Essence Equine Therapy And Training

27/09/2024

I want to extend a huge congratulations to one of our long time clients! Ending the show season with a gold medal for Britney Richwine & Tymeless "Danny"! 2024 Indiana Dressage Society Champion at Training Level Junior/Young Rider with a 68.9%!!! ❤️ It has been an amazing road with this family and this horse. I've been blessed to watch Britney grow up into horses while working with her mother (from age three, man I feel old!!) and the last 3/4 years helping Danny find his elastic core though bodywork. I am of course just one spoke in the wheel for this team but I'm very happy to be a part of it. Congratulations guys!!

27/09/2024

Both Rachel and I will be out of reach this weekend. No lessons on Monday. And Rachel won't be back until Oct 5th so any questions or schedule concerns, please send to this messenger until then. Thank you all! ❤️

15/09/2024

Selfie time with Charley on Thursday! We were on a tight schedule and Michaela was already mounted and out in the pasture when I got there. It is a farm with "working" animals but no one apparently has to work when I'm there so I get the usual full pack of dogs at full speed greeting. It's quite a ruckus. With all the dogs in tow, I proceed to walk directly up to Charley, let him sniff my hand and pet him. I didn't even have to stand cautiously in that precise spot that he requires me to be in if I want to touch him. We only earned physical touch while mounted back in March so to take it to this level was highly unexpected and did lead to some happy tears (Me, I cried). To the average horse this would likely be a no big deal routine, especially for a horse who has been in this environment for 6 years. But Charley is Charley and these are all usually triggers for spooks and some times erratic behavior. But on that day he didn't even think twice about what was going to happen and how much he knew he was fine, safe and confident he knew how the interaction was going to go. Now he was not spook free for the lesson, it was windy and he has a tendency to scare himself with his tail (don't ask me, I don't know how he doesn't know it's attached to him) so Michaela got to work more on how to sit and follow the spooks as well as getting to work him more balanced as he goes. I'm always thankful for progress and even more so when it's taken this much work and time. Thats a GOOOOD BOY Charley!!

21/06/2024

This is so amazing put. I have felt many regrets through my history with horses, but as I have continued to work in therapy and the journey i have taken with Ago, I have stopping feeling sorry for what I had done and instead I strive farther to understand the potential damage we cause through things we have been taught and find better ways of understanding and working with our amazing equine friends.

GIVING MYSELF GRACE…

This is one of the first pictures of me and Ollie (the horse that changed my life) back in 2017.

I have a hard time looking back because NOW I see all of the things I didn’t back then and it’s hard to not feel guilty for not knowing better…

If you’ve been following me for any length of time you likely know our story-but if not, in a nutshell he was a half blind, very broken 20yr old (when he passed) Appaloosa that taught me more in 5 years than I had learned my whole life-about many things.

+FETLOCK SORES are NOT normal. They are a major indicator that there’s an underlying problem.
We eventually learned that his were from sleep deprivation.
I naively thought he just rubbed them getting up and down..doctored them, put boots on them pumped him full of joint supplements…

+BLINDNESS puts an added stress on horses that their entire body compensates for. They can absolutely live great lives with impaired vision but their environment needs to support stress free ways to do so.

+MUSCLE INJURIES wreak havoc. Period.
Ollie was in an accident as a young horse where he injured his eye, lost his right pec and sustained a hind end injury we later find out was the cause of his sleep deprivation..
The pectoral muscles are a very important part of the horses frame and losing one or even part of one (any muscle) should be taken into great consideration.

+UNEVEN STANCE should never be overlooked. There is a reason they need to shift weight to cope…
Ollie would always stand off kilter in his hind in one way or another.
He was massaged ALL the time, receiving monthly Chiro and lived 5 years with me that most horses dream of as far as species appropriate environments go BUT after extensive diagnostics-a deteriorating meniscus would never improve…

ALL this to say that in 2017, I knew I was taking on a project.
I really thought I could fix him.
I never knew the experience would teach me all that it did and I am so grateful.
I forgive myself for not knowing what I didn’t know and reassure myself that Ollie came to me to help other horses suffer less.

