Equine-Naturaltherapy

08/12/2024

What is the optimal number of improved or correct repetitions for efficient learning?

New neural pathways cannot sustain repeated stimulation due to the massive oxygen and glucose demands of brain tissue and their lack of maturation. Thus, training presents a dilemma: while more repetitions can consolidate learning, excessive repetitions may lead to a decline in learning and welfare.

However, it is known that in naïve animals, learning can begin to manifest after a few repetitions (Skinner, 1938). This suggests that trainers should terminate practice after eliciting three to five consecutive correct, improved, or corrected responses.

Although it is an age-old maxim in horse training to always "end on a good note," it is likely more efficient to conclude with a short series of correct or improved responses.

- A passage from Equitation Science, 2nd Edition. Andrew McLean, Paul McGreevy, Janne Whinther Christensen & Uta König von Borstel.

08/01/2024

Walking backwards - rein back - step back

This has always been an exercise I recommend and a recent article has used 3D motion capture to explore back and pelvis motion during the movement - Jobst, Zsoldos and Licka, 2024

'A significantly larger maximum and a greater ROM was reached between the withers, thoracic region and sacrum (labelled D-angWmT16S2) in Backwards Walking compared to Forwards walking, indicating a lifting of the back, an effect necessary to facilitate strengthening of the horse’s core and therefore often desired in equine physiotherapy and in equestrian sports (Clayton, 2016; Shakeshaft & Tabor, 2020)'

A few steps backwards - Unmount SD Cardnted - as part of groundwork and before mounting are a really good idea to mobilise your horse's back.

Link to article:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090023324001412?via%3Dihub

07/25/2024

Toxic positivity is not how we’re going to improve the horse world.

Ignoring the bad because it’s hard to hear and focusing on the good you can find doesn’t allow for the bad to be addressed.

It protects those promoting the bad by taking the spotlight off of them and once again slipping into the comfortable apathy that has helped the horse world get to where it is currently.

The apathy and the actual abuse work in tandem with each other.

Apathy helps those who are doing worse things by holding them less accountable, quieting discussion and making it easier to hide what they’re doing.

We need to talk more about what’s going on in this industry.

We need to talk more about the pressures to remain silent in the face of witnessing treatment of horses that makes us uncomfortable.

We need to talk about the fear involved with speaking out when you are coming up against prevalent people in the horse world.

We need to talk about the shame of doing as you’re told, when an “expert” horse trainer instructs you to do something cruel to a horse and you follow the instruction, assuming they must be righteous.

We need to talk about how many of us have been conditioned to respond to horses with harshness from a very young age.

Sparkly whips with stars marketing to children to make the concept of hitting horses more palatable and less scary seeming.

Being told that it “doesn’t hurt” the horse when we hit them because they’re so big.

Using herd dynamics as a justification for why repeated striking horses isn’t bad because “they hit each other way harder in a herd!”

There is no shortage of excuses available.

There is a whole bible full of extremely common justifications to downplay the occurrence of harshness towards horses.

It occurs on a very frequent basis.

We need to honestly look at these things for what they are and understand that part of remaining positive means maintaining the perspective that we can make meaningful change.

But meaningful change requires work and openly acknowledging where the problems lie.

It isn’t negativity to look at the problems that exist.

It’s reality.

And looking at them through the lens of seeing how much more improved the horse world would be if we address them IS the positivity.

A better world is possible but we have to work for it.

Enough of the apathy and clinging to the comfort of ignoring the elephant in the room.

It results in prolonged discomfort, though it might be lower grade than looking at problems head on, it never deals with the issue.

So, look the problem in the face so we can address it and hopefully one day have the peaceful positivity everyone likes to pretend to have currently

07/24/2024

Thank you for a really informative webinar! Your updates are next level making theeee best app out there for practitioners and clients!

07/24/2024

‘If you make an excuse for the human you are ignoring the horse.’

