Hoof & Body Solutions

12/19/2025

Some one tell this Paso it’s winter and he can slow his growth! Lovely, healthy foot nonetheless 🐎

12/17/2025

Our next question on the Equine Cervical Neck -
How does arthritis in the neck affect hoof handling of both front and hind feet? Thank You, Monique L

If your horse struggles with their farrier work or afterward, there could be a reason unrelated to the trim/shoeing.
• Pain with sustained positioning.
Farrier work requires the horse to hold a limb up and often slightly flexed for several minutes at a time. For a horse with lower cervical (neck) arthritis, this prolonged positioning acts like a long flexion test, stressing painful joints and surrounding soft tissues.

• Nerve involvement (especially in the front limbs).
The nerves that supply the front legs originate in the lower neck and brachial plexus. Arthritis can irritate or compress these nerves. Vibrations from rasping and hammering travel up the limb and can amplify nerve pain, making hoof work very uncomfortable.

• Shoulder girdle strain.
Lifting and holding a front leg requires stabilization through the neck and shoulder girdle. If the neck is arthritic, this effort can trigger pain that persists for days after farrier work, sometimes mimicking lameness caused by the trim or shoeing.

• Hind feet are affected too.
Although the hind limbs are not directly innervated by the brachial plexus, holding a hind leg up requires the horse to brace through the neck and back to maintain balance. Neck pain makes this difficult, so the horse may resist, fidget, or become sore afterward.

• Delayed soreness after farrier work.
Horses with cervical arthritis may appear fine during trimming but become lame or stiff for 2–4 days afterward, leading to farriers being blamed for issues like “taking too much off” or nail pain, when the real source is cervical discomfort.

Bottom line:
If a horse consistently struggles with farrier work—front or hind—especially with signs of soreness afterward, resistance to holding legs up, or sensitivity to vibration, the neck is an important place to investigate, particularly for arthritis or nerve-related pain.

12/15/2025

Things that should not still be controversial heading into 2026 but are:

1. Horses are social herd animals and being able to socialize with other horses is a key component for their welfare. When they are unable to do so, their welfare suffers.

2. Horses are made to be MOVING. Excessive confinement, especially when paired with isolation, is damaging. Confinement and inability to move increase colic risks, make horses more unpredictable and difficult to handle and also impact overall wellbeing. Stalling is well studied and when horses are stalled in excess, there are many physical and mental health problems associated with it.

3. Horses are trickle feeders. They’re meant to be intaking food on a near constant basis. Even with horses who have a tendency to gain weight easily, we need to find means of enabling access to forage for most of the day. This can be done with slow feed nets and other means of slowing hay intake.

Ultimately, what humans currently have access to providing for their horses does not change the facts.

I understand how helpless people can feel when navigating the boarding systems and how hard it can be to take in this information when you don’t feel you have options available to improve the care of your horse.

However, how we feel about the facts does not change the facts.

What we are able to provide for our horses does not change the findings of research that have been replicated for decades now.

The facts are:

- horses are herd animals. Socialization is a crucial component for wellbeing.

Despite this, they’re commonly isolated and kept alone. Common does not equate to normal or healthy.

- horses are commonly kept confined and their lack of ability to engage in free movement contributes to many of the common issues with see with horses.

And, lastly,

- people often use tradition, what they perceive as normal and what they feel capable of providing (or what is most convenient for them) as an excuse to reject factual information.

But, rejecting the information does not change the experience for horse.

We need to sincerely start to reflect on the ethics of much of the horse industry because despite the fact that us humans love horses and want to have them, our desire to do so should never come above meeting basic needs.

We shouldn’t be getting social animals if we cannot meet their social needs.

We shouldn’t be getting large farm animals intended to move lots if we cannot provide this.

Riding cannot and will never make up for autonomous movement and socialization.

It can be a tough pill to swallow, but it’s necessary nonetheless.

12/12/2025

I’m not tired, you’re tired 🤣~good boi getting his laser treatment

12/05/2025

Wow! Some people just get me🤣
Seriously thank you for thinking of this. It was much appreciated

11/27/2025

Wishing everyone a very happy Thanksgiving. I am so grateful for all of you who see my page online and especially for all of you who allow me the opportunity to be a part of your horse’s care team on a monthly basis. It’s a privilege to help them feel comfortable in their feet and bodies 😊

11/21/2025

The cutest itty bitty concavity 💕💕

11/17/2025

Your horse’s skeleton is built for impact — not confinement.

