Leanne's Equine Therapy

17/11/2025

14/11/2025

🌿 Why Regular Bodywork Supports Your Horse’s Health & Performance 🌿

Just like athletes, horses rely on balanced movement, muscular symmetry, and nervous system regulation to stay comfortable, happy, and performing well.
But because horses are masters at compensating, tension, restriction, and imbalance often build silently — long before pain or behavioural changes appear.

✨ This is where consistent therapeutic care makes a difference.

Regular sessions help to:
✔️ Release muscular and fascial tension before it becomes stiffness or lameness
✔️ Improve spinal and joint mobility, allowing freer, more efficient movement
✔️ Support balance in the nervous system, promoting relaxation and reducing reactivity
✔️ Enhance proprioception — the horse’s awareness of their own body
✔️ Reduce asymmetries caused by saddle fit, rider influence, conformation, or workload

🏇 For performance horses, regular therapy helps:
• Improve stride quality
• Support engagement and collection
• Reduce recovery time
• Maintain softness through the poll, back, and hind end
• Prevent small restrictions turning into chronic compensations

💛 For older or retired horses, it offers:
• Comfort
• Mobility
• Nervous system support
• Improved quality of life

🧠 And when we include modalities like CranioSacral Therapy, Equine Touch and Red Light Therapy, the benefits go deeper — supporting the whole horse, not just the muscles.

✨ Consistency builds resilience.
With regular sessions, your horse doesn’t just “feel better after.”
They move better, recover faster, think clearer — and maintain balance for longer.

📩 If you’d like to discuss what schedule best supports your horse — whether monthly, seasonal, or performance-based — feel free to message me.

Your horse’s comfort isn’t a luxury.
It’s part of their wellbeing. 💞🐴

01/10/2025

🐴 Did you know your horse’s jaw and pelvis are deeply connected?
It’s not just about movement or posture — this link goes all the way back to how every body (human and horse!) develops before birth.

🔹 From the very beginning:
In early embryonic development, two important areas form — the mouth at one end, and the openings for the digestive, urinary, and reproductive systems at the other. The spine grows between them, creating a lifelong connection.

🔹 The spine & dura connection:
Your horse’s spinal cord is wrapped in a protective sheath (the dura). This dura connects the head (including the jaw) all the way down to the sacrum in the pelvis. So tension at one end can easily affect the other.

🔹 Why it matters:
• If the jaw is tight (from dental changes, bit pressure, or TMJ restriction), it changes head posture.
• The body compensates further down — often in the pelvis or hind end.
• Over time, this can look like sacroiliac pain, back tension, or uneven movement behind.

🔹 Core stability link:
The jaw and pelvis both play a role in spinal stability. If one end is struggling, the other can’t work properly either. That’s why you often see poll tension and pelvic restriction showing up together.

✨ Bottom line: A horse’s posture isn’t just “head up” or “hind engaged.” It’s a whole-body system, with the jaw and pelvis working as partners.

30/09/2025

🌿 Equine Therapy Services – Supporting Your Horse’s Wellbeing 🌿

With over 20 years of experience, I offer a holistic approach to equine health, using evidence-based therapies designed to restore balance, function, and vitality.

✨ CranioSacral Therapy
A gentle, hands-on treatment that helps release restrictions in the nervous system, improving spinal and cranial mobility, reducing tension, and supporting overall body function.

✨ Equine Touch
A structured, rhythmic bodywork system that stimulates circulation, promotes lymphatic drainage, and supports muscular and fascial health for improved movement and recovery.

✨ Photonic Red Light Therapy
Targeted wavelengths of light pe*****te deep into tissues to accelerate healing, reduce inflammation, and ease pain in joints, muscles, and soft tissue.

✨ Quantum Biofeedback
Cutting-edge technology to to help asses and rebalance your horses energy for optimal health

Every session is tailored to your horse’s unique needs—whether for rehabilitation, performance optimisation, or long-term wellness.

📞 Ready to support your horse’s health from the inside out?
Message me here, call/text 027 274 9626, or connect via WhatsApp or Instagram.

05/09/2025

😳 Wow!! So lucky he didn’t panic!

Bodywork is definitely required after an incident like this!

04/09/2025

🐴 Straight Lines vs Circles: What’s Better for Your Horse?

✅ Hacking out in straight lines
• Encourages symmetrical loading on all four legs.
• Promotes even bone, joint, and muscle development.
• Supports healthy spine movement without twisting.
• Great for long-term joint, back, and SI health.

