Serenity Equine Therapy

11/12/2024

How high or how low do the heels need to be?
Every hoof is individual and if you look for the red markers/ stress lines these will give you the biggest indication of where the heels need to be.
Remember tubules that run straight are going to be stronger and when they get too long they bend and weaken.
Tubules don’t just grow at straight angles otherwise all hooves would grow like tin cans.
If you force your interpretation of heel height on a hoof, beware you might get a reaction by the rest of the body or joints that you might not want.

11/12/2024

THIS THIS THIS!!!

If a horse is too expensive to risk turnout, then people don’t deserve their worth 👀

Turnout is an essential basic need of EVERY horse.

11/10/2024

ENGAGE THE SLING BEFORE YOU DRIVE FROM BEHIND

baby race horse getting thoracic sling engagement 😊😊😊🧡🧡🙌🐴

You can see how in the before picture this horse appears collapsed into the ground. His feet are splayed and chest is wide and soft and looks like it is falling into the ground. This is called ‘columnar loading ‘ it means that the horse is loading into the ground like a building, it is the opposite of ‘tensegrity’ which implies a balance of the compression elements giving you suspension and recoil. If your not using your tension elements and just start collapsing into your front end the only way you can really hold yourself up is by tensing through the elbow and thus splaying your front feet.

This baby is 1 year old, never been ridden and already is collapsing into the front end and is losing the ability and desire to engage and lift the thoracic sling.

There is no pectoral activation in the before. He is wide and collapsing in front. For a race horse this is a posture that will make him prone to injury because as he fixates this way it will be more and more difficult for him change and get his front end out of the way.

In the meantime those folks that don’t believe in spinal flexion of the thoracic spine will insist on driving into this braced, blocked, fixated front end that is now being stabilized by the elbows that will externally rotate and brace and a activated brachiocephalicus muscle which will further contract trying to stabilize the neck trying to prevent further compression as the hind end is driven into a front end that is locked down and collapsing into the ground.

I learned in vet school that when there is much opposing discussion about things it usually means none of the answers are correct.

If you cannot lift and engage your thoracic sling so that you have the ability for suspension and recoil as in tensegrity please do not think that driving into it is the solution. If you want your horse to feel like a motor boat you have to have the lift first and then you can drive into it.

Yes you need drive but the road must be open

If you don’t have lift the drive will cause more compression and collapse, creating more dysfunction.

Does that make sense ?

So the answer is your need lift for the drive to have a place to go otherwise you just drive into a brace.

The horse on the right has an engaged thoracic sling. This only took about an hour and this particular little fellow still had a lot of restrictions that will need follow up. But it’s a start - he can now get his front end out of the way allowing for hind end to come under instead of around.

He will be able to push off the ground instead of collapsing into it allowing triceps activation and development.

He will be able to open up his rib cage and breathe deep fully expanding into his diaphragm and creating internal lift to his back. His waist will lengthen, lumbar spine align and psoas relax creating movement to the pelvis and softening the angle so the hips now in alignment can push back at the ground with their full power.

All this in an hour.
All this from re training your nervous system out of dysfunction into function
Lift your sling to lift your back.

Please don’t drive into your horse if he cannot engage his sling and definitely do not back these horses up !!

10/29/2024

10/14/2024

10/02/2024

It’s not 30 days… it’s not 90 days… it’s not 6 months… but everyday and every effort gets you closer.

09/29/2024

Exactly...The eyes and the body language always tell the truth: they never lie and they cannot be hidden, so they can tell us also what is not visible at the moment, when a performance may superficially appear fine, but the horses' eyes just tell another story: let's listen to it, because that is the only real truth 🤎🙏🏻

Picture credit: Horse racing exposed

09/23/2024

Trim those bars! Always good to self educate and double check what your farrier/trimmer is doing. Ask questions! Advocate for your horses.

I see way to many client horses who’s bars are overgrown and laid over and embedded into the sole.

09/23/2024

Truth

09/03/2024

Every horse owner, practitioner, and trainer should keep track of whether their horse’s hooves are regenerating or degenerating.

Boon, 6 year old Quarterhorse
Front left
Pulled shoes at 4 years old
This is 2 years progress building true heel...regenerating live tissue not preserving dead heel horn.

This horse was beginning to develop sheared heels due to his conformation, and/or from the effects of imbalanced trimming with fixed, rigid, steel, shoes that were restricting growth and movement.

The bottom left photo ( pre trim ) reveals how he is currently loading and wearing the medial heel ( left side in photo ) more than the lateral heel. You can also see that he does the opposite at the toe pillars. He is breaking over with more weight on the diagonal lateral toe pillar, causing this side to wear more. Steel shoes prevent wear but the wear is needed at the bottom of the wall to keep the rest of the horse properly balanced to their dynamic individual physiological needs. These needs evolve through rehab and up through the stages of continual development so the trimming needs to evolve as well. Steel shoes cause everything else above the shoes to jam up, twist, and contort. The wall grows about 1 mm every 3 days. 1 mm of vertical imbalance at the ground equates to 3-4 cm of horizontal compensation at the hips and wither on an average sized horse. That means if the trimmer/farrier has a 1 mm margin of error when setting a shoe there’s going to gradually be more by the next shoeing cycle. If nobody is noticing and correcting for the changes above the shoe then they get magnified over time. Without a fixed shoe, the trimmer/farrier can make frequent minimal corrections that improve the horse’s comfort and way of going, gradually improving their overall balance over time.

