LP Equine Therapist

19/08/2024

Brilliant post

28/07/2024

💜🩷🩵

It was a very good comment on our Science of Motion page. Here is my response. Jean Luc
Thank you for pointing out the root of the problem. Top riders and most veterinarians hope to recreate soundness and improve movements targeting the legs. In the light of actual knowledge, this is infantile. We show and explain through numerous videos and studies that limb kinematics result from the proper function of the thoracolumbar spine. It is the same ignorance that leads a vet to inject the joint or a trainer to whip the horse. Hyaluronic acid injections accelerate the development of arthritis. Whipping the legs accelerates the limb dysfunction and the development of pathology. It is astounding that extremely expensive horses are trained in such a primitive way. Human athletic training uses slow movement to educate the complex orchestration of the numerous systems that create outstanding performances and soundness. Equine athletic training rushes forward extraordinary athletes, aggravating to the point of damaging the horse, a minor dysfunction that could have been corrected easily if the education focussed on the source of the limb's kinematics, proper thoracolumbar spine function instead of injecting the joint or releasing a protective reflex contraction. Releasing the protection does not fix the cause of the protective reflex contraction and exposes the structure to damaging stress. Through the Science of motion approach, horses regain soundness and become outstanding movers because we slow the movement to educate proper function. most horses are better than the fast-forward insanity allows them to be. Most riders are better than the insane obedience to the aids allows them to be. You are absolutely right; It is astounding that the training of equine athletes remains at such a primitive level. High-level ridders get caught in brutality because the system they apply is primitive and does not work. Brutality starts when knowledge is short. Punishing the high-level rider does not "save" the dressage. What saves the dressage and the horses and the skilled riders is upgrading the education of every horse to actual knowledge. This is what the Science of Motion does. Jean Luc

23/07/2024

What can happen with bodywork ,fascia release and retraining the posture, and a willingness to learn and do the best by the horse from a dedicated owner .
Thank you to Sian Mortimer for allowing me to post her beautiful boy Bertie.

05/07/2024

After a break following a family bereavement, I’m now back working again. Please feel free to message. 🩵

19/02/2024

25/01/2024

What is the diagnosis?

This is a common question we are asked. It is a fair and expected question. The trouble is – I don’t always have an answer for you. Why? Body Lameness is complicated and is rarely clear. In order to fix the body we have to know and understand its complexity. We also must appreciate the concept of biotensegrity.

Small areas of dysfunction can cause lameness and dysfunction in completely different regions of the body. I struggle with periodic left foot pain. I randomly (i.e. no specific event, sound familiar?) get a sharp pressure and pain in my left heal or arch of my foot. It feels like plantar fasciitis. I bought the insoles, I changed shoes- I got mild improvement. I was a 2/5 AAEP lameness. It wasn’t until I saw a human physio that I had relief of my foot pain. She quickly looked at me and explained my foot problem was due to a lower lumbar mild subluxation (my back did not hurt!) which lead to a pull on my fascia and change on my medial tibia which lead to the foot pain. Within one session my foot pain was resolved. I likely would have blocked to my foot. I would have definitely had a response to hoof testers. If I were a horse I would have been offered farrier changes and coffin joint injections, likely with mild improvement. My foot was a secondary issue but a primary concern. My back was the primary source of pain and yet a non-clinical issue. Until you discover the root cause, you will never truly resolve the pain.

Horses are the same. I treat horses based on my clinical exam and diagnostic imaging (to the best of my abilities). However, the important part is treating them based on their biomechanical failure points. It’s important to recognize that the body works as a whole and not individual pieces. If there is one region of pain or dysfunction, you must treat the entire area- not one spot. You also must consider how a horse’s biomechanics and biotensegrity play into their movement, posture and overall athleticism. If they cannot sit and use their lumbar-sacral junction correctly they cannot relieve tension in their thoracic sling. If their shoulder girdle is dysfunctional, you need to treat the entire region- the neck does not work independently from the first few ribs or shoulder. It all works together and in balance of each other. Additionally we must consider things like nutritional deficiency/toxicity, diet plans, exercise routines, saddle fit, gastrointestinal issues and muscle diseases. Often horses have some combination of all of these things. To get the best results or treat the difficult cases, we have to look at all areas.

On top of these concepts, we cannot image everything. The assumption that there is only an issue if you can image it, is ignorance. Necropsies have proven this to me repeatedly. We find so many things- nerve impingements, muscle changes, fascia changes, scar restrictions, disc problems, boney changes - all can be clinically significant and not found in the live horse. This doesn’t mean they aren’t part of the problem. The body can frequently compensate with little things over time, and then with age and addition of injuries sudden decompensation occurs- leading to acute pain on a chronic issue.

