Is finished! A 3 dimensional puzzle of the equine distal limb. Anatomically correct and a marvellous educational tool.
Putting this together reinforces learning.
It includes the research findings of Prof Denoix showing on the ungular cartilage, ligaments and their attachments to bone and digital cushion
Created by Prof C Pollitt after years of Research.
I popped the website for this in the comments.
And I’m not on the payroll. I was gifted a model for me to enjoy and use to teach.
03/12/2025
Did you know that how the hoof lands has very little to do with the farriers work?
Martens et al. 2008 and other studies have stated that there was no significant difference in landings after a “corrective” trim in the study. Landings were affected by the conformity of the proximal limb and, significantly, the difference between the metacarpal and pastern, the metacarpo-phalangeal angle. Medio-lateral fetlock angle.
The farrier can of course have significant effect on the metacarpo-phalangeal angle, as seen in picture below.
But
How the hoof lands is subject to joint angles all the way up the limb and foot flight.
While farriers can have some effect on the amplitude of foot flight, it is fundamentally dictated by limb joints and muscular physiology higher in the limb. Foot flight will inevitably directly affect landing. So, while farriers can affect gross asymmetrical landings, more subtle landings are often dictated by other variables.
Furthermore, how the horse lands has little impact on hoof shape and how it interacts with the ground when the weight of the horse moves over it.
So why is the farriery world still so focused on the landing as to make it what it judges medio-lateral balance on!!!
What should we really be assessing medio-lateral hoof balance on?
Join me for an in depth analysis of the latest research and the introduction of a new medio-lateral hoof balance paradigm. 8th Dec
Two legendary horses for international dressage sport and British Dressage have passed away on the same day: Valegro and Uthopia.
29/11/2025
🐴🧠 When Behaviour Changes, Don’t Blame the Gut First! Look at the Whole Horse
One of the problems in modern equine care is how quickly gastric issues get blamed for every behavioural change.
Yes, the gut matters.
Yes, diet, forage access, feeding routines, and stress can absolutely contribute to gastric disease.
And yes, gastric discomfort can absolutely influence behaviour.
But here’s the key point we keep missing:
👉 Gastric issues are often the result of something else going wrong, not the root cause.
The two biggest and most commonly overlooked contributors?
1️⃣ Musculoskeletal Pain
Musculoskeletal pain, even subtle, low-grade, or chronic, is one of the most frequently missed problems in horses.
When a horse is working in pain:
• Cortisol rises
• Eating patterns change
• Resting patterns change
• The nervous system shifts into protection mode
• And the gut is one of the first systems to suffer
Pain doesn’t just change movement, it changes physiology.
Ulcers may then develop secondary to the stress and compromised function caused by the underlying pain.
2️⃣ Psychosocial Stress
Horses are highly social, highly emotional animals. Their environment shapes their physiology.
Psychosocial stresses such as:
• Inconsistent routines
• Social isolation
• Frequent transport
• High-pressure training environments
• Poor turnout opportunities
• Rider inconsistency or conflict
• Unpredictable handling
• Lack of choice or agency
…all elevate stress hormones, suppress the immune system, and destabilise the gut environment.
These stresses can cause or worsen gastric disease.
And yet, these are rarely the first things examined.
⚠️ The Gut Is Vital, But Often Not the Starting Point
Of course, diet and gut health can be primary issues.
Poor forage quality, long fasting periods, high-starch feeds, dehydration, and certain medications can all contribute directly to gastric discomfort.
But more often than we acknowledge, the gut is the victim of a larger, unaddressed problem, not the villain.
🧩 Behaviour rarely has a single cause
A horse may show gastric symptoms…
But that doesn’t mean gastric disease is the origin of the behaviour.
A whole-horse approach means considering:
• Musculoskeletal integrity
• Hoof balance and farriery
• Saddle fit
• Rider influence
• Workload and biomechanics
• Environmental stability
• Herd dynamics
• Stress load
• Diet, forage access, and feeding rhythm
• And finally… gastric health
🌿 The message is simple:
When a horse changes behaviour, look deeper than the stomach.
Recognise that the gut is part of a wider system, influenced by pain, emotion, environment, and biomechanics.
Gastric disease deserves attention.
But we should never allow it to become the easy scapegoat that distracts us from the real underlying welfare issues.
See the whole horse. Follow the root cause. Honour what the behaviour is telling you.