These corrections have taken me 2 years and we still have a ways to go. This horse hasn’t been classified as “lame” because he’s been able to gallop around during this transition but he has been very stiff and he has had a hard time standing for trimming. That’s where I feel it. He is finally loosening up and finding his natural way of going. This same process can be applied to older horses with even later stages of trimmer/farrier caused crookedness but it typically comes at more of a price for the horse, the owner, and the corrective trimmer/farrier...difficult rehabs are hard on everyone.

(David Landreville, 2019)

08/26/2024

Sad truth

Do you ride your horse in a tie down?

The next time you choose your equipment, remember this picture.
The next time you have to choose a "harsher" noseband because your horse is "running through" your current choice, remember this picture.

Consider the fact that you may be causing nerve damage.
Consider the fact that maybe your horse can't even feel their face anymore.

These are the images of a quarter horse ridden in a tie down with a wire noseband in their futurity year of barrel racing.
This horse is now 15.

Correct infrared imaging of the horse tells us more than just a story of anatomy, more than just a story of physiology.

08/20/2024

Question for your farrier:

If adding wedges helps my horse load their heels more, then why is there more wear on the shoe at the toe than at the heels when you pull them back off at 6 weeks?

08/06/2024

This is incredible!! Recognizing disfunction and taking the steps to improve it.

Bodywork, changed the way he was trimmed, balanced nutrition and the top it off a well fitted saddle!

Incredible!! Had to share!

How much can a horse change? A lot!!!

This horse was said to have a genetic roach, with pictures as six-month-old with a significant roach already. When this horse was vetted as a two-year-old the vet’s only concern was someone being able to fit a saddle to his back but thought the roach would not affect him at all. The owner therefore did not worry about the roach, with the okay from a vet made plans for his dressage career. As a four-year-old he was progressing well by many standards, but the roach was growing bigger. The owner knew this was not sustainable, so she started looking for a bodyworker that could make positive changes with a belief that this could change, and in-hand program to support. She stopped riding for two years to give the body a chance to heal from the dysfunctional pattern that he was in and give the new muscles that he was using to heal and be strong. Her farrier was also very aware of the changes and looked for the best way to support the changes he was making in body. The owner is a saddle fitter, and when the time to start riding finding the saddle that he was happy with, was supported as well with every change. The last piece of the puzzle was bringing in a herbalist nutritionist to make sure all the nutrients he needed were bioavaible and a custom program that supported his unique issues.

What else has changed that you can’t see in a picture. The farrier no longer struggles doing his feet as his shivers are no longer there. He can now think and be an active participant when being handled instead of just being reactive. He no longer hyper-mobile in the body but has a stable true gait. When ridden before he was very much a micromanage ride to keep him balanced. Now he is balanced under saddle and can carry a load easily.
Riding didn’t create this change having TIME off was part of the team.

It is truly a team that creates change. If one of these pieces were missing, I know this amazing change would not be here today. EDA Equine - Certified Independent Saddle Fitting McFarlane Sutton

07/31/2024

07/30/2024

Bailee and I participated in a horsemanship clinic with the amazing Becki Oberg of Bold Equine on Sunday.
My goal was to help Bailee be able to regulate her stress in a quicker and more comfortable way while also showing her that being asked to do things was not going to cause her pain anymore.
I learned so much and so did bailee. We even got to where she was comfortable enough to allow me to ride her at the end of the day and she was so calm and relaxed instead of tense and holding her breath.
Got the check mark of approval from Becki to bring bailee with me to Beyond the Ride this year to develop her skills farther along and finally see what she can do now that she has healed enough not just physically but mentally and emotionally to be able to handle it without setting her back.
It’s been a long journey with this gal and she has taught me so much about patience when it comes to rehabbing a horses mind and heart.

Stay tuned! Beyond the ride is Aug 11-18 so I will be posting all her progress when I get home.

07/30/2024

6 months progress for a 10 yr old gelding after pulling shoes and frequent proper trimming to build soft tissue and live sole.

Here’s a brief history from the owner:

“I had a PPE before I bought him and the vet said he was underslung and needed wedges and pads but was sound. So the vet had [ the farrier ] come out and wedge and pad him and almost instantly his front legs would lock up and he was off at every gait. So vet came out and did numerous test only to find nothing wrong and so they adjusted the shoes. Took the pads out but still wedged up and he was still off. They told me he can’t be barefoot because he had too low angles and too thin soles. This went on for 3 months and I said I am done. He was miserable and I couldn’t tell [ why ]. So I knew in my gut it was his shoes. I found you and he was better at most of the gaits from the time you pulled the shoes. Each month I notice an improvement. The vet came out to do his shots and teeth and said he was sound and moving great, but that it wouldn’t last because he can’t grow more sole. He’s full of crap lol.”

The owner has been riding him in boots for about 3 months. She is currently riding him bare foot. He lives on irrigated grass pasture for 12 hours per day and the other 12 hours in a stall with a dirt run. Diet is Bermuda grass hay. We keep him on a 3-4 week trim schedule.

05/21/2023

𝑭𝒂𝒔𝒄𝒊𝒂 𝑭𝒂𝒄𝒕
Did you know...

Connective tissue has 10 times more proprioceptors than muscle. These proprioceptors give detailed and continuous information about the position of the body and its movement.

Proprioceptive functions can become dull over time, leading to an increased risk of injury. Bodywork can be a great way to improve proprioceptive input, especially in horses that are aging.

05/17/2023