Mobilise - Activate - Strengthen: this is a simple strategy that can be applied to EVERY HORSE!

Whether going through rehabilitation, bringing your horse back into work, correcting your horses posture and movement, following kissing spine diagnosis, starting young horses, working with senior horses to improve and maintain their flexibility, horses with arthritis…. ALL of these horses will benefit from working on these important foundations!

And by using mobility and flexibility work,...

Core Strengthening work to improve horses posture is an area that I have worked in extensively, and it's a large part of my job as an Equine Physiotherapist & Rehabilitation Specialist. 

Horses are not a good design for riding and sports, and certainly not evolved to be doing 'human' activities. We sit on the lowest part of their back, which is a common area for 'kissing spine' to develop, and in a lot of cases horses aren't strong enough in their back to carry a rider - definitely...

As a Spinal Therapist and Equine Physiotherapist, working with horses professionally for over 10 years, I have become specialised in back pain in horses, and the reasons that this occurs in horses. 

To help horse owners with learning about WHY their horse is suffering with back pain, and what they can do about it, I like to step back to the evolution of the horse, and start most of my talks in my members groups with this...

Horses are not designed or evolved to be ridden, it's as simple...

What is your exercise regime with your horse? Do you cross train, ride every day, or only ride at weekends? Do you already do some non-ridden exercise with your horse?

I'm a fan of mixed exercise for horses, and looking at their exercise plans as you would an athlete, considering fitness, strength, flexibility, core strength, co-ordination, symmetry, and looking at what you actually want your horse to do, and working backwards from that point! 

Horses are naturally crooked, and not a...

Horses are a really bad design for riding! They are also naturally crooked.

So my view is that we need to work with these 2 issues to help our horses, through correct training, starting with understanding both of the above issues.

Crookedness: horses are crooked from the beginning of their lives, and over time end up with one hind limb stronger than the other, and this transfers through the body. So in training if your horse is crooked and you don’t address the crookedness and unequal...

Discussions around training aids for horses seem to cause a lot of disagreement!! I think it's a really personal thing whether you decide to use them, but I can give you some ideas on why they can be helpful! 

As an Equine Physiotherapist and Spinal Manipulation Therapist, I work with lots of horses with back pain, poor posture, injuries, and horses in post surgery rehabilitation, so I'm working in the 'correction' phase with horses a lot of the time.

What I see really regularly is...

What are Core Mobilisation Exercises? 

Core mobilisation exercises are small exercises that we do with our horse in standstill, to help to mobilise their spinal joints and pelvis, release tight muscles, and release and activate their core, prior to exercise, whether groundwork or ridden.

They are exercises where we ask the horse to make a small movement, maybe only around 1cm for some of the exercises, but this will stimulate specific postural/core muscles, and do so by by-passing some...

'Kissing Spine' is a condition with horses that is much better known and diagnosed/treated now than it was 10 years ago. You may have heard about it, or experienced it with your horses. 

In my work as a Spinal Manipulation Therapist and Physiotherapist/Rehabilitation Specialist I have worked extensively with horses with Kissing Spine, alongside vets, during the rehabilitation process, so have gained a lot of experience with HOW to rehabilitate this condition, and have the benefit of...

LONG & LOW POSTURE FOR YOUR HORSE

Does your horse work in a 'long and low' posture with an elongated, lowered neck and a lifted core?

Or is this something that you struggle to achieve?

Maybe you can achieve this to a degree but your horse isn't consistent in this beneficial frame, or he actually falls onto his forehand instead of carrying himself?

Long and low posture is beneficial for our horses for many reasons! Gravity and the weight of the organs have a downward pulling effect on the...

If I could recommend just ONE thing for you to do, to do to improve your horses posture and way of going, it would be to add daily CARROT STRETCHES to your routine! 

'Carrot stretch' exercises activate the horses core muscles: their abdominals and waist muscles. These muscles are the direct opposite to the big back muscles, so if we activate and then strengthen the abdominal and waist muscles, we can have a direct influence on the horses back in terms of posture and...