Welling Point Equine

09/05/2026

Important

A recent study from the University of Tennessee provided strong support for something trainers, movement specialists, and bodyworkers have observed for years:

Ground poles significantly increase activation of important postural and core muscles in horses.

What the Study Found

Walking over ground poles increased activity in:

• Longissimus dorsi — a major topline and spinal support muscle
• Abdominal muscles — critical for core stability and support of the spine

Even at the walk, poles require the horse to:

• Lift the limbs higher
• Stabilize the trunk more actively
• Organize posture and balance with greater precision
• Continuously adjust limb placement and timing

At the trot, researchers also found increased activation of the abdominal muscles.

Trotting over poles requires greater dynamic stabilization, and the increased limb elevation demands more coordinated control of the trunk, pelvis, and spine.

What This Means

These findings support the long-standing use of cavaletti and ground poles as a low-impact way to:

• Strengthen the topline
• Improve abdominal engagement
• Support spinal stability
• Enhance proprioception and coordination
• Encourage improved posture and self-carriage
• Develop better movement organization through the whole body

One of the most important aspects of pole work is that it influences both sides of the postural system:

• The dorsal chain — including the longissimus muscles along the back
• The ventral chain — including the abdominal support system

This balance is essential for efficient movement, force transfer, and development of a healthy, functional topline.

But pole work is not only muscular.

It is neurological.

Each pole creates a movement problem the horse must solve in real time.

The horse has to:

• Judge distance
• Adjust stride length
• Control timing
• Stabilize the trunk
• Organize the limbs in space
• Adapt moment-to-moment to changing demands

That process requires attention, coordination, body awareness, and ongoing nervous system regulation.

In many horses, poles appear to improve focus not simply because the horse is “behaving,” but because the nervous system is becoming more engaged and organized around the task.

Pole work may also influence neurological tone — the background level of muscular and nervous system readiness that affects posture, movement quality, stiffness, and coordination.

For some horses, this can help reduce excessive bracing and improve adaptability through the body.
For others, it can help improve postural engagement and overall organization.

Why It Matters

Regular pole work can benefit many types of horses:

• Young horses developing coordination and posture
• Performance horses improving strength, agility, movement quality, and limb awareness
• Horses rebuilding core control and stability after periods of weakness or reduced work
• Older horses maintaining mobility, coordination, and movement confidence

Importantly, many of these benefits occur even at the walk, making poles accessible to horses across a wide range of ages, disciplines, and fitness levels.

Rather than simply “making horses pick up their feet,” poles appear to challenge the nervous system, postural system, sensory system, and muscular system together — encouraging the horse to organize movement with greater control, awareness, and adaptability.

https://koperequine.com/step-by-step-the-benefits-of-walk-poles-for-horses/

23/04/2026

Who relates? 🤷‍♀️😂😂😂

10/04/2026

😭😭😭

There were maybe eight of us in the arena that morning.

Just a handful of his most devoted students, standing quietly by the rail, watching the old man walk across the dirt toward the mounting block.

He was 83. Maybe 84. I can't remember now. What I remember is the way he moved. Slow, deliberate, like every step cost him something but he was willing to pay it.

Quatar was already tacked. A big bay gelding, 20-something years old, with kind eyes and a neck that had learned to arch without being asked decades ago.
___________________________

We all knew what this was.

His last ride.

He'd been saying it for months, but none of us believed him. Men like him don't retire. They just keep going until they can't anymore.

But that morning, standing in the early light with the arena dust hanging in the air like fog, I believed it.

One of the younger students, maybe 19, still green, still hungry, whispered to the woman next to her: "What do you think he's going to do?"

Linda, the older woman, didn't answer. Just shook her head slightly.

I wanted to tell the girl: He's not here to perform for you.

But I didn't. She'd figure it out.
___________________________

He mounted from his step with the help of one of his grooms.

Took him a full minute to settle into the saddle, adjust his reins, find his seat.

Then he nodded and the groom stepped back.

And he walked.
___________________________

That's it. He just... walked.

No warm-up trot. No collected canter. No piaffe, no passage, no extended anything.

He walked a 20-meter circle. Slowly. Quietly.

Quatar's ears were soft, flicking back toward him every few strides like they were having a chat no one else could hear.

The old man's hands were still. His legs barely moved. His seat, my god, his seat, it was like he'd dissolved into the saddle.

One lap. Two laps. Three.

The young student shifted her weight. I could feel her confusion radiating off her in waves.

