Hands to Horses, LLC

01/19/2026

New (veterinarian only) therapy-this vet highlights a couple. Anyone use them in West Michigan?

Regenerative Therapy Spotlight: Pro-Stride®
✨ What is Pro-Stride?
Pro-Stride is an advanced, multistep biologic therapy that uses your horse’s own blood to create a powerful combination of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and white blood cells.
While many systems can produce PRP, Pro-Stride’s patented second step goes further—significantly increasing anti-inflammatory cytokines beyond what PRP alone can provide.

How It Works
➡️ Step 1: Whole blood is collected and processed to concentrate PRP.
PRP targets areas of tissue damage, triggering a controlled inflammatory response that recruits the body’s natural healing factors.
(Not all inflammation is bad—it's essential for healing!)
➡️ Step 2: Pro-Stride then hyper-concentrates key anti-inflammatory cytokines, including A*M and IRAP
This creates an ideal balance of pro- and anti-inflammatory signals, helping promote healing while preventing damaging inflammation.

✅ Pros
• One of the few highly cellular biologic products available
• Natural & safe—great option for older, metabolic, or cushingoid horses
• Can inject multiple joints at one time (each kit treats 2–3 locations)
• Reduces inflammation AND stimulates healing
• Helps slow progression of osteoarthritis
• Long-lasting results (up to ~1 year)
• Versatile: joints, tendons/ligaments, muscles, and bursa
• Competition-friendly (no extended withdrawal time)
• Can be performed stall-side, same day

⚠️ Cons
• Higher cost
• Each kit produces ~3 mL, so multiple kits may be needed
• Less effective for end-stage or chronic disease
• Individual response varies by horse
• Small risk of a non-infectious joint flare (temporary post-injection soreness)

Pro-Stride offers a powerful option for managing joint disease while supporting the body’s natural healing process.

12/23/2025

Horse peeps? What say you? Sleip app
for gait analysis, or no?

New York regulatory veterinarians have been using the Sleip app for 2 ½ years, while Kentucky’s team adopted the technology in March of 2025; California’s regulatory veterinarians added the Sleip app to their arsenal just two weeks ago: https://tinyurl.com/bdzybf5x

12/12/2025

Helpful and timely, at once! :)

11/03/2025

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If Insulin is a Concern, Look at HC, not NSC

By Dr. Kellon on August 23, 2025

NSC, nonstructural carbohydrates, is a plant biology term. It refers to fructan, simple sugars, oligosaccharides (complex plant sugars) and starch. NSC was used to evaluate the suitability of a feed or forage for horses with metabolic syndrome or PPID in the early days of recognizing insulin resistance but it is no longer appropriate.

A massive load of pure fructan given by stomach tube can cause laminitis by the same mechanism as overeating grain does – acid damage to the gut wall and a systemic inflammatory response. However, North American hay don’t even come close to providing enough fructan to be a problem, even adding up a whole days intake.

Fructan and complex oligosaccharides cannot be digested in the small intestine. Only the simple mono- and disaccharides as well as starch can be digested and absorbed as sugar to cause an insulin increase. It is now well known that the root cause of most cases of laminitis is high insulin.

Simple sugars plus starch are called hydrolyzable carbohydrates [HC]. By definition, they are the digestible carbs. The best estimation of HC in feeds or hays/pasture is ESC (ethanol soluble carbohydrates) plus starch from the hay analysis.

HC = ESC + Starch

If you apply the 10% ceiling to NSC, which is WSC (water soluble carbohydrates) and starch, you will be skipping over some perfectly acceptable hay, causing yourself a lot of extra money in testing, stress and likely ending up with hay of poor nutritional quality.

A ceiling of 10% for HC is not only easier to meet but also physiologically correct.

Forget about NSC.

Eleanor Kellon, VMD

10/09/2025

Good heavens, what are we doing to our horses?!?

