Aurora Equine - Emma Criniti

24/12/2025

Wishing all my clients and friends a safe and happy Christmas and New Year, may 2026 be a wonderful year ahead for everyone 🙏💕 Time for a little break and rest for a few days 🥰🥂🎄🎁🎊

19/12/2025

🙌💕Contact from the hand should have a forward feel, a light connection like your holding hands, never fighting, wrestling, pulling back or blocking, when you get it the feeling is amazing.

Why contact?

Years ago, I was bought into the notion that anything worth doing should be done on a loose rein. I really struggled in my lessons to hear about contact because I had poor associations with it - people telling rider's to hold against the horse, like fighting a big fish on a line into a boat. It appeared to me a contest of wills, and I was completely uninterested in that feeling.

My teacher often talked about the connection being like dancing, but I had never felt anything like this. She talked about funneling the hind leg without ever trapping it, and keeping the full length of the neck intact in the contact. "Hold the horse's hand, but don't ever restrict the movement," she'd say.

It all sounded good, but every time I picked up the reins I just felt heaviness, resistance, or my horses hid from my hand. She would bring my awareness back to my seat every time and away from my hands.

"The fingers just capture what the seat creates" she would say -

But it was years of practicing with my seat before I would understand the contact.
A following seat, a directing seat, a seat that was soft but very stable: my teacher had this, and I spent years and years working toward it, understanding finally just what it meant to feel the hind leg through my seat but not always able to stay with it, and often blocking it.

But those times when the contact feels good is magical - unlike anything I've ever achieved on a loose rein. It was like being in close with someone you love very much - taking their hand and swinging in a dance. Feeling everything there is to know about them through your hand: their thoughts, their breathing, the way they feel about you and eveyrthing to do with you. There is no hiding from each other on the contact.

Exactly where the hind leg is in what phase of each stride - where it's going and how that connects to how they're feeling inside. Recieving the fullness of their trust from hind leg all the way into my hand.

You don't NEED contact for riding - you can walk trot and canter on a loose rein. But it's like any relationship - it can go as deep as you want it to go, as intricate, nuanced and beatiful as you'd imagine and more.

And like anything else, it can be poisoned. Like all tools, it can be flatted and cheapened, and downright misused. It can be weaponized against the horse or even against a student -

But it also bridges us into a flow, a beauty, a magic, available for anyone with the discipline to work toward this kind accurary - available to anyone who can be trusted with the power of having thr entirety of a horse's body in your hand and use it only to create art.e

11/12/2025

With this hot weather salt is really important to feed daily to your horse but you should feed it all year round, good info below 👍

📖 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝘁

🐴 I love reading about misconceptions when it comes to feeding horses, but today I’d like to debunk some common myths about good old sodium chloride.

🧂 Myth #1: Salt only needs to be fed when the weather is hot.

🐴 Truth #1: Salt needs to be fed 365 days a year because it is vital for many bodily processes and is excreted in sweat, saliva, mucous and urine. Even in the midst of winter, horses need salt.

🧂 Myth #2: Horses instinctively know to drink water regularly, especially when they are hot and sweaty.

🐴 Truth #2: A horse’s thirst reflex is triggered by sodium, which is a component of salt. Horses’ sodium requirements need to be met in order for them to seek water.

🧂 Myth #3: A horse can meet their sodium and chloride requirements with a salt block alone.

🐴 Truth #3: Unlike cattle, horses do not have an abrasive tongue and are not designed to lick harsh surfaces to extract nutrients. While it is technically possible for a horse to consume their daily salt requirement from a salt block, it is much less work and more physiologically-appropriate for them to consume loose salt that is either provided in a meal or left out free-choice.

🧂 Myth #4: Horses know what nutrients they need and can self-medicate with supplements such as vitamins and minerals.

🐴 Truth #4: Salt is the only nutrient horses have been studied and proven to actively seek out when it is required. They will not seek out other nutrients “because they know they need it.” Look at how much salt and molasses (palatable additives) are added to free-choice supplements.

🧂 Myth #5: Himalayan rock salt is better for horses than plain salt.

🐴 Truth #5: Himalayan rock salt contains naturally occurring components other than sodium and chloride. Some may view this as a positive; however, it is usually a more expensive means of supplementing salt, and often contains traces of iron which almost never needs to be supplemented given horses are generally oversupplied iron by their forage intake alone.

🐎 Your horse’s diet should be providing a minimum of 10g of salt per 100kg of body weight each day; typically more after exercise, intense weather, or illness. Ensuring your horse always has access to clean, cool, and fresh drinking water will ensure they remain well-hydrated and if by chance they intake more salt than necessary, the water they drink allows them to excrete excess very effectively. The best kind of salt to feed is plain sodium chloride such as table salt, unless the diet is deficient in iodine which makes iodised salt more appropriate.

08/12/2025

👍

Shoulder Control..