Wow just wow

We cannot defend the indefensible
*an error of judgement* a mistake, a moment in time, out of character, never done it before
How long will the victim who is the horse by the way have to put up with it
If you make an excuse for the human you are ignoring the horse
If you think this is a one off you are ignoring the horse

By speaking out we are not bringing an industry down we are simply saying this is not right
The public are shocked the video has been shown those of us who own horses tick off another one who's public image is not the private one with whip in hand

When will it change well how long and how many times have we been here before, those who speak up are told to be quiet for we are damaging a sport yet all the while the irreversible damage is being done to the horse

In all this people not the horse has been discussed
Read the statement then watch the video does it look like an error of judgement to you because it doesn't look like it to me when people get comfortable abusing an animal that is the time they should never be near one
Stop normalising animal abuse

07/08/2024

06/27/2024

One of the biggest misconceptions is that forwardness refers to speed, which leads novice riders to kick on and make their horses go faster. Sadly, all this does is push the horse out of a suitable rhythm and tempo, often causing him to lose his balance, fall onto the forehand, get tense and tight through his back, and/or come against the contact.

Another common misconception is that a fast-moving "hot" horse is also a forward horse; this is incorrect. A horse moving at speed can still be "behind the rider's leg," thus, not working forwards from the leg but rushing away from it.

Lastly, don't confuse "forwardness" and 'impulsion." From the first moment you sit on a newly-backed horse, he should be encouraged to work forwards and be forward-thinking, even though he will be unable to produce any meaningful impulsion at this early stage in his career.

Stock image from Shutterstock.
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05/29/2024

I see a lot of people recommending chiropractors and pemf and excluding massage therapists. I want to give you a few reasons why I believe a massage therapist should be used regularly at times in a horse’s life:

We all have different skills to contribute to your horse’s care. Bodies need different kinds of help at different times.

Remember that it’s the muscles that create tensile strength and hold the bones and organs in place. They are also what pulls the body out of optimum, by strength or weakness, which combine to create imbalance and potential unsoundness. This is especially true and important when a horse is coming into increased work, coming back into fitness, or when a horse is older and needs a little help staying loose and comfortable. You can be a great trainer, your horse will still build strength unevenly, it’s simply what happens when out of shape horses are put into exercise. It’s natural, normal and expected.

By being proactive and working with a great massage therapist you can help your horse be more balanced and comfortable and so sounder, more mentally balanced and train more easily. We can help the horse through the process by manually suppling, helping him learn his body, improving awareness and letting him use himself the best he can while he works to build and become, hopefully, the best version of himself.

Learn more here - https://koperequine.com/why-hands-on-massage-is-the-best-way-to-for-sore-care-muscles/

Massage Speeds Exercise Recovery - https://koperequine.com/massage-speeds-muscle-recovery/

05/29/2024

04/20/2024

Klaus Balkenhol talking about problems in dressage judging:
'It is a worry, I see some horses that are really nice and relaxed, but they don't get the good score, and other horses are not always regular, especially in the passage, but still they score too much. The problem a lot of the time is the judges, and the judges' schooling is not good enough. We need one judge who can say 'this is correct', all the people coming to him asking what is the correct way - but now we have many many judges, and no leader."
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2022/06/klaus-balkenhol-which-way-for-dressage/

04/08/2024

After seeing multiple videos posted by various breeders bragging about their 2 ½ year olds/recently turned 3 year olds and sharing videos of them cantering around in the arena, I have decided to once again circulate the below article.

First of all, breeders *should* have the knowledge to understand a horse’s fragile and slow maturing musculoskeletal system. Breeders should not condone their own horses let along anyone’s horses being cantered around under saddle at an incredibly young age. Period. This sets a terrible example and is quite honestly animal abuse. Just because a horse does not object does not mean it is right. And quite frankly, most of the videos posted show animals that are already in pain or developing pain…

As breeders, we should strive to produce healthy and sound animals. We should promote horsemanship that produces long term soundness. No, starting a horse later does not guarantee soundness. But it certainly helps.