"To speak with someone who does not compete in the hunters and listen to their impression of the sport, the current messaging from USEF seems to indicate a widespread problem with bad actors endangering the lives of horses with illegal administration of scheduled controlled substances.

But if you talk to someone like me—someone who competes in the hunters—you’ll find that the overwhelming majority of participants devote immense time, money, and effort to giving their horses the very best of everything. We’re just as disgusted as anyone by the disturbing rumors that circulate in the sport’s most elite circles.

Where money is involved, some people will always push the limits. That’s why governing bodies exist—to protect the integrity of the group. In equestrian sport, that responsibility falls to USEF, which oversees drug testing and enforces medication rules.

Recently, the messaging around the sport’s dark underbelly has become more prominent. USEF has enacted initiatives to retroactively hair test for euthanasia drugs and other substances that threaten horse welfare, citing credible evidence these practices exist. But watching the stream of press releases, I can’t help feeling like it’s Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny—a lot of rabbit hunting, but no rabbit.

Let’s look at the data. By the numbers, here’s what I found:

For Fiscal Year 2024:
- Revenue from drugs and medication per audited financials: $5,650,478
- Cost of “Banned substance collection, testing” $3,732,687
- Total samples collected: 10,536 (consistent with prior year)

To make a fair comparison, I requested USEF’s 2024 testing records and excluded any cases marked “no violation,” which indicate that a valid medication report had been properly filed.

- 182 findings at a cost of $20,509.27 per finding
- 82 permitted substances in excess of the allowed concentration, or 45%
- 67 for substances listed as permitted with medication reports, so either failure to file a med report or use of a substance that is not dangerous to horses and has medical use when not appropriate, or 37%
- 33 for substances that are not permitted even with a medication report or 18%

If you believe there’s a rampant horse welfare crisis hidden within these numbers, the data simply doesn’t support it. The logical takeaway is that the real issues may lie outside the current rules of USEF.

If horse welfare is the primary focus, then the concern should center on what substances are used—not when or how they’re reported. After all, methocarbamol isn’t more harmful to a horse at 1 p.m. than it is at 9 a.m., and Zyrtec without a medication report is no more dangerous than Zyrtec with one.

Frankly, I don’t care if I lose a class to someone who failed to report their senior pony’s metformin appropriately if it means more regulatory resources can be deployed to the stories of horses having their hearts stopped in the tack stall. Perhaps I am unique in that opinion.

Of the substances found that were not permitted even with a medical report, the most common was trazodone, followed by 7-carboxy cannabidiol, which is a CBD metabolite. USEF’s penalty guidelines break down sanctions into categories from 1 (overages of quantitatively restricted medications) to 4 (non FDA approved for horses and performance enhancing) and based off the sanctions determined by the commitees who had full context, not a single one met the seriousness of a level 3 or 4 violation, so all findings were in the realm of either timing or dosage mistakes or substances with legitimate therapeutic value that are prohibited. In other words, nearly $4 million was spent to uncover nothing more than timing errors, dosage slips, or legitimate therapeutics… not a single case of actual horse abuse.

📎 Continue reading the article by Grace Maxwell at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2025/10/08/4-million-later-what-usefs-drug-testing-program-actually-found-and-didnt/
📸 © Heather N. Photogrpahy

10/01/2025

Interesting and (sadly) informative:

05/05/2025

Updated helmet impact study:

04/11/2025

Earned a follow with this second post - check him out! I’m looking forward to checking out his web library.

DOING NOTHING IS AN ACTION

Yesterday I published a post on something I termed "Inappropriate Touching" that went a little viral, being shared 3,000 times in 24 hours (you can read that post here https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1274647950690356&set=a.269604291194732).

It was about missing what the horse was offering, and instead trying to touch a part of the horse that they weren't offering. The picture I used was taken at the Horse World Expo in Pennsylvania recently.

Today I want to share a picture of a different demo horse from that expo.

This is a 10 year old Warmblood mare who was a broodmare, and has recently been started under saddle. The owner says she drags everyone around, has severe attention issues, and always has her head up looking around.

