Suz Crichton-Stuart EDO

03/03/2026

Equine Touch Courses 2026!!
It's time folks, the light is noticeably back, the sun feels warmer when we see it and the fluffy coats are shedding - time to learn a new skill and help your horse have a fabulous summer feeling comfortable and soft doing what you love together.

Courses are held nation wide with the network of The Equine Touch International teachers, click the link in the comments to see the events page.

You can learn the Foundation level in 2 different formats
2 x 2 day courses a month or so apart £400
1 x 3 days £360

The split Foundation class was introduced by ETF as a means of making the learning of Equine Touch even more attractive and accessible, especially to the horse owner, since it was originally to the horse owner that Equine Touch was meant to appeal. The 2 day course has become a popular choice as a taster; for the client who wants to learn the basics at an affordable price enabling them to keep their horse topped up between practitioner visits, and for folk who find 3 days hard to fit in with other work commitments. It really boils down to personal choice as to whether a student opts for the split course or the standard 3 day one.

Should a student complete Foundation (Level 1) and choose to go no further they will have everything they need to make a difference to their own horse. It is having the basic skills from this level that is essential for all our practitioners. Never money wasted!

My dates are:

10-11th April Foundation part 1 Clyro Herefordshire

4-5th May ET Foundation part 1 Pontypridd Maggie's Voice Equestrian Center

12-14th June ET Foundation 3 day Abergavenny Field and Forest Track Livery

15-16th June ET Foundation part 2 Pontypridd

10-11 July ET Foundation part 1 Clyro Herefordshire

11/12 September ET Foundation part 2 Clyro Herefordshire

24-26th September ET Foundation 3 day Clyro Herefordshire

24/02/2026

Heading to Aberyswyth on the 26th March, as ever message to book your slot.

13/02/2026

Spring is around the corner which means it is almost time to start teaching Equine Touch again.

I love teaching this simple but effective technique so much. Any horse person can develop hands that bring comfort in just 2 days.
It gives horses more chances to feel softness in their bodies
It gives horses human relationships more chances to deepen with trust in a comforting touch
It gives owners more agency to help their horses little and often and reduce chronic tension build up.
ET is described as your gift to the horse and in teaching it I can regift it to a whole bunch more people!

Our sessions always start with ‘branding’ - scanning the horse’s body with a gentle touch. During branding, we monitor tissue temperature, hydration, tone, and the horse’s behavioural responses, as these reflect real-time nervous system and tissue states.

It is more than just a ritual! In ET, we believe that our touch is a ‘two-way highway’; through our touch, we are receiving information from the body, and at the same time, our touch is an important ‘input’ to the horse’s body.

These calm strokes can deliver a very important message to the horse’s central nervous system, through the systems of mechanoreceptors that are resident in the skin. It is easy to solely focus on muscles and fascia, but it is important not to forget that the skin is such an important sensory organ!

The skin is richly innervated with mechanoreceptors - sensory nerve endings that detect touch, pressure, stretch and vibration. These include tactile corpuscles, Ruffini endings, and Merkel endings - which all respond to different qualities of mechanical stimulus at the skin’s surface.

We all know that horses, specifically, are very sensitive to tactile stimulation due to the cutaneous nerves under the skin. These nerves transmit a wide range of sensory information from the skin, which means that even light, slow touch provides meaningful input to their nervous system.

For us, it is very important to stimulate specific low-threshold unmyelinated mechanoreceptors (often called C-tactile or C-LTMR afferents) that respond preferentially to gentle, (very) slow stroking of the skin. These are linked to autonomic regulation and affective touch processing in the nervous system.

So when we use a slow, gentle, whole-body stroke, we engage sensory pathways that convey non-nociceptive (not painful) touch and allow the nervous system to integrate input before we progress to deeper manual work.

From the start, we believed that no one technique (including the Equine Touch) can force changes in the body. We always believed that we were providing information to the body to facilitate its own healing. Now we can say it more ‘scientifically’ - Equine Touch provides meaningful sensory input, allowing the nervous system to reorganise tone, movement, and tissue behaviour safely.

Ivana

06/02/2026

Have I taught you Equine Touch?