This is it? This is the last ride of a man who trained Olympic horses?
___________________________

But Linda, she understood.

I saw it happen.

Her face went still first. Then her eyes filled. Then her hand came up to cover her mouth and she turned away so no one would see her cry.

But I saw.

Because I was crying too.
___________________________

See, here's what that young student didn't understand yet:

After 65 years of training horses, 65 years of piaffe and passage and Grand Prix and podiums and students and lessons and competitions, you don't need to prove anything anymore.

You don't need to remind people that you were once great.

You just need to walk with your horse.

Just two old partners who've spent decades learning how to talk together, saying goodbye the only way that matters.
___________________________

He only rode for maybe 15 minutes.

Then he halted. Sat there for a long moment, one hand resting on Quatar's neck.

His horse stood perfectly still. Not tense. Waiting for the next command that would never come.

Just... there.

Together.

The old man dismounted, slowly, carefully, with the groom's help again and stood next to his horse for a minute, forehead pressed against Quatar's shoulder.

None of us moved.
None of us spoke.

What the hell do you say after witnessing something like that?
___________________________

Finally, he turned and walked toward us.

The young student opened her mouth, maybe to ask a question, maybe to say something polite, but Linda put a hand on her arm.

Don't.

The old man stopped in front of us. Looked at each of us, one by one.

Then he said, voice quiet and rough:

"It was always about the walk."
___________________________

When he left, the groom led the horse back to the barn.

We stood there in silence, watching him go.

The young student looked at Linda and asked, voice shaking:
"Why are you crying?"

Linda wiped her eyes. Laughed a little.

"Because I just spent twenty years trying to make my horse do something impressive," she said. "And I just realized I never learned how to walk."
___________________________

I think about an 83-year-old man choosing to spend his last ride doing the simplest thing a horse and rider can do together.

Walking.

Not because it was easy.

Not because it was all he had left.

But because after sixty years of making horses dance, he finally understood:

The walk was never the beginning.
It was always the destination.

20/03/2026

The tail tells you so much about your horse xx

An old post but I think very important to keep in mind its never just the tail, the tail is connected to the body and its a guide to what may be going on further forward.

Some things happen to horses and we are completely unaware of the change that may be going on, like a slip in a field, or the horse doing the splits and its why when we see things years later we may not be able to drastically change the scenario but we can help advise where to find improvement

I kept my old pictures in because I still like this one 😆

Tails tell a story

I thought I would add a little more in

Often tails are forgotten when we look at the horse we may pull them, or use them as an access point for other parts of the horse but often tails and how they sit in line with the rest of the body can indicate other things which may be happening

Anatomy

The tailbones are called the COCCYGEAL and on average there are 15-18 bones which begin at the end of the sacral bone, the first two are located internally and often the little triangle above the tail will indicate where these are or by moving the tail up and down you can usually feel where the sacrum begins as this is not as mobile as the tailbones
The tail can move up and down and side to side, it has muscles which can help with posture (slow twitch) and movement (fast twitch).
Even though there is no spinal cord here it still contains many nerves and also many soft tissue connections which reach further forward along the horse
Tails are great for communication we can tell alot by the tails movement and not just when riding, fly swatting and balance
If we look at the connection between the big ligaments that are effective between the tail and sacroiliac joints then we often find restriction in either will have an effect on the other and also a more global effect

A tail should feel like there is some resistance then relax when we work on it a bit like goldilocks and the three bears it should not feel to rigid nor to relaxed it should be just right 😁

I think of the tail as a rudder of the ship its used for balance, can indicate how your horse is feeling and we often only think of diagonals with a compensation pattern a straight line from right to left or vice versa when often when we look its usually a zig zag pattern as the horse tries to find a more normal pattern throughout the body sort of trying to right itself at each junction and more often than not if we have a tail off to one side the zig zag pattern of compensation will end up with the head favouring the same side that the tail is sat

Tail off to one side

Often this usually happens way before your therapist comes to work with your horse and its already a deep established pattern throughout your horses body, remember the tail and sacrum are interlinked so usually I come across this if the horse has had some strain around the pelvic area, maybe the horse had a slip or a fall as a youngster and that is why it is so hard to correct it as its usually been a long standing issue and a pattern is ingrained into the body, it's now the horses normal crooked tails are still not well documented as to the whys
So it's important if you see your youngster slip in the field to get it checked, often the bony landmarks hit the ground and you can see its all connected and mostly what I see is the Tuber Coxae that is most affected is the nearside and most tails I see are always favouring to the left side

