Blue Ribbon Bodywork

26/04/2025

This video is from the other day working with maisleigh . There was lots of honking, kids driving around in toy cars, dogs etc but she handled it like a champ. I definitely need to get a tripod as I didn’t catch any of her canter. Due to her being young and unbalanced, I am only having her canter until she gets her balance then having her come back to the trot. She can get frustrated in the canter and want to run through it which is another reason I have her break down to the trot to avoid strengthening the wrong muscles or to create a habit.

24/04/2025

When I was 17, I skipped my high school prom to go to Landrover Kentucky for the first time and it was the most inspiring weekend of my life.Yesterday, I had a hard time sitting through the horse inspection without squirming in my seat.

This photo is me at 17. Pre gender transition, pre professional horse career, just before I left my hometown to start a biochem undergrad program. I had been cross-country schooling a couple of times, I’d had the chance to sit on some nice dressage horses and try my hand at pirouettes, passage, and piaffe. Horses were my destiny and I knew it, even if I didn’t *Know* it. The reality was that my parents had ideas about what I should do with my life and what kind of activities were worth their financial contributions. Horses were never “no”, but my requests were followed by gentle redirection. Heading to, at the time, Rolex 4* was the highlight of my life.

I didn’t miss a jog up, I didn’t miss a dressage test, I hiked all day out on cross-country in the rain in a less-than totally waterproof raincoat because I simply cared more about the horses. I basked in the gleaming ponies, the turned out riders, the decorated fences and the vendors. My dreams of olympic riding felt close enough to grasp.

Yesterday, watching the jog over Facebook Livestream, I read a lot of comments that sounded like 17 year old me. Comments defending flighty horses with the explanation that “they’re just really fit!”, comments about how beautiful, how strong, how athletic those horses are. How these horses are the horses to be inspired by. How lucky those riders are to have such brave and noble steeds. I didn’t see gleaming ponies. I didn’t see excitement, I didn’t see a future that I want for myself.

Instead of basking in the glory, imagining a day that I get to storm around a stadium course, parade through the barns with grooms and coaches to support me, I went back to my lab science routes and I took notes. I do this frequently in my series work - if your horse has worked with me, you know I take movement seriously and I spend a lot of time watching horses move so I can correct their imbalances.

Thirty-eight horses jogged up for the vets and all were accepted.

By my anecdotal and non-medical assessment using the same criteria I use for my series horses, all thirty-eight horses showed:

-Evidence of negative palmar angle, excessive flaring, egregious medial-lateral imbalance in one or more hooves, clearly collapsed or crushed heels, feet that were clearly too upright, high/low syndrome, toe or quarter clips, or landings that were not heel-first.

- overdevelopment of brachiocephalic muscle

-Pelvis angle too steep - indicative of chronic psoas tension

-What EFIT practitioners refer to as a “V” holding pattern. Evidence that tension is chronically improperly transferred across the superficial dorsal lines and superficial ventral lines.

Of the thirty-eight horses, thirty-seven had improper development of the longissimus dorsi muscle.

Thirty-six had dysfunction of the forelimb protraction line - commonly seen in jumpers

Thirty-two prioritized moving their limbs to create forward motion rather than recruiting the full-body chains of kinetic myofascial lines

Thirty were tail wringers, or avoided tail movement at all. Thirty showed incorrect development of the medial glutes and the quadriceps.

In twenty-eight horses, the Cutaneous Omobrachialis was easily visible

In twenty-six horses, the cutaneous trunci was easily visible

Twenty-two horses showed either dorsal pelvic dysfunction, or lower impulsion chain dysfunction - both associated with galloping, starting work too young, or acute or chronic hind limb trauma

Twenty-one horses stood out to me as having an especially hard fascial expression, excessive freeze responses, excessive spooking, or excessive ear movement - all indicative of chronic stress or discomfort

Nineteen horses were presented in a flash noseband

Eleven horses demonstrated “spicy” or spooky behavior despite being some of the most highly-trained animals in the sport

Six horses demonstrated headshaking or nerve-fire behavior in the head.

This is the sport of eventing. This is the sport I fell in love with as a teenager - before I knew what I was seeing. Things have gotten better, and they are still this bad.

I have had success alleviating all of these symptoms with manual bodywork and specialized movement work. We can do better.

22/04/2025

This is a horse that I have been working with for 3 years. Due to the owners life getting in the way he was out of work without bodywork for a few months. He has a history of being worked on the track with kissing spines. As a result he became very reactive but when he was punished for this behavior he eventually started to shut down. Percy loves to work but he is constantly flipping from fear to shutting down. To combat this we do what makes him comfortable, which sometimes just means running next to us in the arena practicing target training. We always start with fun things to make him comfortable to have bodywork. Without relaxation bodywork will not do anything! Ask me any questions in the comments or PM to schedule a consultation with your horse!

