09/18/2025
We can accuse or we can educate
When we are lucky enough to see what goes on with the inside of a horse, we become more aware of our effects when we apply things to the outside of a horse, yet some people have not been in our position and never think of internal affects from external force and without education from others how will they know, I often think seeing the inside is a curse and a gift for sometimes you feel like the only voice who questions what could be happening deeper
The muscle tear that looks like a divot from the outside may only require a few days off from someone who has only seen the outside of a horse yet if we see the scarred, damaged muscle from the inside we might give it a bit longer, we take along time to heal from muscle damage yet we never give our horses the same grace just because we cannot see the bruise does not mean the damage is not there.
The spur mark that creates a sensitive area or bleeding from the outside may hide the tear in the facia from the inside
The tight back which may have a massage pad put on doesn't show the link of the facial sheets from thoracolumbar fascia to abdominal fascia and further it doesn't show how hock or stifle pain will change the gait and therefore change the structure of how the fascia moves
A hoof shape from the outside may hide bony changes further up on the inside
And even when we look inside, we miss the surrounding affects we look only at spinous processes for kissing spine yet hardly anyone talks about what is going on deeper in the facet joints, or what other changes have occurred in the body for the horse to choose a posture that has such a catastrophic outcome on the bone definition.
We look at hock arthritis yet don't investigate further as to why the horse loaded wrong in the first place and the effects on the rest of the body is the inflammation only located to one joint
We are offered solutions from the outside without ever asking why, we are sold topical products to hide the marks that we create, because basically if your horse has spur marks you have to own up you are doing something wrong, yet often we only hear oh the horse has sensitive skin well then the onus lies with you to address it and the simple answer is we cannot keep using products to hide what has happened without asking why
But I strongly believe we need to come from a place of education rather than accusation often we attack the smaller person rather than the ones making the rules yet if you educate down the chain than often that one voice becomes many and that is how rules are changed
If we know better, we can do better but if we keep accusing those that may want to know more may never ask for help
None of us are perfect we probably look back on our life with horses and always there will be some regret at how we would have done things differently now we know more and seeking more answers has probably led us to where we are now, yet we were given the grace to learn and be better
Education is not a bed of roses it will make you question probably everything you do with horses, there will be moments where you will think what are we doing to horses, moments when you may question all what you have learned before and even moments where you want to walk away from it all but to help horses we need to know the effects we have on them we need to know the truth for only then can we truly help horses
But we can only educate when someone is ready to listen, we cannot force someone who doesn't want to know to know,
We can talk about ourselves, or we can put posts and posts of education out even if one person reads the post and goes away and researches more to find either some truth or to disprove, it doesn't matter because whether we agree or disagree with something we are educating ourselves to find the truth
The inside is always reflected on the outside, we must know how the internal affects the external and how external force affects the internal equilibrium, what we may see in books often is only a baseline of all the variations of real lifevand we need to always ask the question
What is that horses normal and how do we make it better
Pic of two sacrums top one is one I have but I can't remember where I got the pic of the bottom one x
