THD Equestrian

06/18/2024

An entire industry has been created selling you the idea that there is a method to fix every problem.

What is extremely popular is a video for every problem, and for every fix there are three more problems created, for which there’s a method to fix too.

I get asked nearly daily to create a video about specific problems (I saw your video on trailer loading, but what about loading a chestnut mare into an Adam trailer?). These can be helpful to see, but the mentality over time has shifted into specifics instead of looking at the big picture.

Good, all encompassing horsemanship creates a foundation wherein problems melt away holistically. If you understand how all things connect, you stop seeing things individually, but as a whole. You have to fix the whole and stop looking for quick solutions.

Teaching people to be actual horsemen, to stop looking for quick tips and tricks, to start seeing the whole and the connection of all things, means rewiring our minds from conditioning and marketing over the past decades.

So if you have a problem, it isn’t living in isolation. It’s part of a whole picture. And you have to look at, and feed the whole, for the symptoms to melt away.

03/18/2024

The WALK - mother of all gaits

Most riders spend little time at the walk outside of "cooling out" or "warming up".

Not realizing it is the gait that BIRTHS everything you do, and REVEALS everything you may need.

"The FEI rule book once stated that it was at the pace of the walk that imperfections of dressage are most evident"

Every issue can be felt and seen through the magnifying lens of the walk.

"François de Lubersac, a master from the legendary School of Versailles in the 18th century, recognized that in dressage training, the first gait in which to train is always the walk.

Remarkably, de Lubersac, trained his horses only at the walk, and when he decided that they were ready, his horses were able to do everything at all gaits."

The walk is an anchoring gate. To teach and refine the horses balance, collectabilty, lightness, refinement, propreoception, suppleness, relaxation, lateral gymnastics, and understanding of aids... just to name a few.

There is no better gait to school these concepts then the walk. Testing things up the ladder of movement; trot and canter, and then anchoring back to the walk to fix, progress, or prepare.

The walk is the gait you "polish the stone" of all these qualities, more than any other gait.

It is the gait you come back to again and again, where the root of it all lives.

And remember, as with any gait, there is more than "just ONE walk".

Tempo, balance, stride, and frame can change in so many ways within any single gait that it lends itself to many "changes of gait within a gait", based on what that horse needs at any given moment.

In my opinion, a classical rider can easily spend an entire ride at the walk, and the higher up they ride, the more time they may spend at the walk...polishing the stone.

Mindful footfalls live in the walk.

What is your walk telling you?

02/22/2024

Henri in the morning must! Thanks for the great picture Jamie Adams!

01/25/2024

What is the diagnosis?

This is a common question we are asked. It is a fair and expected question. The trouble is – I don’t always have an answer for you. Why? Body Lameness is complicated and is rarely clear. In order to fix the body we have to know and understand its complexity. We also must appreciate the concept of biotensegrity.

Small areas of dysfunction can cause lameness and dysfunction in completely different regions of the body. I struggle with periodic left foot pain. I randomly (i.e. no specific event, sound familiar?) get a sharp pressure and pain in my left heal or arch of my foot. It feels like plantar fasciitis. I bought the insoles, I changed shoes- I got mild improvement. I was a 2/5 AAEP lameness. It wasn’t until I saw a human physio that I had relief of my foot pain. She quickly looked at me and explained my foot problem was due to a lower lumbar mild subluxation (my back did not hurt!) which lead to a pull on my fascia and change on my medial tibia which lead to the foot pain. Within one session my foot pain was resolved. I likely would have blocked to my foot. I would have definitely had a response to hoof testers. If I were a horse I would have been offered farrier changes and coffin joint injections, likely with mild improvement. My foot was a secondary issue but a primary concern. My back was the primary source of pain and yet a non-clinical issue. Until you discover the root cause, you will never truly resolve the pain.