22/04/2025

Here’s some sped up clips of our long grooming sessions yesterday! I managed to shed a ton of her winter coat out and get some mud off of her. We also practiced staying calm while her new pasture mate Jake was outside for a ride.

21/04/2025

In just 3 sessions Bramby is back to his old calm self! Often when horses are struggling with muscular weakness and pain, they become reactive and reluctant while handling or during work. Contact us today if you and your horse are struggling with these issues!!

19/04/2025

20/03/2025

Tails tell a story

I thought I would add a little more in

Often tails are forgotten when we look at the horse we may pull them, or use them as an access point for other parts of the horse but often tails and how they sit in line with the rest of the body can indicate other things which may be happening

Anatomy

The tailbones are called the COCCYGEAL and on average there are 15-18 bones which begin at the end of the sacral bone, the first two are located internally and often the little triangle above the tail will indicate where these are or by moving the tail up and down you can usually feel where the sacrum begins as this is not as mobile as the tailbones
The tail can move up and down and side to side, it has muscles which can help with posture (slow twitch) and movement (fast twitch).
Even though there is no spinal cord here it still contains many nerves and also many soft tissue connections which reach further forward along the horse
Tails are great for communication we can tell alot by the tails movement and not just when riding, fly swatting and balance
If we look at the connection between the big ligaments that are effective between the tail and sacroiliac joints then we often find restriction in either will have an effect on the other and also a more global effect

A tail should feel like there is some resistance then relax when we work on it a bit like goldilocks and the three bears it should not feel to rigid nor to relaxed it should be just right 😁

I think of the tail as a rudder of the ship its used for balance, can indicate how your horse is feeling and we often only think of diagonals with a compensation pattern a straight line from right to left or vice versa when often when we look its usually a zig zag pattern as the horse tries to find a more normal pattern throughout the body sort of trying to right itself at each junction and more often than not if we have a tail off to one side the zig zag pattern of compensation will end up with the head favouring the same side that the tail is sat

Tail off to one side

Often this usually happens way before your therapist comes to work with your horse and its already a deep established pattern throughout your horses body, remember the tail and sacrum are interlinked so usually I come across this if the horse has had some strain around the pelvic area, maybe the horse had a slip or a fall as a youngster and that is why it is so hard to correct it as its usually been a long standing issue and a pattern is ingrained into the body, it's now the horses normal crooked tails are still not well documented as to the whys
So it's important if you see your youngster slip in the field to get it checked, often the bony landmarks hit the ground and you can see its all connected and mostly what I see is the Tuber Coxae that is most affected is the nearside and most tails I see are always favouring to the left side

Tail rigid and stiff

Again for me this may be an indicator that the horse is trying not to move things too much in this area think of the rudder of the ship if it is stuck in one position often intricate movements are hard, the horse is usually ok in straight lines but may struggle with schooling moves, again do not just think of the tail as a single entity you have to think of the connections and muscles in the tail can have connections further up the back

Clamped down tail

This is usually the polar opposite of the rigid tail but again is the horse trying to keep the area as still as possible often the engine is switched off in these horses so they often struggle to power their hind end as the easiest way I explain it to clients is pull your knickers up your bum and then try to run, it's not so easy

Different breeds will have different tail carriages, and different personalities will have different tail carriages as well but we must remember the tail is an indicator of the mobility of your horses spine, and the health of the soft tissue, a non-moving tail is trying to protect an area and like I say we come in much later so there may be no pain but a restriction and it's important we do the work in small parts to allow the horse to adjust and reset

We also have to think of the huge fascial sheets across the horse and the effects of fascial restrictions and patterns throughout the body remember we have to work on the whole horse even if we think it’s a hind end or front end or middle part of the horse for the connections of the tail go much further than the tail bones, think of the top of the tail in a little fascial pop sock

We often only think of steering is a front-end issue but if the rudder fails then the steering will never be right the tail should be able to move with the body counterbalancing the body and we have to work with what we have in front of us, often the owners have done all the vet checks and we are just trying to bring more balance to the body without it having to work so hard

18/04/2024

Check out www.blueribbonbodywork.com for updates to the services we offer!! Which now include groundwork training!! More updates in the works!

30/03/2024

Just wanted to hop on here and say hello to my new followers! In the next month we should have more content and blog posts! I’ll have time to play on the computer since I will be at home for a few weeks.

06/03/2024

Hello I just wanted to let everyone know that my surgery was moved to April 5th due to having Covid a few weeks ago. I would like to do all clients between the 1st and 3rd of the month so that they are set up for the month! Contact me with any questions!

08/02/2024

Hello I wanted to let everyone that I will be having surgery on march 7th. So I won’t be able to do services for 2-4 weeks I’ll be playing it by ear and will update people once I can work again. I would like to do everyone between march 1st-6th. Contact me to schedule!

21/01/2024

A year later this horse just attended his first off property show! I’m excited to see him next week.