My goal is to always advocate for horses.
Mine.
Yours.
All of them.
Sharing experiences in hopes that I can help people along their journeys…
Providing services and education to those who want to know better and do better…

Give yourself grace for the things you didn’t know-and once you know better-fiercely create change.

09/04/2024

I am so lucky that I get to work on this handsome gentlemen so often! Tymeless Danny ❤️

06/04/2024

Wow, do I have a before and after for you guys!!
Meet Sunny or "Blondie", he is a 16 year old Tennesse Walker Gelding. He has had some serious SI issues and subsequent major postural changes that I've been working with him, his mother Laura Crow and her team for almost two years now with amazing results. He has been a pretty strict physical rehab case for that time frame but he just yesterday got his first Cranial Sacral session and holy cow! I am seriously taken a back at his changes. His forehead shortened up and widened out, his eyes evened out (still not quite where we want them but much better) and they tipped (I haven't recognized or noticed this change in a horse before where the line of the eye lid changed, he went from more horizontal to a downward angle towards his nose), evening out of the nostrils/nose, softening of the TMJ area, the distinct cut line below his cheek bone has disappeared, softening of the throat latch area and softening around the base of the ears, getting a slight drop and dish to his face and over all widening and shortening of the whole face. Honestly, I think his expression in his after photos says it all. Thank you Laura for letting my try my Woowoo stuff on him!! I'm throwing some full posture shots on here, too. Just so you guys can see how amazing he's doing.

06/04/2024

It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.

I believe this quote came from Star Trek. I know nothing about the series, but it certainly hits hard in the realm of horses, horse keeping and riding.

Having horses is a gamble. After getting a text from a student this past weekend that she had to euthanize her lovely young mare, whom she had done such a beautiful job of starting, I couldn’t help but flash back to my own recent loss of a young horse. While the circumstances were different – hers a freak accident, mine the culmination of nearly two years of trial and more trial – it was yet another stark reminder that all the skill, knowledge and know-how in the world cannot fix an outcome.

It’s just not possible to armor oneself with enough understanding to avoid loss, so the question then becomes what we do after it happens. The reality is that by opening ourselves up to the possibility of connection, we also open ourselves up to the potential for loss. You can’t have one without the other.

But a life without connection isn’t really a life. We’re made to feel, and do so deeply, a broad spectrum of emotions that are the color palette to a fully lived lifetime. Some of them are downright unpleasant, but without them there’d be nothing to cause us to reflect on those that ultimately make life worth living.

So while you’re out pursuing better horsemanship, don’t lose sight of the fact that what you are gaining is happening en route to your destination - not necessarily just upon arrival - because ultimately the arrival is never guaranteed.

15/03/2024

Who remembers Charlie? Charlie has been a special case for me for some time now. He is owned by one dedicated horse mom, Michaela Orme. This wonderful hidden horse has had a typical kind of start in life for a horse in the modern world. Started late in life and pulled from his comfortable "home", expososed to some people's questionable training tactics and was at one point a boarding barn abandon. But with Charlie, his personality and specific characteristics caused those situations and scenarios to absolutely break him, his spirit, his confidence, his trust and understanding in people. He often acts similar to mustangs, high reactivity, mental shut down or shut out, panic and as I put it, multiple Charlie's depending on equipment, environment and proximity. He has a hard wired defense of an "expectation" behavior depending on what equipment you have and how close you are. And he really hates the "pressure" of two people working with him.
It has been a long road of confidence battles and back slides, mountains of frustration that has been learned to be left behind, and continued belief that with patience, love, understanding you can win back a broken horse. Today, before horrible weather came sweaping through Indiana, while being a heavily windy day, I was able to approach and touch Charlie while Michaela was mounted. This has been a goal for us as a team since the beginning. Not only was I touching and approaching him, but he was absolutely calm. We have worked so hard to not create a learned helplessness with him, we do not force or hold him still to be handled. True calm not a behavior we see with Charlie + people, including his mom even with all her time and effort. You can see him calm with horse friends and eating but calm is not a behavior he understands to be acceptable with people. This moment is the biggest turn in the road we have gotten from him to date. Today was a magical day.