Horses are the same. I treat horses based on my clinical exam and diagnostic imaging (to the best of my abilities). However, the important part is treating them based on their biomechanical failure points. It’s important to recognize that the body works as a whole and not individual pieces. If there is one region of pain or dysfunction, you must treat the entire area- not one spot. You also must consider how a horse’s biomechanics and biotensegrity play into their movement, posture and overall athleticism. If they cannot sit and use their lumbar-sacral junction correctly they cannot relieve tension in their thoracic sling. If their shoulder girdle is dysfunctional, you need to treat the entire region- the neck does not work independently from the first few ribs or shoulder. It all works together and in balance of each other. Additionally we must consider things like nutritional deficiency/toxicity, diet plans, exercise routines, saddle fit, gastrointestinal issues and muscle diseases. Often horses have some combination of all of these things. To get the best results or treat the difficult cases, we have to look at all areas.

On top of these concepts, we cannot image everything. The assumption that there is only an issue if you can image it, is ignorance. Necropsies have proven this to me repeatedly. We find so many things- nerve impingements, muscle changes, fascia changes, scar restrictions, disc problems, boney changes - all can be clinically significant and not found in the live horse. This doesn’t mean they aren’t part of the problem. The body can frequently compensate with little things over time, and then with age and addition of injuries sudden decompensation occurs- leading to acute pain on a chronic issue.

So when clients ask me, what was the diagnosis? I frequently say things like shoulder girdle dysfunction, lumbar sacral dysfunction, neuritis, rib cage dysfunction. I may sometimes be able to pinpoint specifics like T16 articular facet arthritis or lumbar intertransverse joint stepping. However, I know these individual things are part of a much larger picture of dysfunction. I treat the dysfunctional segments as a whole and that’s how we can get big results, where owners have been struggling. That’s how we can take a behavioral horse, who passed lameness exams but wasn’t right and turn them quickly into a happy relaxed working horse. Results matter to me more than individual diagnoses.

Image below is the brachial plexus- cannot be imaged well, cannot be blocked out, yet can be a huge source of pain and lameness in a horse. It’s frequently affected by other areas causing incorrect pressure, pull or tension on this region. It can be treated. Until you solve why it’s under incorrect forces, you will never resolve its pain.

01/24/2024

12/14/2023

Spook is just the bestest barn kitty! This cat is always with me around the barn, he even watches me give lessons, lunge or ride my horses. He is one rail bird (cat) that is always welcome!

12/01/2023

We had the perfect amount of rain last night. Arena footing does not get better than this!!!

10/26/2023

Dearest Riders,

Please let me remind you of something very important. Horse showing, riding and training are insanely difficult. If you have a crappy ride, a less than stellar show ring result (or if you made your trainer want to pull their hair out today), it just means there's more to learn. The people who had good rides today are not exempt from disappointing rides tomorrow. They also have bad days and, if they're very experienced riders, they've had a whole bunch of bad days.

There will always be someone out there on a more talented horse, someone with a bigger bank account, someone who never struggled to learn to sit the trot...life isn't fair. You probably can't win the lottery or grow 5 more inches of leg. You can, however, wake up every morning and be thankful that you're able to ride horses. Work hard at becoming the best rider you can be with the body and the bank account that you have right now. Work at being the rider your horse wants up there on his back. Your horse's opinion of your riding is more valuable than any judge's opinion could ever be.

09/27/2023

Today baby Spook said now I want to get on the handsome buckskin! Right away went to making biscuits, Henri liked it better than Davidoff! 😻🐈‍⬛

09/26/2023

Look who also wanted to ride Davidoff today! 😂😸😻
Baby Spook is the best barn kitty!

09/12/2023

The grass is so good at THD Equestrian this time of the year. Such a luxury to have this right in the city! The west valley is getting so developed/commercialize, almost all the farmland around is gone but THD remains such a piece of heaven in the middle of it all.

12/30/2022

The boys had the barn going crazy!

11/18/2022

My Pegasus
My Unicorn
My #1
My Big D
My Best Buddy
My Bubba
My Whole World
MY DAVIDOFF
This horse…. Every day I just have to pinch myself because it’s just so unbelievable that he is mine, Thanks Trish! ❤️❤️❤️

11/17/2022

11/11/2022

These 2 eyes… ❤️🥰🐴🦄

I have always felt that there is centuries of old world secrets behind them, that they are a direct link to God and the true Divine.