Shoulder control is a foundational element of good horsemanship and essential for developing a balanced, responsive and athletic horse. The shoulders are a major point of influence in how a horse moves, turns and carries his weight. When a rider can correctly influence the shoulders and hind quarters together they gain access to better movement, suppleness and overall body alignment.

A horse that lacks shoulder control often drifts, leans or falls in and out of turns, creating imbalance and resistance/tension. This not only makes riding less precise but can also place unnecessary strain on joints and muscles. By contrast, a horse that yields its shoulders and hind leg willingly can maintain straightness, execute clean transitions and perform lateral movements with fluidity thus enabling the horse to move forwards better! Because thats the goal of lateral work.

Training exercises such as shoulder-fore, counter bend, leg yields and controlled circles help horses learn to move their shoulders independently from their hindquarters. These movements encourage engagement of the core, improved rhythm and better weight distribution. Riders also benefit, as improved shoulder control enhances communication/aids and deepens the partnership.

Ultimately, developing shoulder control is more than just a technical skill - it lays the groundwork for functional movement, more gymnastic maneuvers and a stronger more confident horse and for me this is the next step in a horses education once he is infront of the leg.

But.. dont just concentrate on the shoulders it is important to look at the horse as a whole and slowly because no horse ever became balanced through running onto the shoulders.

08/12/2025

This 🙌❤️

There comes a point in learning where it becomes tedious.

Initially, when you’re introduced to it, you’re pulled in by promise, excitement, and sometimes very quick immediate changes. You feel something you’ve never felt before and crave it, you want to keep it.

But then, it fizzles. Your old habits come back, your magic feeling fades. To get it back, you must make normal the movement patterns and ways of being that created it.

This is where daily practice comes in- tedious, tiresome but essential daily practice. Fine tuning your habits, your thoughts and disciplining yourself to continue creating what you desire.

It can only be yours to keep when you work to make yourself the kind of person who can create it for themselves, as a new way of normal. And this cannot be given to you or sold to you- discipline and daily practice of excellent habits are the only ways to achieve this, there is no way around it.

Stop seeking just the thrill, and learn to love the mundane - because that is where all magic is made. Big changes are made up of little things done well over time.

30/11/2025

🙌

Just because we can doesn't mean we should 🐴

A common theme with the horses I go out to see is that they have been given the “all clear” by vets/bodyworkers/various other professionals. Therefore the owner logically assumes they are definitely dealing with a behavioural issue as they have done all of the things they’re supposed to do as a caring owner.

Unfortunately diagnostics can be very limited and people seem to have trouble seeing the whole horse. Just because you haven’t found a solid cause yet doesn’t mean the horse isn’t in pain. Horses don’t lie and if they are behaving like they’re in pain I believe them. There is more to pain than hocks, kissing spine or ulcers and bute doesn't magically remove any pain that may be present.

With permission, I’m going to tell you a story which is unfortunately not an unusual one. I was called out to this horse as he had a “fear” of being mounted, but they said he was fine once they were on and they were jumping him competitively up to 1.20m. They had done x-rays of his back, stifles and hocks and scoped him for ulcers. A physio had also seen him and said they found no issues. The owner had tried every training method under the sun to fix this behaviour, pressure/release, chasing him around with a flag, clicker training, putting him against the wall, having someone hold a lick in front of his face etc. The horse was still biting, swinging away and becoming really agitated. I observed him being ridden and he was showing several conflict behaviours, tail swishing, unhappy in the mouth, head tossing etc. I didn’t do any training with the horse, to my eye the horse was definitely in pain and I referred them onto a recommended specialist vet. Upon investigation this horse had extensive arthritis in his neck and issues in his spine that had not been picked up by the first vet.

Horses are so, so stoic and we are also rubbish as an industry at seeing discomfort in them because it is so normalised. We see them as “fine” to ride as long as they aren’t actively decking us. We ignore them until they’re screaming and even then many do not listen because it is justified away as “quirky” or “sassy” behaviour.

Imaging is only useful if the person reading it has the skill to do so well and I have experience of one vet saying x-rays are fine then a second-opinion specialist vet making a pretty devastating diagnosis from the same images.

I am not saying we all need to spend thousands at the vet immediately, a huge part of what I do is gently, quietly improving posture and emotional health to see if we can start to help the horse feel and move better over time, but a hill I absolutely will die on is if the horse is unhappy with any part of tacking up/mounting then we do not ride the horse that day.

There are so many things we can do beyond just medicating and cracking on, if we can all learn a bit more about recognising postural issues and behavioural indicators we can potentially avoid a lot of heartache and frustration.