I am a firm believer in scientifically backed approaches to horsemanship. You can’t argue with science that has been proven time and time again. Let’s dispel some stupid rumors:

1. There is no such thing as a (skeletally) slow maturing horse or one that is fast maturing. No horse is skeletally mature before the age of 6. And that is on the low estimate for age.

2. Growth plates are not just in the knee. Every bone behind the skull has a growth plate. Not every single one needs to be converted to bone before starting. There is a schedule of when bone fuses…this is the information needed to know when to start a horse. Not their outward appearance. It is a known fact that during growth, proprioceptive awareness can regress, greatly increasing the risk of injury.

3. Starting a horse is not the same thing as riding a horse. Starting a horse does not mean cantering it 3-4 days a week in an arena.

4. Injecting a horse that is in pain does not mean you fixed a problem. You masked it.

5. You can build correct muscle and teach a horse how to move their body from the ground. This creates a solid foundation to work from once your horse is ready to actually be backed. Teach a horse to use its body correctly before backing and you’ll save yourself a lot of vet bills down the line.

Hocks are “late” for maturity. The growth plates on the tibial and fibular tarsals do not fuse until a horse is 3-3 ½. Ever wonder why so many horses seem to have hocks issues?? Horses need to learn to carry themselves and their own weight well before adding a rider.

The growth plates that are LAST to close are at the base of the neck. This area is where we ask a horse to raise the base of their neck and come round. If under too much stress, the growth plates can fracture or be permanently damaged.

There are DOZENS of activities you can do with a young horse to build healthy muscular development. None of them involve a saddle or your weight on their back. Teaching a horse to carry themselves correctly BEFORE adding a rider is essential and cannot be done in a week. A 2 ½ year old horse is a baby. Mentally and physically. We see far too many injured performance horses at VERY young ages - broken down and/or sour from work. It’s wrong. Period. They need slow and steady work and need time to recover from even the slightest of injuries.

PLEASE, if you are considering when you should start your horse and what that work load should look like, please read the below. There are some wonderful things you can do with your young developing horse. Please don’t rush a year out of greed.

http://www.equinestudies.org/ranger_2008/ranger_piece_2008_pdf1.pdf

04/03/2024

"I can't afford a new (different) saddle"

Shifting the focus.

Our horses, regardless of what we paid for them, regardless of pedigree, experience level or career, deserve the absolute best care.
Proper care extends well beyond feed, farrier and veterinary. It includes compassionate training, additional supportive therapies, adequate time-off for recovery, suitable turn out in a herd and properly fitting tack.

We often hear the complaint "I can't afford a new (different) saddle" which for some reason is accepted as an excuse to ride your horse in a saddle that causes physical and psychological stress.
If someone were to say "I can't afford a vet", they would be looked at as negligent, but for any other area of care the excuse is widely accepted.

The hard truth is, horses cost money. It is by no means a cheap sport, and just like with having a pet, you take on the financial responsibility when you purchase/adopt that animal.

That said, we have seen pet owners sell whatever they could to afford the veterinary care their animal needs. We have seen people save whatever they can to put towards the care of their animals, horse or otherwise. But when it comes to saddles, something that can cause an incredible amount of physical and behavioral issues, few are willing to make the sacrifice.

The narrative needs to change. Saddles are not a luxury item, they are not just a piece of tack, they are integral parts of proper care for your horse, whether you like it or not.

03/23/2024

I was saddened to see this image and others circulating on social media.

As you know, I'm always a little hesitant to comment on "moments in time". But for the tongue to turn that dark blue, there must have been a significant restriction of blood flow for some minutes. It doesn't look good.

It isn't good, and this is an easy aspect to comment on. The restriction is so tight as to overcome arterial pressure and prevent arterial blood supplying the free section of the tongue beyond the bit. At the same time, there would be no venous return. So, the oxygen in the tongue would be used up, changing the colour from red/pink to blue.

Restriction of this kind for a number of minutes could lead to pain, tissue damage and tissue death, even with permanent changes to the tongue - try putting a peg on your tongue for 20 min if you don't believe this.

