Horsempower

11/01/2026

Wishing all my clients in the Colac, Gellibrand, Meredith and Skipton areas safety from fires!

09/01/2026

Stay safe everyone and my recommendation is only move horses off property if absolutely necessary as In my experience I have seen more safety issues with too many horse floats on the road in low visibility and especially at night.

06/01/2026

Even though shade may just seem a given I have seen horses without it on days of extreme heat 😫 My lot love a good waterhole they can splash around in! No riding or exercise i think is a given.

What do you do? Do you have any innovative ideas or substitutes for the lack of a dam and even shade?
I remove fly masks to optimise air flow and if i rugged I would remove them too? What do you do in regards to that ?
Love to hear?

30/12/2025

TIME AND EXPERIENCE matters in bodywork.

2026 will proudly mark my 10th year as an Equine Body Worker!! Only Years in practice and thousands of horses treated change how you see a body. With experience, you stop chasing symptoms and start recognising patterns, what’s primary, what’s compensatory, whats a contraindiction and what truly needs support, what needs referring.

Courses teach the technique and the theory
Experience teaches judgement, discerment, restraint and an ability to read the whole horse. Its slso taught me how important my hands are in assessing and treating, no gadget can replace or gather information about the body that ones hands can do!
I have embraced every part of this journey and will continue to do so to make a difference to horses
My only regret is that I didn’t start earlier!

2026 also marks the Chinese year of the horse ( February) so I feel its going to be an especially good year and I hope its going to bring a lot more awareness around the welfare of horses.

Offering EBT, Osteopathic mobilisations, red light and saddle fit inspections.
$80
Taking bookings now for my 10th year in 2026
Resuming treatments Jan 4th in Colac and from Jan 5th Ballarat and surrounds!

26/12/2025

The horse’s head functions as a cantilever, projecting forward from the body and organising balance through the poll and neck. When bridles and bits connect this cantilever to human hands, those hands are not acting in isolation they are an extension of the rider’s entire body mass, posture, and balance. Any instability or excess load in the rider is therefore transmitted directly into the horse’s primary balancing system, inevitably influencing the horse’s balance and global tensegrity.

The head provides critical information about ORIENTATION in space, BALANCE , and CONTACT with the ground. The nervous system uses the head as a reference point to organise POSTURE and MOVEMENT.

Following is a little gold nugget of information from a very intelligent body worker Tami Elkayam … I have added my bits in brackets to help understand it)

This is the cycle every horse needs to break👇🏻

I don't think I have ever seen a horse that doesnt struggle with this self-sustaining holding pattern.

When the pterygoid ( primary muscles along with the temporalis of mastication )are not able to offer support or work correctly due to palatal and occlusal ( palate, dental ) considerations the atlas has to re-orient and regroup. It has to change function and become the support for the whole skull through leveraging the occipital condyles. (At the poll responsible for the “yes” nod) This will restrict the condylar movement.
Once the condyles of the occiput are locked down so are the temporal bones, their position and motion possibilities dictated by the occipital condyles. Temporal restriction and position affects motion possibilities of the mandible( tmj) in lateral abductive movement. This in turn affects palates left and right hard and soft and dental occlusion ( way the teeth come together)which in turn affects pterygoid function ( chewing) and stability mechanisms.

This is the cycle that sustains the body pattern we are all chasing from respiration to gut to spinal integrity to limb function and orientation and hoof morphology.

You may see a collection of bones and structures but the nervous system sees, hears and feels its place in the world, its orientation is space, its contact with the ground and its balance and the rest of the body follows.

We offer so much support to the body and it all stops at the poll.
I will remind you all again that the tongue is never the problem, it's just the expression of the problem.
The TMJ is never the problem it is the result

If we as therapists don't get off this perpetual trend mill cycle of addressing results the holding pattern that the nervous system lives by . The mid brain that dictates autonomic ( rest/digest or fight/flight)function will never change.

All mammals struggle with this cycle to some degree but for horses this is the defining struggle because of all the thing we do to their mouths and in their mouths.

Cranial tensegrity is body tensegrity. You can not treat the body and ignore the head.

by Tami Elkayam

I address the head via specific EBT moves to the Pterygoid, mandible, TMJ, hyoid, eyes, temporalis, ears, poll and via Osteopathic articular balancing of the occipital. The results often even suprise me and keep reminding me what a perfect marriage and blend these two modalities are to offer a very wholistic approach.

Resuming treatments from January 5th but sneaking in a few on the 30th Dec and have a couple of spots available.