Tail rigid and stiff

Again for me this may be an indicator that the horse is trying not to move things too much in this area think of the rudder of the ship if it is stuck in one position often intricate movements are hard, the horse is usually ok in straight lines but may struggle with schooling moves, again do not just think of the tail as a single entity you have to think of the connections and muscles in the tail can have connections further up the back

Clamped down tail

This is usually the polar opposite of the rigid tail but again is the horse trying to keep the area as still as possible often the engine is switched off in these horses so they often struggle to power their hind end as the easiest way I explain it to clients is pull your knickers up your bum and then try to run, it's not so easy

Different breeds will have different tail carriages, and different personalities will have different tail carriages as well but we must remember the tail is an indicator of the mobility of your horses spine, and the health of the soft tissue, a non-moving tail is trying to protect an area and like I say we come in much later so there may be no pain but a restriction and it's important we do the work in small parts to allow the horse to adjust and reset

We also have to think of the huge fascial sheets across the horse and the effects of fascial restrictions and patterns throughout the body remember we have to work on the whole horse even if we think it’s a hind end or front end or middle part of the horse for the connections of the tail go much further than the tail bones, think of the top of the tail in a little fascial pop sock

We often only think of steering is a front-end issue but if the rudder fails then the steering will never be right the tail should be able to move with the body counterbalancing the body and we have to work with what we have in front of us, often the owners have done all the vet checks and we are just trying to bring more balance to the body without it having to work so hard

17/03/2026

What an excellent explanation

05/03/2026

Who can relate? 🤩

16/02/2026

We do have some excellent re trainers.
What do you think?

24/01/2026

Advice of 2026… let the oven wait…

08/01/2026

The adventures of Lilly and Topaz. Emily (the kid) watched a TikTok of foals attacking a toy horse put in their paddock. Fair to say our foals were more accommodating 😂😂😂

26/12/2025

Some great sensible advise here!

"When I first got out of veterinary school and started looking at horses prior to purchase (usually referred to as a “vet check” or a prepurchase exam), the horses usually fit into one of three categories.

The first category was the horse with no problems noted at the time of the exam. That decision was usually pretty straight-forward. I’d look at the horse and if I didn’t find or see any problems, that was usually that.

The second category was for a horse that wasn’t sound at the time of examination. I wasn’t always sure WHY the horse was limping – determining why a horse was limping is a lameness exam, not a presale exam. If the horse was limping noticeably, usually that was enough, and particularly if I could find the reason why (say, an arthritic joint).

The third category was what used to be referred to as, “Serviceably sound.” That is, the horse may not have been perfect, he might have been a little stiff going in one direct, but he had been doing his job for a long time and, in my opinion, he could probably keep doing the job that was asked of him for a good while longer. But today, in this day of X-raying every bone, pushing, prodding, flexing, and making SWAGs (SWAG = Scientific Wild-A** Guess) about the future, I’m often left wondering, “What happened to that horse that was serviceably sound?”

About two years ago I was asked to give a fourth opinion on a 20-year-old warmblood horse. The horse had been through the entire diagnostic gamut: MRI’s and bone scans, ultrasound and X-rays of most every bone in the horse’s body. She’d had expert opinions from hospitals and radiologists. She wasn’t moving 100% sound and all of the diagnostic tests and all of the expert opinions confirmed that the horse should never be ridden again (I know because I saw the reports).

As you might imagine, I wasn’t immediately sure what I could bring to the table, what with all of the diagnosing and opining that had already gone on. Nevertheless, I ran ma hands over her legs, felt the slight swelling in her stifle joints, and I noticed the stiffness when I flexed her legs. This sweet, patient mare never objected to anything that I did and never fought back against anything I asked. Next, I asked to watch her move. She certainly didn’t have a full, easy moving gait but she moved willingly: happily. So I asked, “What do you want to do with her?”

The owner, who obviously cared about her horse enough to float the budget of a few small countries, said, “I’d like her to be able to give lessons to kids.”

“Why don’t you give it a try?” I said.

The owner, furrowing her brow, responded, “But what about all of the reports?”

I said, “Don’t let her read them.”

Today, three years later, the old girl regularly and happily gives lessons to kids in a riding program. She doesn’t go very fast or for very long, and it helps her to get a pain-relieving drug from time to time. But she’s got a job, she’s the apple of the eyes of any number of kids, and she’s, well, happy (at least as far as anyone can tell).

