Pampashire Animal Manual Therapies

16/05/2026

✨ THE TRANSITION TO BITLESS CLINIC ✨

After so many people showing interest, asking questions and requesting it after my previous clinics… I’m finally launching a clinic dedicated entirely to bitless riding !

✨If you’ve already attended one of my Balance & Bonding clinics where we briefly touched on bitless, this clinic will allow us to go much more in depth into the subject.

📍 Saddle and Soul Equestrian, Ringwood🗓️ 6th June

👉🏻What the clinic includes:
• All my personal tips and secrets on how to ride effectively bitless
• Advice on choosing the right bitless bridle, understanding the different options available and what may suit your horse best
• Conscious riding and schooling exercises to improve communication, softness, balance and connection

Any horse can benefit from bitless work. The benefits are varied, and many horses appear happier, softer and more comfortable when communication becomes clearer and less restrictive.

Please note: this clinic will not include a demonstration with my own horse this time, however we are working towards offering future demonstration clinics at Parley

⚠️ Only 4 riders per session to keep the clinic personal and detailed.Depending on demand, we may open a second session on the same day!

📩 Message now to secure your place, don’t miss out!

09/05/2026

✏️I still have a few appointments available for May!

Remember that Manual therapy can benefit horses and dogs in so many ways, not just when there’s an obvious problem.
Some of the benefits include:

✔️ Better muscle development
✔️ Improved posture and movement
✔️ Increased flexibility and range of motion
✔️ Natural pain and tension relief
✔️ better balance, coordination and propioception
✔️ Support lymphatic drainage and toxin removal
✔️ Supporting recovery and overall wellbeing

Whether your horse is in work, coming back into work, competing or simply needing a bit of support to feel their best, regular therapy can make such a difference!

💌Message me or PM to book your appointment

02/05/2026

21/04/2026

📢 Okay everyone… it’s that time of the year!

I’m thinking of setting up a few clinic dates for this summer! ☀️

These clinics will be focused on helping you and your horse feel stronger, more balanced, and the most important: more connected

The plan is to cover:

⭐ Balance & rider influence
⭐ Conditioning for a stronger, healthier horse
⭐ And the star topic of the year… transitioning to bitless!

I’d also love to do a live demonstration with my own horse, showing how to approach the move to bitless in a kind, practical way that sets you and your horse up for success 💪🏼

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, send me a message or comment below!

What a best way to spend the summer!

📍 these clinics will be run around Bournemouth and Ringwood

14/04/2026

12/04/2026

Huge welfare concerns

11/04/2026

Gold Dancer died today, and it is incredibly likely he experienced excruciating pain before he did.

That’s the reality we need to start being honest about.

This isn’t about whether racehorses are fed well, stabled well, or loved by the people around them. Care and affection are not the same as ethical treatment when the very thing being asked of the animal carries such a high and preventable risk.

Yes, horses can die in fields. They can die out hacking. They can die eventing. But those comparisons completely miss the point. This is about mitigating risk. When risk is knowingly increased for the sake of entertainment and financial gain, we have to question where the line is.

These horses are often pushed hard, started young, and placed into intense, highly pressurised environments where one mistake can be catastrophic. That’s not an unfortunate coincidence, it’s a built-in risk of the sport.

We also need to stop telling ourselves that horses “love to race” as justification. Horses have a natural instinct to run, that’s true. But instinct isn’t consent, it isn’t a free pass to exploitation. We are taking that instinct and using it for profit, for titles, and for spectacle.

Gold Dancer didn’t end up on that track by accident. Decisions were made by humans, by trainers, owners, and an entire industry, to put him there. And the outcome, however uncomfortable it is to say, is part of that system.

Calling it a “tragic accident” softens a reality we should be confronting head-on. Because if we keep framing these deaths as rare, unfortunate incidents, nothing changes.

And that’s the real issue, how many times does this have to happen before we accept that the risk itself is the problem?

You can love horses. You can care for them deeply. But putting them in situations where severe injury or death is an accepted possibility, for money and entertainment, is something we need to be honest about.

This isn’t about attacking individuals. It’s about questioning a system that continues to normalise outcomes like this.

At some point, we have to ask ourselves: is this really something we can justify anymore?

Rest easy Gold Dancer, you deserved better.

22/03/2026

Here's an effect of saddles that are too narrow.

