Helen Choma, Equine Touch Practitioner & Instructor

23/01/2025

Over Rugging, by our vet Lucy Carmichael

As temperatures drop, it’s tempting to reach for one of the rugs in our horse’s wardrobe. However, when we want to throw on the layers, doing the same for them may not be the right choice. There are significant differences in the way horses stay warm to the way that we do, for example:

• Unclipped horses already have a thick, hairy coat. This coat contains natural oils to repel water, and, if required, small muscles can contract, causing the hairs to stand on end (much like when we get goosebumps). This traps air between the hair and skin, providing an additional layer of insulation

• Horses have the benefit of a wider thermoneutral zone- for humans this is 25-35˚C, whereas the horse’s thermoneutral zone extends much lower, 5-25˚C. The thermoneutral zone is the temperature range at which an animal does not have to expend any energy to keep warm. This means that horses remain comfortable at significantly lower temperatures compared to us

• Where we have an appendix, horses have a caecum. The caecum acts as a ‘fermentation vat’, where bacteria break down feed and produce heat. Breakdown of forage generates the most heat. Therefore, a diet of low-calorie forage is far more effective for keeping your horse warm than putting on a rug

• Horses can efficiently divert their blood flow from the extremities to the internal organs, maintaining their core temperature. This is why their ears sometimes feel cold to touch, and it is important to see how warm they are by feeling inside the armpit or taking a re**al temperature (See our video on how to take your horse’s TPR here - https://youtu.be/_bug-U1-hMg)

• During movement, or even shivering, contraction of the large muscles of the body burns energy and releases heat

Over-rugging will affect your horse’s ability to regulate its body temperature and may cause significant distress if they get too hot. Extreme heat stress may result in dehydration, increased heart and respiratory rates, lethargy and even colic. There are long term implications too. When rugged, your horse will use less energy, and the excess will be converted to fat, predisposing them Equine Metabolic Syndrome and laminitis in the spring. Therefore, rather than rugging, providing appropriate shelter and ample forage are likely to be more effective ways of keeping your horse warm through the winter.

There are cases, of course, when rugging is appropriate- horses standing in, or those which are clipped will need a rug. However, numerous factors should be considered when choosing which type and weight, including the environment, type of shelter available and the weather. Remember that you are likely to be making this decision in the morning, when the temperature is probably several degrees cooler than it will be in the middle of the day.

For further advice on rugging in the winter, call our team on 01323 815120

20/01/2025

A great podcast by Helen Duncan recently qualified as an Equine Touch and a VHT practitioner.
As she says Equine Touch is so good for any/ every horse, and anyone can learn to do it.

Recently, our Practitioner Helen Duncan of HD Body Balance was invited to do a Podcast with Liz Daniels EquiTeam about our fantastic equine and human modalities, The Equine Touch & Vibromuscular Harmonisation Technique (VHT).

Helen explains so well how our modalities work, what sets us apart from other techniques in the holistic world, what it was like training to qualify and how well she is doing with running her business! The podcast is inspiring and captivating to listen to, and a great way to spend 30 minutes of your evening so make sure you tune in by clicking the link below!

Well done Helen and thank you EquiTeam 👏🏻

Podcast: https://www.equiteam.co.uk/what-is-equine-touch/

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1A9MZhXduc/?mibextid=wwXIfr

12/01/2025

Why trainers PUSH horses TOO FAST

Klaus Balkenhol explains, "Although breeders have created a better horse, the market has created a demand for a stronger, healthier, more powerful horse. It's easier to sell a horse that looks like a carefully developed eight-year-old, and not like a three- or four-year-old just beginning his career. If you force it, you can get a three-year-old to physically look like a developed eight-year-old. Too many colts remain stallions which, if approved, promise breeders higher prices as three-year-olds. Now 250 to 300 young stallions are presented each year, when only 40 or 50 will be approved.

Few breeders have the sense to geld the yearling stallions and leave them on the pasture to mature naturally. Instead, yearling stallions are brought into a stall, fed too much grain, and at three, look like six- or seven-year-olds. They have muscle mass, but not enough bone structure to support it. They look mature from the outside but aren't . . . and when started to work, degeneration sets in. Competitions also create pressure to push horses too fast as competitions are now scheduled throughout the year without any breaks."

Common Mistakes In Pushing Too Fast
Tightening the noseband: "A horse resists by sticking out his tongue. Tightening the noseband too much puts pressure on the nose and on the poll. If it is necessary to tighten the noseband very tightly, then something has gone very wrong in the basic training of the horse. The horse cannot be relaxed, the first step on the training scale," warns Klaus.

Specializing too early: "Drilling every day in the indoor arena is too intense for the young horse. It's very important, especially in the first two years of training, not to specialize the young horse. Training should include a variety of activities, including trail riding, which is good for the mind as well as building strength with hill work. It should include jumping, either free or low jumps under saddle, including small natural obstacles on the trail, and cavaletti. A variety of work will allow the horse to stay mentally fresh and to enjoy his work. Only when the horse is happy can dressage become art."