So when clients ask me, what was the diagnosis? I frequently say things like shoulder girdle dysfunction, lumbar sacral dysfunction, neuritis, rib cage dysfunction. I may sometimes be able to pinpoint specifics like T16 articular facet arthritis or lumbar intertransverse joint stepping. However, I know these individual things are part of a much larger picture of dysfunction. I treat the dysfunctional segments as a whole and that’s how we can get big results, where owners have been struggling. That’s how we can take a behavioral horse, who passed lameness exams but wasn’t right and turn them quickly into a happy relaxed working horse. Results matter to me more than individual diagnoses.

Image below is the brachial plexus- cannot be imaged well, cannot be blocked out, yet can be a huge source of pain and lameness in a horse. It’s frequently affected by other areas causing incorrect pressure, pull or tension on this region. It can be treated. Until you solve why it’s under incorrect forces, you will never resolve its pain.

18/01/2024

As an avid learner of correct biomechanics of the horse I subscribed a while back to Becks Nairn’s Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Becks_nairn/posts) I cannot recommend it highly enough. It has been such an eye opener and until I can get to an actual dissection, her Patreon has given me so much food for thought.

Becks recently posted a video of a horse’s cervical spine with the nuchal liagament still attached. Seeing the movement aberrations of the neck created by riding horses behind the vertical, is something every rider needs to see for themselves IMHO.

There are numerous studies demonstrating that excessive flexion puts tension on the nuchal ligament, leading to a variety of injuries throughout the horses body. As riders, it’s critical to remember that the nuchal ligament inserts at the withers (its origin is at the external occipital protuberance at the occipital crest and posterior tubercle of the atlas). From its insertion at the withers, it attaches to the supraspinous ligament, which acts much like a suspension bridge and runs the entire length of the horses spine to the tail.

Armed with this important information it makes perfect sense that when the nuchal ligament is over tightened, as it is when riding behind vertical, it results in a host of physiological issues. Riding horses behind vertical does not take into consideration the anatomy of the horses spine and its subsequent supporting structures. This incorrect posture, such as when the horse’s neck shows this unnatural bend around C2/C3, can only lead to stress on these structures. Bones will adapt at attachment and insertion sites to the excessive loading and remodel, creating boney formations which, more often than not, cause our horses further pain and discomfort. (Photos of some of these remodeled bones in comments thanks to Becks!)

Keeping our horses sound and working can be a challenge on a good day. Having this information can help us in ensuring our horses stay sound for many years to come.

A huge thank you to Becks for entertaining my curiosity and being so generous with her knowledge and experience. ❤️

12/12/2023

When you actually see it , it all makes sense 🙏

11/12/2023

If you have that friend who still doesn’t get it, show them this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bvsbvbGFKo0&fbclid=IwAR2CC-FVjrWY68CiIBX6jk_fBwer0CE5tl7a-4tPu0RydG5wcnJry7VJ7Qw_aem_AUFQ6DK76nXYA3zMTTaftn6YBzloocOlFRFDdlYrNhEcfNlWdzjN4PLeVtdeLLaBPFQ

31/10/2023

09/10/2023

Highly recommend Dan , after he’s worked with myself and my boys . 💙

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should...

Going back almost 15 years and as far as I’m aware, I didn’t have a bad reputation in the horse industry. I backed horses calmly and quietly. I would ‘bit’ them, put tack on, lunge them, long rein and lay over them, all before quietly getting onboard.

When schooling, I could get a horse in a frame and hold it together with relative ease and I could sit a bronc or a rear if needed. I was pretty fearless. I rode some horses in draw reins if they didn’t soften to my hand or were inconsistent in the mouth. My whip was for correcting behaviour and I certainly wasn’t afraid to use it if I thought it was necessary (or if I ran out of ideas or patience).

I took on problem horses and had a really good success rate at dealing with those problems.

Only I didn’t.

Looking back, I think it’s likely that I only dealt with the symptoms of the problems. For example, the horse that didn’t want to stand at the mounting block; I trained him easily by using ‘pressure and release’ with a well timed reward and he soon learned to go to the mounting block. What I probably didn’t see were the tight, sore, angry muscles. The stiff back, the poor posture. The atrophy under the saddle. The compromised gait. All of which contributed to his lack of willingness to be mounted.

The horses with poor mouths that I lunged in training aids, side reins, rode in draw reins, all learned that they couldn’t escape the persistence of my rein and began to comply. Eventually they learned to compensate elsewhere in their bodies, likely becoming shut down in the process.

Over the last 15 years, I have watched countless hours of horses moving. I have studied their gaits, I have felt their musculature. I have picked up hundreds of limbs, palpated countless tendons, lesions and effusions, and I have witnessed the damage caused by doing things the way that I amongst others used to do them. I can say with a degree of certainty that if you are having a problem with your horse - no matter what the symptoms are - your problem lies with a lack of one or more of the following:

(Ambi)dexterity/straightness
Strength/fitness
Balance
Coordination
Comfort
Confidence/trust
Communication
Resilience

Treating the symptoms without addressing the cause will usually mean that the human’s needs are met and the horse’s needs aren’t.

