Leopard Creek Equestrian Centre

29/09/2024

Our riders represented their Gauteng team in various disciplines at the annual SANESA Championship, with beautiful riding true to their training and skills, matched with neatness and accuracy.

Disciplines chosen in were:
* Dressage
* Prix CAPRILLI
* Showjumping
* Working Riding and
* Equitation,

With places as follows:

3rd, x2 8th places, a 12th and two 14th places out of classes of 30 riders in each class.

Huge competition holding their head high between the best school riders in South Africa.

Congrats to our riders, and a huge shout out to their parents, our grooms and our dedicated trainers!

Ekurhuleni
Swartz

We do not close over December… we prepare for our show season starting in February 2025!!! (With an extra discipline-Stadium Eventing)

Check out Julies7Tiktok’s video.

29/09/2024

Keira on Gracie Baby…. Love and adoration from both sides!

Check out keira’s video.

29/09/2024

This slice was created in rigid polyurethane from a real horses foot. The poor horse was a mare who had post partum metritis. She had her foal but subsequently developed laminitis despite urgent and expert veterinary care and treatment.

Metritis is a relatively uncommon event post foaling, but increases with birth trauma and retained foetal membranes. It usually occurs around 2-4 days of foaling. Inflammation of the uterus permits bacteria and toxins to enter the systemic circulation and they cause the body to have a “cytokine storm” which literally destroys the lamella connection.

In this foot, you can see the coffin bone has dropped- and the drop measured about 1.5 cm. That is absolutely huge as even a drop of a few mm has catastrophic effects within the foot.

The distance that is measured is known as CE distance or founder distance. It’s measured from the top of the extensor process of p3 to the top of the hoof wall.

We can see there is a big drop (bigger than normal) on this sagittal slice.

Markers need to be placed on a foot to show the top of the hoof wall if a X-ray is performed to measure the CE distance.

Once the coffin bone drops it crushes a very important artery that runs round the perimeter of the coffin bone, called the circumflex artery.

That artery gives off numerous branches that feed the dividing cells of the sole. Without the vital nutrients, the sole stops growing.

In this cast you can see the gap between the bottom of the coffin bone and the sole corium (sole growth place). In the fresh specimen it was a stinking necrotic pus filled cavity.

There is so much to see in this foot and this is all discussed in a zoom meeting I had with Prof Pollitt. With his expert eye, he showed me things I never “saw” and explained why the occurred. I recorded this meeting and it will be available in my shop shortly together with this slice.

The cast is so unique and detailed that you can even seen the kinked wall tubules.

The laminar wedge forms as a chaotic mass of cornified tissue- the white line, epidermal lamellae and sole all grow without any instructions and create this strange looking wedge. This prizes the wall away from the coffin bone with every step the horse takes. I’m not talking about breakover forces at the toe tip which have been found to be very small, but it’s the internal leverage that causes the chaos and the wall being prized off of the bone. - my private conversation with Prof Pollitt.

I will be creating a working model shortly to show this in action and then I hope to demonstrate clearly the internal leverage effect. Prof Pollitt is helping me with this.

Support me on Patreon and be the first to see all the wonderful things I get up to with studying the horses foot.

See comment for details and I’ve set it up so you can have a weeks free trial!

29/09/2024

Congrats to one of our riders riding for Hoërskool Goudrif!

Instructors From Leopard Creek Equestrian Centre Julie Swartz

Congratulations to Erin van Zyl!

At the SANESA Awards evening, Erin received incredible honours:

🏅 Full Ekurhuleni Colours for 4 disciplines
🏆 3rd Place Trophy for Goudrif High (Category H High School - Gauteng Ekurhuleni)
🥇 Victor Ludorum Medal for Equitation

Well done, Erin! Your hard work and dedication have truly paid off! 👏🐎

28/09/2024

“I saddled my horse today,
Not to go for a ride,
But for my soul.

I saddled my horse today,
And every brush stroke connected me to her,
Her mane and tail on my fingers as I braided tied our souls together.

I saddled my horse today,
With swinging on her saddle and adjusting her pad I felt the goals we had not lost but postponed to another day.

I saddled my horse today,
And pulling on the latigo and hearing the buckle roll on my back cinch
Reminded me of all we have done so far.

I saddled my horse today,
The sound of the Velcro on her boots and bells
gave me visions of where we are going to go from here.

I saddled my horse today,
Not to go for a ride,
But for my soul”

-Janelle Smith

19/09/2024

One of our young ladies at peace where she is with her horse at their happy place Leopard Creek Equestrian Centre

17/09/2024

Educational

Long toes only affect the navicular right?

The leg has a series of joints. The metacarpo-phalangeal joint (fetlock), the proximal interphalangeal joint and distal interphalangeal joint (Pastern and coffin). Each one of these joints is a centre of rotation and because of how the digit is not underneath the limb, but in front off, each of these joints is profoundly affected by the distance from its centre of rotation to the point at which the ground acts through the hoof. In the form of the turning force (moment).
An increased turning force must be counteracted by whatever keeps those joints from descending under the load, the tendons AND ligaments.

Hence why long toes affect ALL of the soft tissue structures on the back of the leg. Both tendons and the suspensory!

If you would like this information clarified, explained in simpler terms and would like an introductory lesson in equine digit biomechanics then join myself and The study of the equine hoof on the 3rd Oct at 7pm BST where I will be doing just that.

https://equineeducationhub.thinkific.com/courses/digit-biomechanics-101

16/09/2024

Open day at Woodlands International College!!

Thank you Teneile and Mikka Strydom!!!

Check out Mikka_strydom’s video.

16/09/2024

16/09/2024

15/09/2024

You & Me...
We Got This!

15/09/2024

Jean Bemelmans tell us:
"If horses are not in balance, they fall on the forehand, but when you see a really top Grand Prix horse, if you see a nice performance, this is in balance, and to get that balance you have to do a thousand transitions to get them soft, they have to wait, so you can decide – now you go, then you come back… and for this you need a very good balanced seat.”
- Ingrid Klimke and Franziskus demonstrate. Read more:
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2021/05/tip-from-the-top-with-jean-bemelmans/

15/09/2024

Our next training showjumping show will be hosted on SUNDAY 6 October 2024.

There will be a fun class with NO BRIDLE (no oxcders no combinations), at 40cm. (Halter & lead reins only - no hackamores)

Entries & payments will be accepted on the day, but would prefer entries done prior to for programe purposes.

Julie Swartz
078 786 5710

Event Time: SUNDAY 6 OCTOBER 2024, Arena Walking: 8h45 and starting 9am and all classes to follow on* Card Facilities on the day in the clubhouse which caters for the day (licensed), as well as for entries payable Closing Date: 3 October 2024 (But will accept entries on the day - please WA me your e...