There is something so special and unique to a Lusitano’s face and those eyes!!! It truly is something no other breed has, thier History and Nobility reaches deep into your sole.

11/10/2022

Critical thinking for learning horsemanship:

With todays amount of information easily available, it can be both exciting and overwhelming. We are bombarded with all kinds of systems, philosophies, ideas, and- they all seem to contradict each other.

My hope is never to tell anyone what to do, but to encourage them to think. There are many really good programs out there, and there are some that simply don’t work well for the horse. Some are rude, aggressive and disregard the horse. But more insidious, some look and sound nice up front but leave the horse more frustrated, crooked, and ill prepared for the world.

The path you take depends largely on who you are, what your aim is with the horse, and most importantly, what your horse says about it.

Here are some things to consider as you go through your learning- as I’ve been learning myself, I’ve backtracked many times when I ran into one of these speed bumps, and now these are my non negotiable markers for good training

1- the horse is becoming calmer and more emotionally balanced.
This doesn’t mean they are calm every second or can never have a tough moment, but in the overall scheme of things, they are more relaxed, happier, and calm in general.

2-the horse is becoming more sound.
A good training program takes mind and body together into account, and doesn’t ask the body to do things it wasn’t designed for to learn. If you find your horse becoming less sound over time, assuming an exterior injury, genetic issue or trauma hasn’t occurred, it may be wise to look at the daily movement that is being encouraged.

3- the horse is becoming safer to handle
Here’s a not so black and white area, in that this assumes those handling the horse are not doing things to create dangerous behavior, such as over driving, confining to do something the horse isn’t prepared for, etc. But, overall, good training leads to a horse that is quiet to handle and happy doing it- one that can lead, tie, load, get trims, dentals, etc without too much fuss- the timeline is the horse’s, but good training leads steadily forward to these goals

4- my favorite and most important guideline for good training: the horse is becoming more beautiful and looks serene
Good movement and handling makes a horse literally shine. Their bodies develop good muscling that makes them look taller and more majestic, their coats gleam, and their expression is peaceful. This to me is non negotiable - all good training leads to this.

11/07/2022

So this is what Davidoff thinks of being in the isolation unit at Chapparal Medical for the weekend! 😝😛 Me too buddy! 😘

So today his numbers looked better, calcium numbers back to normal, creatinine still elevated but lower than it was. So he was taken off IV fluids for the day to see how his kidneys react. If he stays stable without fluids and kidneys don’t get irritated, I will take him home tomorrow and then run blood work later in the week to see what his organs (kidneys) are doing.

He will have to be in isolation at home again until we know for sure he is negative for salmonella. Since he was positive for it with his colic surgery complications, it could become active again since he is compromised. No signs of that, but just want to keep him and everyone else safe.

So really no understanding of why or what is happening, like always, I just know my horse so well that I know when he is not right even when all vitals tell me nothing is wrong!
Hopefully it was just a fluke thing and we don’t have a kidney issue.

Please keep prayers and positive feels coming his way.

11/05/2022

Davidoff looked really good this afternoon. He is very alert and eager to eat which is a great sign!
So fluids are really helping, unfortunately he has rubbed out his catheter already today which probably means about $500 on the ground but he seems much more like himself.
No news yet about what his kidney function is saying with blood work but he seems good for now! So please keep the prayers and good vibes coming his way.

11/05/2022

Need some prayers and positive thoughts for my Big D! ❤️🐴🦄

Davidoff is back at Chapparal for hopefully only a weekend stay. He has been not himself this week, he started off seeming like mild colic. Had him tubed and palpated Tuesday evening. All vitals pretty normal but I just felt something wasn’t right. Wednesday until today he just hasn’t had an appetite, so since he’s not wanting to eat very much he’s not really drinking either. So I decided to have more blood drawn today to check. His kidney’s are NOT happy, so it was recommended to take him to Chapparal Medical to be put on fluids and to monitor his kidney function. He had to go into the isolation unit because of his previous condition from colic surgery and having had salmonella.

Well to say he was VERY UPSET about being there is an understatement.
It just broke my heart having to take him back to be hospitalized again.

Please send him prayers and healing thoughts to help get him through this.
🙏🙏🙏🙏