Like many trainers, I am aware of the signals a horse gives to express how it feels: whether it is threatened or whether it feels safe. I am able to quit right before I pass a threshold. I instinctively use approach and retreat techniques to foster anything from confidence through to suppleness. All of this gives me an ability to help a horse to overcome a problem very quickly, but it also gives me the ability to bend the horse to my will - a fact we must treat with great care and respect.

I could probably load a ‘problem loader’ in half the time I take, if I only used ‘pressure and release’. If only I wasn’t so aware of the delicate structures around the horse’s head and face and the potential psychological issues I could cause by forcing the horse to load without understanding it’s side of the story.

Nowadays I do things very differently. I can hear what the horse is saying through his actions. I can feel what his body tells me when I ride him, through my seat and down the rein. Which parts move well and which parts don’t. I constantly observe the entire picture. His breathing, gait, demeanour, muscle tone and posture. I read his actions and I learn from his reactions. I take everything on board and work in the most physically and mentally appropriate way for that moment. I condition his body whilst gently conditioning his mind. As a result I can desensitise a sensitive horse without waving objects like flags and tarpaulins around and I can prepare a horse for saddling without the need to send it broncing around an arena aimlessly.

Nowadays, despite having the ability to back your horse in days, I won’t. Because I know that in the long run I would’ve done your horse a disservice and any trust he placed in humans would likely start to falter when his body started to ache and his brain started to fry through being ill prepared.

I could train your horse to approach the mounting block, but only once I’m confident that his reasons for resisting mounting have been heard and his needs have been met.

Horses are the most fantastic animals. Sure, they do stupid stuff sometimes and they aren’t always the most logical(!). But they are unbelievably generous and forgiving. They are adaptable, malleable and trainable. Therefore, we owe it to them to make sure that their needs are met when we are ‘problem solving’.

They will give and give, which puts us in a position to take and take.

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

16/09/2023

I love this by Yasmin Stuart. It’s a really great explanation of the misunderstanding that people have with the “long and low” debate and how to do it properly but also why.

"Lowering the horse's head lifts their back"

This is something I see a great deal, and whilst it's not inherently wrong there is so much more nuance to it than simply lowering the head. And it's the misunderstanding of the nuance that I believe has the power to hurt a lot of horses.

When you look at the horse's thoracic spinous processes, their orientation depicts the range of motion - the spinous processes of the wither are longer and angled towards the horse's tail, the spinous processes of the mid thoracic (where the rider sits) are more upright, and the spinous processes of the late thoracic begin to angle towards the horse's head. This enables greater flexion/extension of the spine through the mid thoracic region.

The supraspinous ligament runs over the top of the thoracolumbar spinous processes (the bright pink line on the picture) this then blends into nuchal ligament - the funicular portion of which attaches to the horse's skull - the lamellar portions fan off in sheets to attach to the cervical vertebrae.

When the horse with a healthy back (and that's the important piece here) lowers their head, the nuchal lig. tractions on the supraspinous lig. and the early thoracic spinous processes orientate slightly forwards, creating space between them and lifting the mid thoracic region. You can see this when a horse lowers their head, the dip behind the wither should lift.

From a ridden perspective, this should be supported by the thoracic sling muscles, which lift the ribcage between the front legs and the horse's core muscles (not just their abs FYI!)

When a horse moves with spinal tension (poor riding/saddle fit/management etc.) The ligament system is restricted - the muscles of the neck become braced, the errector spinae muscles become hypertonic and the back becomes extended - evidenced by the acute angulation at the base of the wither.

When the neck and back muscles aren't free and mobile, the spinal ligs. reduce their range of motion and then potentially shorten. The thoracic processes approximate towards each other and we perhaps put the horse into a kissing spines danger zone.

So if you try to force their head into a lowered position and the horse braces, you create strain.

Their back muscles are tight and to offload the weight of the head, they have to tighten up more. So you are inducing the back into more tension, but then the weight of the rider/saddle/restriction of a surcingle will possibly induce more extension still.

Add pain in here and you create a bigger issue.

If you deal with the pain, unload the horse's back (e.g. no rider/no saddle/no surcingle), help the horse to relax and then lower their head to tolerance without creating a brace, you can help to restore this system.

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There is 30 mins difference between the top photo and the bottom photo. Notice how the horse's withers have lifted in the bottom photo, but also the angulation at the base of the wither is less acute even though the horse's head is higher.

This is the starting point of restoring the activity of the ligament system, the thoracic sling and the horse's core.

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