Not checking tack frequently: "Saddle and tack need to be checked constantly for proper fit and adjusted as the horse's body changes with growth, and as his fitness improves with the training. If the noseband gets too low, for example, and the skin between the noseband and the bit is rubbed and becomes sore, this causes the horse discomfort and loss of relaxation. Regularly check for sharp edges and bit problems in the horse's mouth and teeth."

Working too long: "The goal of our training is to build the horse's mind and his muscles. Suppleness and relaxation require adequate muscle strength. strengthening requires both contraction and relaxation. Blood flow and oxygenation occur when the muscle relaxes. If the muscle is kept in a constant state of contraction, it loses power and strength, and actually becomes smaller. Frequent rest periods, especially for a young horse at a free walk on a long rein, are necessary. The rest periods are not for a rider's fatigue, but to allow the horse to stretch and relax his muscles. The rest breaks will give you a completely new horse. This is the systematic gymnasticizing of the horse."

Riding when the horseman is tense: "Horses are particularly sensitive to the rider's mood. A rider shouldn't ride if she is under undue stress or doesn't have the time to ride. If the rider has a bad day, give the horse a rest day or go for a relaxing trail ride; don't work in the arena. The horse mirrors the rider's mood."

Not praising the horse enough: "The horse must perform from joy, not subservience. Praising a horse frequently with voice, a gentle pat, or relaxing the reins is very important to keep the horse interested and willing. If the horse offers piaffe, for instance, because he's excited, praise him for it. You shouldn't stop the lesson at that point nor make a big deal out of it. If you don't want piaffe, quietly urge him forward into trot, but you should NEVER punish him for offering the piaffe. - Klaus Blakenhol

📸 Max & Maxwell: Equestrian Photography

13/11/2024

So close to our Equine Touch ethos.

27/10/2024

Another fantastic Equine Touch weekend finished after teaching an Equine Touch Foundation Course to a lovely group of students.
The horses were really happy along with the rest of us.

21/10/2024

☀️🌤Lessons this week! 🌤☀️The weather looks great so I'm opening up some additional time to get everyone booked in that's suffered from the recent grimness. Please get booked in, Stamford afternoon slots available,

Every day apart from Friday
£50 for 45min including arena hire

Experienced, qualified, insured coach ... so you know me, we work on the horse and riders on what they need on the day, always classical, always horse friendly

15/10/2024

There is still space available on the Equine Touch Foundation Course here in Lincolnshire later this month 25th - 27th October.
I also have a space available for the Equine Touch Intermediate Course also here in November (15th - 17th).
PM me if you are interested in either of these courses.

22/09/2024

A very enjoyable Equine Touch Foundation course this weekend. Some very relaxed happy horses enjoying their Equine Touch.

14/09/2024

The two pictured dressage riders demonstrate the one of the most egregious" changes in dressage over the past several decades. The left rider is balanced in shared unity of motion with his horse. His saddle is minimal and does not aid or restrict his position. By contrast, the modern dressage rider is leaning back with the help of a saddle with a high cantle and huge thigh blocks or knee rolls that allow her to lean back and use her body weight to increase her ability to apply greater rein pressure.

The visual difference between the riders is inescapable. One rider is relaxed and balanced while the other is unbalanced, "water skiing" off their horse's mouth with the help of a saddle that contains her imbalance. One rider works with their horse's energy while the other opposes their horse's energy with significant force.

Centuries old horsemanship is the distillation of the experience of thousands of riders with countless horses over centuries. This leaning back to enable riders to use their body weight to apply greater force to control their horses is not new. Because it is wrong, as evidenced by blue tongues and blood from horses' mouths, and because it is counter to true unity with one's horse, there has been a long standing rule of horsemanship to stop it. That rule states that riders should not be allowed to lean back more than 5 degrees behind vertical.

In our new commercial era of modern riding, each discipline has more or less created their own separate "horsemanship" with their own set of rules and standards. Many of these separate "horsemanships" have subordinated the protection of the horse in favor of fulfilling the expectations and desires of the riders. In this case of excessive rein pressure, abandoning the 5 degree rule gave modern dressage riders permission to use more physical force to impose on horses at the horse's expense and to their detriment.

Furthermore, abandonment of the 5 degree rule has required external supports in saddle design to deal with the rider's intentional imbalance when leaning back 10, 15 or even 20 degrees. Without the high cantles and giant thigh blocks, a rider leaning back past 5 degrees would likely fall off their horse.

This is one more example of how today's flawed riding that undermines the wellbeing of horses can be fixed. There is no need to ban certain bits and equipment. The need is to improve riding to the level that it is no longer destructive to horses.

If the 5 degree rule were to be reintroduced, riders would once again be required to ride in unified balance with and motion with their horses. This single change would greatly reduce the current level of excessive force applied to horses by simply making it much more difficult to develop the greater force levels that now cause the blood, blue tongues and the destructive hyperflexion.