🔄 Circles (lunging, schooling, walkers)
• Always load the inside and outside legs differently.
• Outer legs take more force, inner legs stay on the ground longer.
• Spine bends unevenly, creating more pressure through the back.
• Over time, this imbalance may contribute to joint strain, SI tension, or even increase risk for issues like kissing spine.

⚖️ Balance is Key
Circles and walkers can be useful tools — but too much repetitive circle work (especially small circles or fast gaits) can increase uneven stress on your horse’s body.

👉 Mix it up:
• Plenty of hacking/straight-line work
• Vary circle size and direction
• Keep sessions short and balanced

Your horse’s body thrives on variety and movement in straight lines. 🌿

02/09/2025

🐴 Why is walking so beneficial for your horse?

Especially as a warm-up…

✨ Joints need movement to stay healthy.
Unlike muscles, the cartilage in your horse’s joints doesn’t have its own blood supply. Instead, it relies on movement to get nutrients.

When your horse walks, each step gently compresses and releases the joints. This action pushes nourishing synovial fluid in and out of the cartilage — keeping it smooth, hydrated, and protected.

✨ The spine works the same way.
Between each vertebra is a disc that cushions movement. These discs don’t get nutrients from blood either — they rely on gentle spinal motion to “soak up” what they need and release waste. Walking is the perfect, low-impact way to keep them healthy.

✨ Where craniosacral comes in:
The spine is also home to the dural tube — the fluid-filled system that connects your horse’s cranium (head) all the way down to the sacrum (pelvis).
Gentle movement during walking helps this fluid system flow, keeping the nervous system balanced and the whole body in rhythm.

✨ Why it matters:
• Protects joints & cartilage
• Keeps the spine flexible and nourished
• Prepares muscles and fascia for harder work
• Supports the craniosacral rhythm for relaxation and balance

💆‍♀️ Adding craniosacral therapy gives your horse an even bigger boost: releasing tension, improving joint alignment, and helping the body self-repair — so your horse can stay sound, supple, and happy.

30/08/2025

Food for thought

Fear, Fear & Fear - Most of today's young riders ride in fear. I watch them and I see them braced throughout their entire bodies. Most have learned to ride in the Hunter Jumper discipline where unbalanced poses cause them to feel insecure on a horse. Unsuspecting parents think that is the way riding is supposed to be. It's not.

Injury and death from falls have become a possibility even in equitation classes. Today's biggest discipline, Hunter Jumpers, is not sustainable if this continues down its current path.

To counter this fear, there is a new business called the LandSafe Rider Fall Safety System. They travel the country giving clinics with a mechanical horse (that moves nothing like a horse) and loads of floor pads to teach young riders to fall off their horses safely.

Why aren't riding instructors teaching students how not to fall off? Why aren't parents demanding safer riding methods? Maybe because they don't know it is possible to stay on a horse by riding defensively.

The bottom left graph shows post views of my recent defensive riding post that so far has over 790,000 views. Link below. Who is viewing it? It's mostly, 41.9%, the 18 to 24 year old demographic that is only 2.6% of my page's Follower base according to the FB analytics graph on the right. With thousands of engagements and hundreds of shares, this means young riders have been sharing this defensive riding post with other young riders. Nothing close to this has ever happened on my page.

The level of fear in today's young riders is tragic. It need not be this way. I am 78 and I am now training two young horses, both 5 years old. One is an off the track Thoroughbred and the other is a 17.1 H Irish Draft/TB cross that knows as much as a 2 year old. Both are great horses. Am I fearful when I ride them? No, because I was trained as a boy by a US Cavalryman in defensive riding.

Working with me on these prospects is a 20 something rider, Laura, who learned defensive riding from me when she was a young kid. She is not afraid. She has been a Whipper in for a hunt with a very good pack. All young riders could ride like Laura if they had the training.

Parents and riders, you don't have to accept fear. You don't need Landsafe if you don't fall off. Defensive riding that includes the time tested British Horse Society emergency dismount is safer. We must stop accepting fear as part of riding. We must demand safer, more secure riding methods. Artificial poses, releases and all the rest are not authentic horsemanship.

I will end with a ray of hope. There is a new organization, the United Dressage & Jumping Club. www.udjc.org that is offering an alternative show series. I have not been to one of their shows, but their information is sensible. I think they might be a better alternative to the HJ shows we have now. They haven't had a show near me yet, but when they do, I'll be there. I am hopeful.

Defensive riding post -

www.facebook.com/BobWoodHorsesForLife/posts/pfbid035vSUVLD3kaJnZ1VRE7XfufrRUyB5ZiZucM2ufvAwYkYFVgCg737GpFu3hND4bprFl