The industry as a whole is blind to postural issues, I’m still seeing horses regularly who have been “cleared” by several professionals who I find with saddle shaped dips in their back and incredibly poor hoof balance which is going to make their body really uncomfortable. Yet the owner has been told again and again the horse is fine and they need to crack on and get a trainer out, and then the training methods make the posture even worse…

If your horse goes to the back of the stable when you arrive with your tack, you need to restrain him in cross ties or he repeatedly moves away from the mounting block, I encourage you to think about why that is. There is a reason he doesn’t want to, be it physical or emotional discomfort with the situation. Making him move his feet and harassing him until his only option is to stand still isn’t going to change those feelings. A horse complying once you’re in the saddle does not mean they’re fine with it, they just know they have no choice once you’re on because nobody has ever listened to the no. 🐴

27/11/2025

Good read 🙌

Is Your Horse Actually Bored, or Just Not Buying What You’re Selling?🫣

People often tell me their horse is “bored” with groundwork, arena work or the general concept of participating in life. As if the horse is standing there with the spiritual energy of a thirteen year old who has just discovered that everything on earth is boring except junk food and avoidance.

But here is the thing - your horse is not bored. Your horse is giving you a performance review of how well you are leading the team. I know - ouch - but bear with me!

Uncomfortable, yes. Fixable, absolutely.

Horses can look bored when our communication is fuzzy, our decisions are questionable or their bodies are quietly whispering “this feels rubbish.” They are not bored. They are demotivated. Which is different in the same way a gentle sigh is different from a full catatonic meltdown.

A few things that rescue the situation.
1️⃣Being so clear, effective and consistent that the horse gets inspired with some clarity.
2️⃣Making decisions that avoid drilling. Perfectionists, this one you need to read FIVE times.
3️⃣Accepting that horses are not born motivated to fulfil your dreams.
4️⃣Checking for the usual suspects: sore feet, ill fitting tack and surfaces designed by someone who hates joints or deep sand torture pits.

Once you get these pieces in place, your horse stops giving you the world weary teenage eye roll 🙄 that says everything is tedious and starts behaving like an animal actually interested in what you are offering.

So the next time your horse presents as “bored”, take it as feedback. Not condemnation. Not a sign that your horse needs a new hobby or you are dreadful person for asking them to leave paddock. Just information that something in your communication, timing, clarity or their physical comfort attention.

Welcome to Collectable Advice Entry 88 of 365, where I gently reveal that your horse is not bored at all, you have a motivation issues and that can be helped (see link in comments), so hit save or share and help someone realise their horse is not channeling their teenagers attitude😆.

IMAGE📸: Sox was not bored, she had ECVM and neurological issues that de-motivated her to move. It was my Reboot process that pin pointed a physical issues to her reluctance.

24/11/2025

Looking for a Xmas gift idea for your horsey friends. 🌲🎅

Aurora Equine has Gift Vouchers available for bodywork sessions or lessons. Just message me to organise and I’ll email a voucher through for you, easy 👍😁

20/11/2025

Great info 🙌

Why Some Horses Feel “Different” the Day After a Massage

It’s normal for a horse to feel a little loose, wiggly, or slightly uncoordinated the day after bodywork. This isn’t a setback — it’s a sign the body and nervous system are reorganizing after tension releases.

Why It Happens

1. The Brain–Body Map Just Updated

Massage changes how the body moves and how the brain senses it. When old restrictions release, the horse needs 24–48 hours to recalibrate balance and coordination.

2. Fascia Is Rehydrating and Reorganizing

Fascia gains glide and elasticity after bodywork. As it reshapes, the horse may feel temporarily loose or “floppy” while new tension lines settle.

3. Muscle Tone Drops Before It Rebalances

Protective tension turns off first, and postural muscles turn on second. That short gap can feel like softness or mild instability.

4. Proprioception Is Resetting

The horse is getting a flood of new sensory information. The nervous system needs a bit of time to interpret it and organize new, freer movement.

5. Old Patterns Are Gone — New Ones Are Forming

When restrictions release, the old compensation disappears instantly. The new, healthier pattern takes a little time to establish.

Normal for 24–48 Hours

✔ Slight wobbliness
✔ Extra bendiness
✔ Feeling loose or “disconnected”
✔ Mildly behind the leg

Usually by day 2–3, movement improves noticeably.

Not Normal

✘ Lameness
✘ Heat or swelling
✘ Sharp pain
✘ Symptoms worsening after 48 hours

These need veterinary attention.

How to Support Integration
• Light walk work or hacking
• Hand walking
• Gentle stretching
• Turnout and hydration
• Pole work after 48–72 hours

Movement helps lock in new patterns.

Why Some Horses Recalibrate and Others Don’t

Every horse’s response reflects their unique body:

A horse may need more integration time if they’re:
• tight or guarded
• weak in stabilizing muscles
• coming out of chronic patterns
• sensitive or older
• less body-aware

A horse may feel great immediately if they’re:
• already symmetrical
• strong and conditioned
• biomechanically correct
• quick to adapt neurologically
• had fewer restrictions to begin with

Both responses are normal — they simply tell you a different story about the horse’s body and nervous system.

https://koperequine.com/the-power-of-slow-why-slow-work-is-beneficial-for-horses/