If yes are you a member of my private FB group?

I will be doing a monthly ET Along with Me FB Live session to support all you amazing humans in building a regular practice and keeping those ET skills top notch.

If you've not yet learned to do Equine Touch and would like to learn it this year - get in touch! I'm finalising my teaching dates this weekend. I'll be teaching from Abergavenny, Pontypridd and at home in Hay on Wye. Other locations available for private groups.

09/01/2026

Planned trips:

16th January space for 1 more horse along this route.

19th Jan Cheltenham area

22/23rd Jan the resheduled trip along the M4 to Hampshire and New forest. 2 spaces left.

Whatsapp or DM me to book

09/01/2026

Happy horses today. I’m having a day off being an EDO to run my other business- a track livery at my home as none of the liveries can get up the track to the farm!
Check out a Holistic Solution Track Livery for my husband’s idea of how to poo pick the central yard after 15 horses and 4” of snow…

09/01/2026

To all my clients this week I had to cancel because of the storm, I made the right call. I’m sorry I couldn’t come and help your horses but I’ll be back on the road once we have thawed out.

Beautiful up here on the hill which is good as I won’t be leaving any time soon!

28/09/2025

🌟 Excited to share insights from my talk at the Equine Touch Open Day in Oxfordshire! Discover the intriguing connection between bone and fascia in my latest blog post. Dive in to learn more: https://wix.to/j31yrj4

Following a fabulous time at the Equine Touch Open Day in Oxfordshire today, I am sharing the article I mentioned in my talk "ET and Osteopathic Perspective" here.TLDR Bone is a form of calcified facia with the osteoblasts encased in the web of hardened fibers. written by one of the fathers of biote...

08/09/2025

I am so excited to be going the this camp next month. Serious opportunity to learn from the best of the best and all at the lush Field and Forest Track Livery.

See you there?

⚠️⚠️⚠️Spaces available ⚠️⚠️⚠️
⚠️⚠️⚠️ALAN LE GALL CAMP⚠️⚠️⚠️

Due to folk having to drop out we have spaces for the following:

Ground only: 29th and 30th September (£160)

When the places are gone they're gone.

Please note it is too late to organise horse hire therefore your own horse is needed.

Please message me directly or email at
eponamountedarchers@gmail.com

12/06/2025

Amanda summing up brilliantly all the things I love about teaching Equine Touch!

2 spaces left on my Abergavenny course and plenty of opportunities to learn with other teachers across the Uk.

Check out the Equine Touch website for dates 😊

02/05/2025

Really great to see research backing up the mass of anecdotal evidence around track systems being good for overall health and weight management.

I know the herd at home are loving the track we are putting in here.

A study conducted by our university staff and student researchers alongside HorseWorld and Welfare Aware, has demonstrated the effectiveness of track grazing systems in managing equine obesity. 🐎 The research team observed 19 horses at HorseWorld for four months. The horses were divided into two groups: those kept on track grazing systems and those in traditional restricted grazing paddocks.

Lorna Cameron (Senior Lecturer at Hartpury University) said: “Our findings suggest that track grazing systems can effectively help manage bodyweight in horses prone to obesity, while maintaining their health and welfare. This research provides valuable insights for horse owners and carers looking for practical solutions to address equine obesity.”

Read all about this study and their findings: https://www.hartpury.ac.uk/news/2025/04/collaborative-study-reveals-effective-grazing-strategies-for-managing-equine-obesity/

10/04/2025

Every horse person should listen to this podcast by the awesome Dr Audrey Declue. If you don’t already know about this podcast it is a hidden gem of fantastic postural and injury information.

This episode in particular answers the question of when do I need a treatment session or a vet investigation for my horse. Her extensive list of things which are normalised in horse culture but actually not at all in any way even a little bit normal for a biomechanically and mentally healthy horse, is amazing.

Let me know your thoughts when you’ve listened to it!

https://open.spotify.com/episode/15X0jwFeI09hpevydlUpzH?si=xTO27h3pQrOzAtsbiqywBQ

The Horse First: A Veterinary Sport Horse Podcast · Episode