A big part of these kinds of problems is that the well meaning advocates for the protection of horses are not educated enough to address the causes. Instead they address the symptoms related to equipment. Improved horsemanship is always the answer, and we have largely forgotten this.

08/09/2024

A great weekend spent teaching an Equine Touch Advanced Course to students working towards becoming practitioners along with a returning Practitioner. As always enjoyable and inspiring.

21/08/2024

18/08/2024

17/08/2024

Prehabilitation.
“Muscles do much more than create the forces needed to extend and flex joints, which is what has been traditionally taught in anatomy courses. Muscles are also critical for the buffering of the mechanical forces on the joints. They do this by absorbing very large amounts of energy and are thus critical to preventing overloading and to the stabilization of joints. This function is so important that the energy produced by normal walking would tear all the ligaments in the knee if it were not absorbed by muscular activity! Think about the implication of this. It means that joint stress and injuries can be predicted based on assessment of muscle function. This allows prevention strategies to be developed before there is serious damage to the joint aka: prehabilitation, which is widely used in training human athletes. It also means that a muscle may be overdeveloped and/or hypercontracted because of a weakness or loss of function in another muscle, in which case, simply trying to release a contracted muscle without considering whether it is compensating for dysfunction in another muscle group could further imbalance and stress the affected joints. (For discussion see Brandt KD et al. Ann Rheum Dis. 2006 Oct;65(10):1261-4).” (Elizabeth Uhl DVM, PhD, Dip, ACVP)
Developing and coordinating the horse’s physique for the athletic demand of the performance is prehabilitation. Ironically, I rehabilitated horses using the movements that crippled the horses in the first place. The difference is that instead of submitting the horse to the movement, I develop and coordinate the horse’s physique for the athletic demands of the gymnastic exercise. There is no need to say that the shoulder in or half pass that I use for rehabilitation differs widely from the move rewarded in the show ring. The pictures show the same horse executing a half pass with an inverted rotation, left picture, and a half pass executed with a correct rotation, right picture. It is my horse Bѐbѐ Blond. When he started the half pass in inverted rotation during a dressage test, I decided to do nothing, as correcting the problem would attract the judge’s eye. I got the same score executing half pass in inverted and proper rotation.
There is a difference between a shoulder in preventing injury and the shoulder in causing injury. The repetition of a movement causing injury is the belief that repeating the movement educates the horse’s physique. This theory believes that natural reflexes are adapted to athletic performances. If the horse has a preferential rotation, the horse executes the shoulder in protecting the rotation. The bend will be on one side, coupled with inverted rotation. This is true for every movement. Whatever the muscle imbalance or other issue, the horse’s umwelt leads the horse to protect the muscle imbalance or other issues.
A muscle never works alone; a percentage of the force produced by one muscle is transmitted to adjacent muscles by fascial connection. Fascia lines and close kinematics chains connect the whole physique. Releasing one muscle or fitting the saddle to a local muscle imbalance causes a compensation of practically the whole physique that might be worse than the original issue. I don’t use the saddle when I receive a horse with a back muscle imbalance, and the owner tells me that the saddle has been fitted to the muscle imbalance. The problem is never one or a small group of muscles. The problem involves dysfunction of the whole thoracolumbar spine. To identify the dysfunction, I need to feel the real problem, not a version distorted by the saddle adjustment. Muscles don’t develop responding to the pressure of an added shim or flocking. Muscles develop through adequate motion, including intensity and frequency. It is never simple, as muscles and fascia don’t develop at the same speed and respond to the same effort. Muscles do well with repetitive patterns, while fascia demands a larger diversity of forces and movements. This is one of the reasons why daily adjustments are necessary.
Metric thinking talks about complexity and difficulty because metric thinking wants to fit the horse to familiar patterns. Tensegrity thinking instead understands that a change of tension anywhere within the system is instantly signaled to everywhere else in the body, mechanically and chemically. There is a total body response. Dr Donald E. Ingbe revealed that molecules, cells, tissues, organs, and entire bodies use ‘tensegrity’ architecture to stabilize their shape mechanically and seamlessly integrate structure and function at all size scales.
The new understanding of body function is scary if we think muscles move bones. Instead, it is easy to apply if we use the integrity of our whole physique and understand that the horse willingly participates in his education. Instead of submitting the horse to body parts theories, we partner with the horse, guiding the horse’s mental processing toward efficient coordination of the horse’s physique.
Jean Luc

28/07/2024

A lovely day spent with friends at the Equine Touch and VHT review day here today. Bodywork for horses and people.

20/07/2024

I have Limited spaces available for VHT Practitioner (or student) CPD on Sunday 28th July here in Culverthorpe. (ET too by request.)
Please contact me if you are interested.

16/07/2024

New Course Dates added! Get in touch to book your place before spaces go. Please like and share🙂

08/07/2024

A great Equine Touch Foundation course this weekend. Lovely students and practitioners attending review days. All the horses were very happy.