When I've come across this, the physical and emotional trauma I've felt in the horse has been sickening. The physical damage is done - you can't put back what's gone.

The emotional distress can be enormous and I sincerely believe it's emotional trauma that has built up over many months and/or years, as an unprotesting horse continues to do as asked, despite the problem being exacerbated whenever the rider's weight hits the saddle.

Perhaps they become numb to it over time, and it's only with deep and gentle work that the problem is revealed. I hope that enough of the distress is released for the horse to continue its ridden career with renewed heart.

I've usually been with a new owner when we've come across this, thankfully not that many times, and we've taken heart that the horse knows its needs (and pain) are seen and heard. Sometimes we can't change what's there and what's been done, but we can certainly help with the horse's response to it.

This isn't a new observation - there's a reason Balance Saddles call this the 'junction' - but it's always worth building awareness and *empathy. (Please excuse the limitations of images - it can be hard to find what I need!)

- Dr Jane Clothier

29/01/2026

🐴 Watch episode 1 of the Listening to the horse documentary here: www.listeningtothehorse.com Visit our equestrian bookshop, with lots of educational horse & pony books for all ages: www.elaineheneybooks.com AD

24/01/2026

Absolutely 100% agree

The Scapegoating of Novice Horse Owners 🐴

I have had these comments on my posts enough to write about it. It will be something along the lines of “people should have to take a test before they’re allowed to buy a horse!” or “if these novice owners didn’t buy horses we wouldn’t have these problems”.

They frustrate me for two reasons
1) It completely disregards the whole point of my posts which are always talking about the systemic issues that run through the entire horse industry from the top down
2) Novice/inexperienced horse owners are some of most conscientious and clued up when it comes to behaviour and welfare as they haven’t spent decades being indoctrinated into the industry norms

The “people should have to take a test” ones make me laugh, a test from who, who would be judging this test? I’m not going to name organisations but I cannot think of one in the UK I would trust to uphold high welfare standards given what goes on. If we’re looking at the five freedoms model of welfare most “approved” livery yards struggle to meet those standards. So who would be judging whether you’re fit to own a horse and based on what exactly? It reeks of elitism.

What about the high-end competition rider who’s horses get 4 hours of individual turnout per day and spend the rest of their time alone in their stables, do they pass the test?

What about the rider who has owned horses for 50 years, feeds their horses cereal mixes and lunges them in tight side reins, do they pass the test?

Neither of those people are novices.

Most of the novice horse owners I meet have their horse’s needs very high on their list of priorities, they have done their research and are very aware of what those needs are. They also tend to be the type of horse owner who really just love their horses for who they are and want to build a good relationship. They’re in a much better position to be making good choices for their horse’s welfare.

When I’m posting about client horses who have been seen by different professionals and nobody has recognised that the horse is struggling or in pain, its interesting that its the owner who was seeking help who is blamed for not knowing enough, and not the professionals who are meant to support them.

Novice or inexperienced horse people are not the problem here. The entire industry has normalised high-stress and pain behaviours to a degree that we do not recognise them, some of the most traumatised horses I meet have come from high-end competition yards or from people who have had horses in their family for generations. Traumatised horses are the norm, shut down horses are the norm, horses in pain are the norm, we describe them as “fine” as long as they still comply.

I am very defensive of people who are trying their absolute best. Scapegoating them as just some “novice idiot” who has no business being around horses, when in reality their horses are more likely to better have their needs met, have much lower stress levels and have a better quality of life.

Time and time again I am meeting clients who perhaps are fairly new to horse-owning and are surrounded by very “experienced” people telling them they’re being too soft and their horse is taking the mick. Of course when I go out to assess the horse we discover a very stressed horse with pain/discomfort issues, which the owner already suspected but kept being told otherwise by the very “experienced” people.

If I was a horse I would very much like to be purchased by a “novice” person who wanted to learn all about me and build a relationship with me rather than passed through yards where the most important thing is that I perform and everything else is an after-thought.

I think its so exciting how much information people can access online now and how we can all seek out information for ourselves. I have met many clients through them reading my posts on here and recognising their own horses behaviour in them, I think that’s really cool and is a huge reason why I continue to write. I want to reach the people who are looking for a different way.

Are you new or new-ish to horses and have felt dismissed by people who’ve been around horses longer than you? 🐴