Join Dr Ben Skye’s and I tomorrow for a delve into gastric disease.
It was decided in a late-night sitting of parliament. 📌 MORE: tinyurl.com/57jc5jfh
27/11/2025
There once was a little mare.
Not a champion racehorse.
Not a pedigreed star.
Just a 13 hand Jeju pony from Korea.
Barely taller than a middle schooler.
Her Korean name was probably Ah Chim Hai.
Flame of the Morning.
Born around 1948.
Unraced.
Unremarkable.
Unknown.
Until a teenage stable boy sold her for 250 dollars.
Money raised by Marines who skipped meals and pooled poker winnings.
Why did he sell her?
So he could buy prosthetic legs for his sister.
A landmine had taken both of hers.
That is how an ordinary little mare fell into the hands of the United States Marine Corps.
And now…
the story really begins.
🐴🔥
She was bought to haul 75 millimeter recoilless rifle shells.
Up to 200 pounds at a time.
Up mountains where trucks could not go.
Into mud and ice and artillery.
The Marines called her Reckless.
But the name did not warn them.
It prepared them.
Because she learned faster than any horse they had ever seen.
Flattening herself in ditches when she heard incoming rounds.
Bolting for bunkers.
Halting mid trail when artillery whistled overhead.
She even learned to make the trips alone.
Two to three miles without a handler.
Carrying ammo up.
Bringing wounded Marines back down.
Instinct guiding her through fire and fear.
One day she stepped over a mine tripwire that should have killed her.
The Marines said it was luck.
Others said it was something else.
And now… the battle that made her legend.
🇺🇸🔥
Outpost Vegas.
March 1953.
A hill soaked in blood.
A battle so brutal that veterans still refused to talk about it.
Reckless made 51 trips up and down that hill in a single day.
Over 35 miles of open fire.
Machine guns.
Mortars.
A world screaming around her.
She carried 386 rounds.
Almost all the ammo the platoon fired.
Shrapnel tore her flank.
Another hit her hind leg.
She bled.
She staggered.
But she never stopped.
The Marines said she saved them from being overrun.
They said no human could have done what she did.
She earned two Purple Hearts.
A Presidential Unit Citation.
And eventually… a battlefield promotion.
Then another.
Sergeant Reckless.
The only animal promoted twice to staff sergeant.
Life Magazine called her America’s greatest war horse.
But Marines said something even better.
“She was one of us.”
Now… you might think you know the rest.
But Paul Harvey would smile here.
Because there is more.
🐴😄
Reckless loved beer.
Cold Falstaff or Coors.
Straight from the can.
She crashed officers’ parties.
Stole poker chips.
Chewed ci******es.
And once trotted away with an entire cherry pie board and all.
She curled up in foxholes.
Nuzzled wounded soldiers.
Became therapy on four hooves in a war almost everyone forgot.
After the war she returned home a hero.
She received parades.
She drank at the Bohemian Club.
She retired at Camp Pendleton.
She had foals.
Veterans visited her for years.
Some cried into her mane.
She passed in 1968.
Buried with honor.
Still loved.
Still remembered.
Later researchers like Janet Barrett spent twenty years collecting the real stories.
Sixty Marines.
Declassified files.
Old photos that had never been seen.
Interviews from Korea.
And a truth even more powerful than the legend.
Reckless was not born heroic.
She chose it.
Every day she carried weight that should have broken her.
Yet she lifted spirits instead.
Now you know the rest of the story.
And maybe now you understand why a little mare from Korea has six national monuments.
Why Marines still say her name with pride.
Why her story refuses to fade.
If you want the whole truth in all its grit and grace, read Janet Barrett’s book They Called Her Reckless or Robin Hutton’s Sgt. Reckless.
And if this story touched you, save it, follow for more, and share it so the world remembers the horse who outran bullets and never left a Marine behind.
Tag someone who needs a spark of hope today.
🐴❤️🇺🇸
05/11/2025
28/10/2025
27/10/2025
The Trouble With Touch😬
You know that phrase “gentle as a mother’s touch”? Turns out, it’s not just sentimental fluff - it’s neuroscience with a pulse.
Research shows mothers instinctively stroke their babies at the perfect speed and pressure to activate C-tactile afferents - nerve fibres designed to whisper “you’re safe” to the brain. This slows the infant’s heart rate, lowers stress, and regulates both mother and child in one elegant biological feedback loop.