23/12/2025

Wishing all my clients and your magnificent equines a truly wonderful and joyous Christmas. Its been an incredible year of growth, learning and transformation and I couldn't have achieved it without you, so thankyou for entrusting me with your precious horses, you are all highly valued and cherished by me.
Me and my chestnut tb mare Aggy who reminds me everyday to breath, be present and embrace my sensitivity ❤️😉

13/12/2025

Banjo the brumby has come for a little holiday and meets my brumby Tintaldra ❤️❤️❤️

10/12/2025

09/12/2025

Still some appointments available before Chrissy! Last day 21st Dec
Resuming in 2026 January 5th

OFFERING Equine Body Therapy ( EBT) a bowen based modality inc Osteopathic mobilisations and redlight/photonic. Plus a complimentary saddlefit static inspection on request and pre booked!

$80 per horse
PM or contact Sarah 0400321159

08/12/2025

Been a while since I posted anything on this but seems to be a good year for Bigheads!! No not that sort 🤪 The other name for it is nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidsm.
It happens when a horse cannot absorb enough usable calcium, even if the diet looks adequate. When calcium drops, the parathyroid glands release PTH (parathyroid hormone), which tries to correct levels by..
Increasing gut calcium uptake
Increasing phosphorus loss in urine
Pulling calcium out of bone

If this continues, bones weaken, become porous, and are replaced with fibrous tissue leading to the classic “big head”.

Main cause are high oxalate grasses.

Many tropical and summer growing grasses contain calcium bound to insoluble calcium oxalate crystals, which block absorption.
Grasses > 0.5% oxalate can induce bighead. Rapid spring/summer growth can reach 6%+ !!
Calcium moves straight through the gut unabsorbed
falling blood calcium chronic PTH release bone demineralisation.

Other causes of calcium deficiency
1 )Inverted Calcium:Phosphorus Ratio
High phosphorus feeds such as bran, pollard, wheat by products, rice bran bind calcium and inhibit uptake. This was the original “bran disease”.

2 ) Diets low in calcium
Poor quality hay or rations for adults fed to growing/lactating horses can create deficiency.

3)Vitamin D Deficiency
Rugging, stabling or limited sunlight reduces vitamin D activation, and vitamin D is required for efficient calcium absorption.

4)Gut malabsorption
Chronic diarrhoea, IBD type conditions, parasite damage, or rapid intestinal transit reduce calcium uptake.

5)High oxalate plants or supplements
Some weeds and feeds contain enough oxalate to interfere with calcium beyond pasture sources.

6)High phytate or high fat diets
Phytates bind calcium (similar to oxalates but less severe). Excess fat can reduce mineral absorption efficiency.

Early Signs
•Poor coat, ill-thrift
•Vague, shifting lameness
•Stiff or stilted gait
•Joint creaking
•Dirt eating (pica)

Advanced signs..
•Swelling of nasal bones, maxilla, or mandible (“big head”)
•Chewing difficulty or dental pain
•Nasal discharge or airway noise
•Reluctance to move, weight loss

High risk situations
grazing high oxalate grasses for 2–9 months
Spring and summer growth
Young, growing horses or lactating mares
Diets high in bran or phosphorus based feeds

Bighead isn’t simply “low calcium” it’s blocked calcium absorption, internal imbalance, or long term PTH elevation from calcium phosphorus disruption. Prevention focuses on balancing Ca:P, correcting vitamin D ( Nudie days are best!! ) status, and supplementing correctly on oxalate rich pasture.

Big head formerly known as bran disease was discovered last century when horses were fed high bran diets from the mills which basically inverted the Ca:P ratio so a Calc phospate supplement seemed to remedy the issue. However if a horse got big head from high oxalate plants/grasses this supplement was making it worse as the grass was providing ample phosphates as many of our feeds today do!
So what assists in calc absorbtion is magnesium! and magnesium deficiency is prevalent in humans and animals which I put down to today’s agriculture practices of stuffing up our soils especially with the seemingly unregulated ( especially in Australia) use of poisonous herbicides!! 🤷‍♀️

Remedies? I have no qualifications in equine nutrition and will stay in my lane, but I have seen this work on obvious big head cases! It’s available in Ballarat at “ Happy Horse Produce” supplied by a local trainer Rylana. Lots of great success stories!

I have seen good quality lucerne hay can help/prevent ( except for some horses who may react to it) Ideally organic or spray free!

Obviously body work is not going to remedy these signs if it’s a calc absorbtion issue but can definitely assist the lymphatics and any compensation issues if its been an undiagnosed ( common) problem whilst the body heals!

Main sources articles from
Australian Vet Journal,
Kentucky Equine Research and Equine vet jour

01/12/2025

Just wish I had of seen Posterboy in the wild when I was up there recently, as sad as I am about his loss of freedom this sounds like the best outcome for his domestication!