The horse looks tense, stressed and unhappy at this point in time. The tension and the eye appearance may be gone in the next second, but the prominent veins and sweating (in the absence, I believe, of it being hot?) are highly likely due to a stress response. It could be due to the intensity of exercise and relatively high body temperature if this was an eventer going XC.....but it's not.

I’ve been asked to comment on the noseband tightness, but whilst the top looks tight, I can’t see the bottom half. Not a nice image and I would be interested to see a full video and appropriate action taken. Easy evidence of abuse should be dealt with.

Dr David Marlin

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This photo caused quite a stir in the Animaleweb office, and so we asked our independent Bitting and Bridle Fitting expert, Emma Busk, to comment also.

"I saw this image last night and have been thinking about an appropriate reaction. I think David’s comments are excellent and wholly right to focus on the arterial and venous supply to the tongue. It is impossible to determine the exact tightness of the noseband (the horse has been able to move the jaw to a certain extent – I’ve certainly seen tighter, unfortunately), but this is not the primary factor leading to ‘blue tongue’. In my opinion, trying to cover all the bit/bridle issues present in this picture is impractical, and it may be worth noting that noseband fit/tightness is for a separate discussion.

Looking at the picture as a whole, rather than just at the tongue, what ‘stood out’ is the extreme activation of the parotido-auricularis muscle. A sure sign of stress leading to extreme tension."

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
We always encourage discussion and debate - BUT KEEP IT FRIENDLY!
Any nastiness will see you blocked/banned, so keep it polite, please.
AND ABSOLUTELY NO SHAMING AND BULLYING!

03/18/2024

Rachel Greetham, the British team’s equine veterinary physiotherapist, shares her top tops for cooling down your horse after riding

03/16/2024

I thought I would share this post again after seeing some horrendous headcollar being sold as "safe", to tie a horse up that basically tightens up as the horse pulls and the horse has to figure it's way out of pressure it does not take long or much force for tissue to be damaged

Pull back is more than just a poll issue

In my younger years I remember seeing a horse tied to a tree looking pretty miserable and later learned it was being swung and had been there for 3 days for me that was barbaric, basically tied short and left until it learned to stop pulling and although the horse will have learned no matter how hard it pulled it would never get free, what about the damage to those young horses bodies were being done in the process of learning to tie up correctly

I thought I would write about pull back and the consequences as was asked what I thought about it, and it most definitely is not just the poll what is affected when a horse pulls back, as the horse doesn’t just pull back with their head their whole body will be involved

Now we have the horse that has learned to do this, but I always want to know why It did it in the first place and usually fear is the main factor in the beginning, and often bad training in the early days will lead to bad association with being tied up, horses in fear do not think first they act on instinct and will keep pulling until it can no more and the tighter the pull the more pain the horse is feeling so it cannot escape the pain unless it stops but is has no rationale at this point, are we leaving it to the horse to figure it out, would you learn while in pain and how would you feel about doing it again

Remember bridles and headcollars sit on the very sensitive parts of the horses head they are designed so we can have control, however ergonomically designed it still has to have an affect or else what is the point of using them

Bits; if you horse pulls back with a bridle then that bit is going to clatter the teeth as it comes away

Nasal bone; this is a very thin fragile bone where the noseband sits a sharp pull could have affect on this

Poll; we have lots of little gaps filled with soft tissue, bruising cannot be seen but the more thinner the tack the more it is going to dig in and cause more damage and remember a horse may not just pull back but also wrench side to side which could result in muscle tears or damage to the nuchal ligament and or in more severe cases fractures to the bone and most tying up training is done early in the horse training while growth plates are still fusing and the body is still forming

The pull will be felt all the way down the spine and strains can occur much lower down into the neck and further back through the withers, back and lumbar especially if the horse pulls side to side

If the horse falls back then potential injury to the si, pelvis and hamstrings are more than likely

Horses will only stop struggling when they realise its futile and before then they will fight to get free so we must make sure we train our horses with supervision and calm confindent handling when introducing tying up

Things happen and sometimes accidents happen, but it is always important to call your vet to give your horse a check over as it may not be apparent that your horse has a deeper injury, and if your horse has a habitual ritual of doing this then basically it needs retraining with a good behaviour consultant as its both dangerous for the horse and the handler In this situation, and remember pull backs do not only happen when tying up we must be careful as handlers not to yank the head with to much force, if you yank a horses head you are basically giving it whiplash

So lets not just think of the head as always whole horse

03/13/2024

03/09/2024

👀 If you use a neoprene girth on your horse, can we talk?

