Part 2 in this Winter Exercise Series, is the benefits of using poles with our horses. 

Polework is quite often suggested for horses exercise programmes, but do you really know the reasons why, and what we can achieve by adding poles to our horses plan?

I often recommend walk poles, and especially in the winter this can be a helpful type of exercise...it's low impact so reduced injury risk, but we can actually help the internal joint fluid and structures by increasing the movement...

As we are at the beginning of winter here in the UK, I wanted to write a Winter Exercise series, based on my experience of rehabbing horses in the winter...not easy, but needs to be done! 

Unfortunately with the best will in the world, a lot of horses suffer with less movement in the winter months, due to stabling, the weather, etc. And less movement is unhealthy for their body and systems. 

Movement is natural and key to horses maintaining body strength, core strength, muscle tone,...

I have been working with horses with Kissing Spine for a number of years, and still continue to learn more and more about it, especially as new research is done into various parts of the condition and the rehab process. 

For me, looking at the evolution of the horse, the anatomy of the spine, and considering gravity, the negative effects of domestication, and rushed breaking / training processes...it seems that Kissing Spine is a possibility for all horses. 

So if it's a possibility...

Last weeks Blog was about the anatomy of Kissing Spine, this week I'm talking about Kissing Spine Rehabilitation, and next week it's Prevention strategies. 

The rehabilitation process for Kissing Spine is the larger part of the entire process. What I mean by this is that the treatment that the horse receives is the initial ‘doorway’ to enable your rehabilitation process. I view it as treatment being Step 1, and rehabilitation being Steps 2 - 100!

The most important point to...

This month I am writing a series of Kissing Spine articles, because it's a specialist area of my work, and I want to share more about it so that more horse owners can understand what is potentially happening with their horse and ask more questions, maybe even get diagnosed and treated, so that we can all increase horse welfare and improve their quality of life. 

This weeks blog is around the anatomy of what is actually happening in the horses spine when 'Kissing Spine' is...

I talk a lot about horses posture, because it's important to understand, be able to assess, and be able to make positive change towards. And our horses posture can actually tell us quite a lot about what might be going on in their body. So assessing your horses posture regularly is a useful skillset to develop, whether you work with horses or you are a 1 horse owner. 

I like to compare human posture and horse posture to make it more easy to understand! 

In humans, poor posture is a...

'Correct movement' is something that I talk about a lot, it's really important for our horses welfare, and to help prevent future injury and breakdown, that we learn what 'correct' movement is, how to develop correct movement, and the specific reasons we should focus on this with our horses. 

As an Equine Physiotherapist and Rehabilitation Specialist, with over 10 years experience of working exclusively with horses, one of the big pieces that I teach in my work is around horse...

Would you like to know some of my favourite 'go-to' exercises that I use with my own horse and clients horses, that I find the most effective for mobilising and switching on the important postural muscles in the horse body?! 

I have been working professionally with horses for over 10 years now, and have amassed massive amounts of knowledge and experience around horse movement and rehabilitation. And if you have followed me for a while, you will know that I love to share important...

I start a lot of my talks with a quick few sentences about the evolution of the horse, because it's a part of horse ownership that doesn't get talked about that much, and it's REALLY important to consider - we can really learn a lot about our horses and their issues, by studying their evolution. 

Horses 'in the wild' might seem like a totally different horse to our modern day, domesticated horses, but they are still the same 'variation', the same animal, as they have been over the last 1...

Whether handling, exercising, riding, rehabbing, whatever we are doing with our horses…giving them time to process is super important, and it’s easy to miss out if we are in a rush for example.

I spend time with horses on the ground a lot these days, in rehab as well as with my own horse in his in hand work that we do, and actually it’s a lot easier to work all of this out with them from the ground because we can see their facial expression, and sometimes even see the...