ANOTHER ASIDE: A saw a 18-year-old gelding who had been through MRI and blocking and X-rays and medication and shoeing changes as a result of a hoof problem that just wouldn’t let the horse move without a slight forelimb limp, especially when the horse had to go in a circle. I travelled a good bit out of my practice area, looked at all of the data, and asked the owner, “What do you do with him?”

The owner said, “I take him out for walks on the trail two or three times a week.”

And I said, “Why not just give him a little bit of pain reliever when you go out on the trail and let him walk around this nice arena the rest of the time?”

“But won’t the pain reliever destroy his stomach?” she asked.

“No.”

That was four years ago. I saw the owners at a lecture I gave a year or so later and everyone was happy. As far as I know, his stomach didn’t explode, and things are still going well. It’s a good situation for everyone.

The reason that I bring this up is that to me, it seems that the business side of the horse world is suggesting that the only thing a horse owner should be satisfied with is perfect or “optimum” or “ideal” or some other bit of linguistic innuendo that suggests that a horse just might have some hidden problem lurking beneath his skin that’s going to result in imminent death or disaster. It seems to me that the business world is trying to sell horse owners on the idea that there are only two choices for a horse: perfect or disaster.

I think that the relentless search for perfection in horse health is mostly terrible. I think that constantly worrying about horses, spending hours on the internet looking for information about what might go wrong helps deprive a lot of horse owners of the joy of horse ownership. If your horse looks at his side, it usually doesn’t mean that he’s twisted his intestines. If your horse is on a good diet, it’s extremely unlikely that he’s on the edge of some nutritional cliff, about to fall over but for the good fortune that you’ve had in finding the latest supplement. Worrying about your horse too much can lead owners to seek out unnecessary testing, to waste money on veterinary (and other) visits, and to look for comfort from endless interventions and products.

Of course, it’s good to be aware of your horse’s health. But there’s a difference between being worried about your horse when he’s sick or limping and being constantly worried about him becoming sick or lame. Excessive worrying about a normal horse is a real problem: mostly, for the horse owner.

YET ANOTHER ASIDE: A 70-year-old client came to me with her 19-year-old gelding. She’d been given the horse from a riding school and she was concerned because she had been told that the horse was limping. I watched him trot – there was a slight limp.

“What do you do with him?” I asked.

“I like to walk on the trails with him on the weekend with my friends. Or maybe every other weekend.”

I could feel a slight enlargement at his pastern – I was pretty sure he had a bit of osteoarthritis (also known as “ringbone”).

Here’s a partial list of things that I did not recommend: X-rays, bone scan, MRI, joint injections, joint supplements, special shoes, liniment, PRP, or stem cells.

Instead, I pointed to her husband, 75, and said, “How’s Fred? Is he getting around the same way he did when you were married 50 years ago?”

Laughing, she said, “No.”

“Want to get rid of him?”

“Only sometimes” she smiled.

I told her to keeping going on nice long walks, and perhaps give him (the horse – I don’t prescribe medicine for people) a pain reliever if he’s limping a bit. Things have been going great for several months – in fact, I saw them both just the other day. It’s a perfect situation for both of them. Nobody is perfectly sound, including Fred. But everybody is serviceable. And happy.

So what’s “serviceable?” I think that it means that the horse can do the job that’s being asked of him without suffering. Horses will generally go out and try to do their best – that’s one of the things we love about them. It’s our job to take care of them, but it’s not our job to make everything perfect: that’s an impossibility. A horse can be less than perfect and still be wonderful.

Here’s Mark Twain’s idea of a good horse. “I preferred a safe horse to a fast one—I would like to have an excessively gentle horse—a horse with no spirit whatever—a lame one, if he had such a thing.” (Roughing It, Chapter 64).

I don’t usually see things as black and white. I tend to think that the perfect is the enemy of the good. I don’t think that a horse is either good or bad. There are lots of good horses out there that might have a little flaw or imperfection but who will also be the best horse anyone could ever ask for. Don’t overlook one of them simply because he’s not somebody else’s idea of perfection. He might not be perfect, but he can still be serviceable… and even still be great!"

📎 Save & share this article by David Ramey, DVM at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2021/08/09/what-ever-happened-to-serviceably-sound/
📸 © The Plaid Horse

19/12/2025

Remember this this holiday season.
❤️❤️❤️