🙂‍↕️ First off, I get it. You don’t want your saddle to slip, they’re easy to clean, they don’t LOOK like they’ve gotten dirty the way fleece does, they’re marketed as being really breathable, etc. But let’s talk about neoprene girths in a more objective way.

🤲🏼 Some qualities of the neoprene vs effects of those qualities:

🛑 It doesn’t move! - The fact that you can’t budge the neoprene on your horse’s skin also means that the horse’s skin isn’t free to move beneath the neoprene… AND it means when tightening the girth, even if you do leg pulls (please don’t), where the girth created micro pinches while tightening (because it grips the skin), the micro pinches cannot be released. You’ll be riding your horse around while the girth is pinching them.

💨 The ad says “breathable” and touts “air flow” - Neoprene is RUBBER. Rubber is an insulator; it traps electricity and heat. This is part of why wires are contained with rubber… Regardless of the little holes or waffle weave on the girth, your RUBBER girth will be trapping heat to your horse’s body and is why you probably have untacked a horse in a neoprene girth with a sweaty girth mark and no saddle pad mark from the fleece saddle pad……… Waffle weave and holes can’t change the properties of a material.

🧼 They’re easy to clean! - That’s because they’re made of rubber. Go walk around with a bunch of rubber bands on your wrist, grabbing your arm hair all day, and let me know how you feel about how easy the bands are to clean…

🤷🏻‍♀️ If your saddle is slipping so badly that you need a rubber girth to hold it in place, you need to address the root cause - either your saddle doesn’t fit, or your balance is way off. Either way, supergluing a saddle to your horse for rides isn’t a great solution, right? 
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02/26/2024

The Italian government has become the first to officially recognise the horse as an athlete by law, in a move designed to afford them more legal protections. Read more on the Horse & Hound website or in this week's magazine, in shops from Thursday 22 February

02/26/2024

A former top British jockey has partnered with a farrier and an innovative manufacturer to produce the pioneering Equishox rubber horseshoe

02/22/2024

I have seen horses thrive barefoot.

I have seen horses that need a supportive boots/shoeing package to maintain quality of life.

I have seen horses thrive on a grass-free track system.

Equally, I have seen horses flourish when taking them off the track system and into a more 'traditional' management setting which includes grass.

I have seen horses unwind when they are given the opportunity to hang out with conspecifics.

I have seen horses that are so poorly socialised that they need a rehab plan and careful management to help them to feel safe and develop positive associations in a herd-based environment.

I have seen horses that visibly sigh with relief when their exercise schedule is reduced.

I have seen horses breakdown at the reduction of their workload intensity or routine.

I have seen horses graciously carry their terrfied human around a trail ride.

I have seen horses come completely undone at the slightest hint of tension from their rider.

With all the horses I have had the privilege to meet, I have NEVER seen a horse do well out of a one-size-fits-all approach.

Whilst gold standard for horses might look like one collection of traits or variables, gold standard for your horse might not be that for your horse at that particular moment - or ever.

Recognise your horse is an individual, with needs that are founded upon their in-utero, early life and day to day experience.

And surround yourself with professionals that do the same too ❤️

02/21/2024

02/15/2024

02/13/2024

02/04/2024

A veterinary physio who says she has had enough of seeing horses started too early, pushed too quickly and breaking down injured too young has spoken out in hopes of educating owners. Zoe King of Performance Veterinary Physiotherapy posted on social media with the phrase “for crying out loud”, a...

01/23/2024