute necrotizing or haemorrhagic colitis secondary to tannin toxicity from acorn ingestion.

Early signs may include colic-like symptoms (abdominal pain), diarrhoea or constipation, loss of appetite, depression or lethargy, dark urine or dehydration.
If you have any concerns about your horse, do contact your vet as a matter of urgency.

08/10/2025

I’m still processing after the most wonderful weekend of learning with the LM Saddles Ltd Horse-friendly Saddles, Holistic & Remedial Saddle-fitting team 💜

The lovely Laura Waterhouse Therapies & Training taught us a variety of bodywork techniques, including Debono, to relieve tension, bring awareness into the body and improve posture. It was fascinating how the tiniest movements could create such huge changes within the horses body. We also got to experiment with a couple of sessions on ourselves, and three days later I’m baffled that I am feeling so mobile and unrestricted throughout my body, which is quite unheard of 😆. I’m really looking forward to experimenting with my herd so that I can bring these skills to clients, and adding some of the exercises into my own morning routine.

As always when we get together, there were lots of laughs, some silliness, a huge amount of love and unwavering support. I always come away from our team time feeling inspired and like my nervous system has had a full reset. So grateful to be part of the LM family.

02/10/2025

Fantastic to see vets leading by example and working with a more horse centred approach. Good job Lucy Chester Horsemanship!