That's at home on familiar turf, so you can imagine what she was like at the horse expo. When the mare and her handler came in, the mare couldn't stand still, and her head was straight up in the air looking around. As I usually do at horse expos, if I have an hour session, I usually let the handler lead the horse around (or try and stand still) for the first half an hour, so the audience can really see that the horse is not settled , and isn't going to.

Then I take over.

With this mare, when I took a hold of the lead rope, she immediately greeted me with her nose, which I reciprocated with my hand (Action #1). She then walked off away from me and as she tightened the lead rope, I used my flag to draw her thoughts back to where her body was, so getting her to be present (Action #2). These 2 actions are part of a flow chart I have on my website, which is basically a flow chart for appropriate responses to things your horse does.

These 2 things happened twice more in the first 5 minutes of me handling her, so I did a total of 4 quite subtle things.

And then I waited.

The photo of the mare shows the result after about 20 minutes or so.

The next day I posted the photo on Facebook and said a little about it, and someone asked if I'd videod the session. I replied that I hadn't, and didn't really need to, as I didn't do anything I hadn't captured many times on video and put in my video library on my website.

They said they were in the audience, and that they didn't really see me do much, so must have missed something. I had to point out I only did 4 things (which was actually 2 little things, twice each).

It's more about what I didn't do, that the handler had been doing.

I didn't hold the lead rope short or try to control her (the handler had been doing quite a bit of this).

When she stood there and pawed the ground (which she did quite a bit) I didn't do anything (the handler had been trying to correct that).

When she stood with her head high looking around, I didn't do anything (the handler had been trying to get her attention). Actually I looked at what she was looking at, so I suppose there I did do something.

When she chewed on the lead rope, I didn't do anything (The handler had tried to get it out of her mouth).

When she sidepassed up really close to me, I didn't do anything (the handler had stepped away from her when she did this).

And in relation to yesterdays viral post, I didn't touch her, I didn't pet her, I didn't rub her, and I didn't console her (the handler had been doing quite a bit of this), except for the 2 brief times she touched me with he nose.

In the half an hour I was handling her, those 4 little things I did happened in the first 5 minutes.

The rest of the time I did nothing.

After a while she started having the big yawning releases one often sees with the Masterson Method work. She yawned. And yawned. And yawned.

Then her head started to drop into the posture you see in the picture.

And I said to the audience "Doing nothing IS an action", and it's a very powerful one at that. Then I sat down and crossed my legs, for no other reason than to prove to the audience that I wasn't doing anything to her to get her to stand there.

Many people struggle to be in the presence of their horse without doing something. If there's a problem, they want to fix it. if there's not one, they want to fiddle and groom and touch (remember yesterdays post). Many times these well meaning owners (and the handler of this horse was lovely and well meaning) are doing a lot of work to try to resolve their horses anxiety issues, and many times the incessant fiddling and grooming and touching is part of the problem.

Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is be a human being, instead of a human doing.

If you are interested in my work, everything I do is available on video and in courses at videos.warwickschiller.com

10/14/2024

To our horse-loving community: If you have felt concern and heartache for those in the Southeastern U.S. during this horrific hurricane season, we want to share a resource. The Foundation For The Horse provides aid and relief for the horses and people affected by natural disasters, such as hurricanes. Their mission is to “provide timely, effective, and compassionate assistance, including supporting those providing search and rescue services, shelter, feed, water, veterinary medical supplies, and emotional support for those in need.”

The Foundation is managed by equine veterinarians and they collaborate with veterinary teams on the ground to make sure that aid reaches those who need it most.

If you feel called to give and haven’t been quite sure how, we hope this helps. Visit HurricaneHorses.org.

10/03/2024

Corporisation has changed the equine veterinary and wider industries – but the question remains as to whether this is for the better or not. This is the opinion of one vet who has worked for both corporately owned and independent practices, who was on a panel discussing the issue at the British Eq...