Three decades of equine bone research makes one thing painfully clear: Horses kept in box stalls lose bone density.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

Confinement triggers the same biological process humans call osteoporosis — and it starts fast.

Key findings from the research:

- Horses moved from pasture into stalls and worked only at slow speeds began losing bone mineral content within weeks.
- A single short sprint per week (50–80 m) dramatically strengthened bone.
- Corticosteroids mask pain and increase risk of further injury
- Good nutrition cannot override a lack of mechanical loading.
- A skeleton that doesn’t experience impact simply cannot stay strong.

All of this is drawn from:
Nielsen, B.D. (2023). A Review of Three Decades of Research Dedicated to Making Equine Bones Stronger. Animals, 13(5), 789.

So what does this mean for our modern domesticated horses?

It means bone weakness is not inevitable.

It’s a management problem.

It means many “mysterious” pathologies — stress fractures, suspensory injuries, joint degeneration, chronic compensation, recurrent lameness — are downstream consequences of bone that never had the chance to adapt to the forces nature designed it for.

Box stalls create osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis creates a whole lot of other pathology.

Your horse doesn’t need to be an athlete. But their bones require impact. Free movement. The ability to respond to their own nervous system’s cues to trot, canter, play, stretch, and even sprint.

Turnout is not enrichment.

Movement is biology.

Bone health is built — or lost — every single day.

A question I encourage every owner to sit with:

If you knew your horse’s bones were weakening in silence every day they stood still, would you keep managing them the same way?

Because in the end, it’s not confinement that keeps a horse safe.

It’s a resilient skeleton.

And only you can give them the environment their biology requires.

Change begins with us.

11/17/2025

Great morning webinar with Dr Ian Bidstrup from Australia who presented a session on “Neck pain, kissing spine and Sacroiliac disease”. Great session discussing regenerative therapy approaches in the management of horses with dysfunction. Massive thank you to Ian for sharing his work and clinical approaches - with the overarching theme, look at the whole horse, not just one area. Thank you to everyone who joined, great Q and A 🤓

Our 2025 webinar programme, brings world renowned researchers and clinicians direct to your laptop, sharing their ground breaking work and approaches.

Bringing high quality CPD direct to you, without the need to drive or travel. The overarching objective of our programme, is to share high quality, evidence based information which can be used to advance knowledge and understanding across the globe, to help improve equine health and welfare.

All webinars are recorded with an annual viewing pass, CPD certificate and interactive questions and answers session.

Details and bookings⤵️

https://www.centaurbiomechanics.co.uk/webinars-online-cpd-and-education-/

11/08/2025

11/08/2025

SUREFOOT day for my own today!

11/07/2025

🐴 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐭 — 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡.

This has been on my mind a lot ..
We keep talking about burnout in the horse world — but what if it isn’t burnout?
What if it’s just caring too deeply, for too long, without a break?

Because we don’t clock off at 5pm.
We don’t switch off our phones or our brains.
We lie awake wondering if the one that didn’t finish their feed is okay,
or if the weather’s going to turn the fields into soup again.

We say “I’m fine” while doing twelve things at once, running on coffee, hay dust and stubbornness.
We hold space for everyone else’s horses, emotions, and emergencies — but who holds space for us?

And when we finally show we’re tired, someone always says,
“Well, you chose this life.”
As if loving something means it shouldn’t exhaust you.

But it’s okay to be tired.
It’s okay to need a day off.
It’s okay to love this life and still feel like it’s breaking you sometimes.

Because the truth is, we don’t do it for money, or glory, or thanks.
We do it for the quiet moments —
the old horse resting his nose on your shoulder,
the rescue that finally trusts again,
the little wins no one else sees.

That’s what keeps us here.

So if you’re reading this and you’re running on fumes — you’re not weak.
You’re human. You just care more than most. 💛

Ps. If anyone finds a “self-cleaning stable” or a “field that never turns to mud” setting in real life, please DM me immediately. I’ll sell a kidney for it. 😂