But here’s the catch: that system evolved for HUMANS.
And while horses are mammals too, that doesn’t make us the same species on different legs. My theory? Horses have to learn to accept and enjoy our touch - because their sensory systems weren’t built for it. They are profoundly sensory animals, guided by highly developed sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste - often far sharper than ours. These senses are their survival network, helping them detect danger, gather information, and interact with their world. It’s why they notice things we don’t - and why they can be so sensitive to things we barely register.
When a horse feels uneasy, every nerve is tuned to danger. Our instinct to reach out and stroke them in that moment? It’s like waving a sparkler in a blackout. We’re trying to soothe ourselves while overloading their already-strained sensory radar.
That’s why horses get tense in the wind - it’s not bad behaviour, it’s sensory overwhelm. Wind dulls hearing and blurs scent, leaving them more alert. And yet, that’s when we’re most likely to touch them - adding yet another layer of sensory noise.
Horses, in contrast, prefer touch that’s slower, firmer, and more deliberate - the kind of grounded contact you’d see in mutual grooming. It’s steady, not fluttery or fast. And they prefer to get to know you first.
I restrain the urge to rub or fuss and instead find a horse’s favourite scratchy spot, introducing myself slowly until I see them soften - breathing, blinking, and feeling safe enough to enjoy it.
Understanding this isn’t about being less loving; it’s about being a little less instinctual human and a little more thoughtful human. Awareness lets us meet horses where they are - not where our nervous systems wish they were.
So before you reach out, ask yourself:
Is this for me - or for them?
This is my Collectable Advice Entry 62/365 of my challenge to share good ideas and insights for you to select SAVE, hit SHARE but please do not copy and paste.
Also, a shout out to my good friend Zoe Beattie for drawing my attention to this research ❤
25/10/2025
CAN A HUMAN REPLACE A HERD MATE?
Many owners assume their company alone is enough to keep a horse relaxed. In a new study of riding-school Warmblood mares and geldings, researchers tested whether a calm human can stand in for equine company during brief separations, and found the effect was limited at best.
For the first part of the study each horse stood with two familiar herd mates. In the next three-minute phase, they were separated from the others but remained with a familiar handler. During this isolation period, the horses showed clear signs of stress: their heart rate was higher and heart-rate variability lower.
Across repeated sessions, the handler either stayed neutral, offered calm stroking, spoke quietly, or did both. None consistently reduced the individual horses stress. Quiet talking produced the most consistent (yet still minor) benefit, mainly in geldings; mares remained the most stressed.
Behaviour was recorded in detail using a structured ethogram – a catalogue of defined behaviours – so that trained observers could record how often and how long behavioural indicators of stress (e.g. calling, fidgeting, raised head/neck posture, ear/face tension) appeared in each phase. Heart activity was measured using a wireless heart monitor to assess heart rate and heart-rate variability.
Separation is inherently stressful for many horses, and a human cannot entirely replace equine company. Put your horse’s social needs first, ensure they have regular, predictable time with their herd mates.
If they become anxious when taken away from others, build exposure gradually, keep sessions short, and prioritise management that ensures they can see and hear their equine friends. When separation is unavoidable, a calm human voice may help some horses, but don’t expect it to solve the stress of isolation.
Study: Pisanska et al. (2025). Social Isolation of Horses vs. Support Provided by a Human. Animals.
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WHO ARE WE
Freedom And Motion Equine Park has been built in honour of my 6 horses which includes 5 rescues.
My goal is for this facility to become an educational hub for all to learn from respected and knowledgeable professionals in all area, and welcome riders and instructors.
I have gained much knowledge and experience over the years and met wonderful people. Now at the age of 44 I feel courageous enough to share this knowledge with people who are like minded. To be able to offer a safe and professional space for owners to enjoy time with their equine friends.
We welcome equestrians who are open minded and willing to gain knowledge in an inclusive environment.
Freedom And Motion Equine Park is offering:
-60 X20 metre indoor arena with first class surface (by Pro Ride Racing Australia)
-1 seminar room for theory (fully furnished)
-12 holding yards with wash bay
-Apex barefoot trimming (rehab and maintenance)
-Equine myofunctional therapy
I have come to the belief that we need to take the time to listen to our equine friends. They are trying to give us cues to their needs and then when we do this we can better assist them and us to work in sync.
