Boundary Equestrian

03/10/2025

TAKING LEAVE:

I am taking a step back from pole lessons, diets and Emmett while my husband and I spend time with and help a sick family member.

My time and energy has been with my family for a number of weeks now and I cannot do you or your horses justice at this time.

I will be back and you may see me out and about as I take some stress time out and enjoy the outdoors on the back of my horse.

Thank you all for the support you have given me in my Equine ventures to date.

Robyn

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28/09/2025

‼️Temporary gate lock‼️and new code‼️

Our automatic, keypad gate has a bad cable......so as a temporary measure we have this little beauty keeping things safe.

When you book, you will receive the new code.

19/08/2025

💪💪MUSCLE DEVELOPMENT AND TOPLINE💪💪

With Spring tapping on the door, we are all thinking about getting out there and riding a little more. Getting ourselves and our trusty steads ready for the new season ahead in your chosen discipline. If your horse, like mine has had the winter off, then starting to ride again and in Spring can be a little daunting.

Every horse owner wants to have a horse with good muscle development and a decent top line. A calm and willing nature is also up there in the priorities. The factors affecting your horses topline are:
1️⃣Nutrition
2️⃣Exercise
3️⃣Body work
4️⃣Equipment used (tack, covers, training aids etc)

For the horse, having a decent topline allows a strong back to help keep balance, for ultimate performance and the ability to carry a rider. The topline of the horse consists of the muscles that run over the top of the horse's back from the neck, wither and spine to croup (see attached diagrams).

To help your horse gain muscle and create a topline requires effort from your part.

🔹🔹Nutritionally:
✅Feed enough energy for the type of work your horse IS performing – not WHAT it will be doing in a months time. Feeding deficient amounts of energy may cause your horse to use its stored energy in its muscles, this in turn decreases the muscle development and they will start to lose the topline.
✅Feed quality protein. Amino acids are the building blocks that create proteins and there are 10 amino acids that are essential (the horse’s body cannot make them or cannot make them in enough quantity). The top two of these amino acids being Lysine and Methionine are classed as LIMITED ESSENTIAL AMINO ACIDS. This means that they are required in certain quantities for all the other amino acids to build proteins.
✅Feed a balanced and appropriate diet that will enable your horse to be healthy, calm and effectively perform at the level you require. Muscle health and development requires the correct quantities magnesium, calcium and vitamins A, B6 and E.

🔹🔹Exercise:
✅Perform exercises that engage and strengthen the hind quarters and thoracic sling. Allowing the horse hind legs to come up and under themselves and the horse to have a balance way of movement.
➡️Transitions
➡️Hill work
➡️Poles and cavalettis - 2 simple layouts:
🐴4 poles in a straight line - ride at a walk and trot . Once established, can increase the exercise by raising each alternate end of the poles. Horses have no suspension at a walk, so walking over poles is a great way for them to lift each leg the same height. Strengthens the hind end and core and helps to mobilise the pelvis and hocks.
🐴3 poles in a fan - ride at a walk, trot and canter. Once established, can increase the exercise by raising one end of the poles. Ride a 20m circle utilising the fan as part of the circle. Allows your horse to push from behind and activates the core and thoracic sling to lift and engage.

🔹🔹Bodywork: Relaxing and resetting the tired and tight muscles of a working horse is essential in keeping the whole body working correctly. The horse can so easily compensate to varying degrees and sometimes you can be unaware of the compensation. By performing bodywork you can allow the horse to reset any muscles that weren’t working or not working correctly to help them to perform better and become stronger and more balanced. EMMETT4 HORSES is a gentle muscle release therapy which any horse in work would benefit from.

🔹🔹Equipment used (tack, covers, training aids etc): Ensuring the correct fit and usage of equipment is essential in helping to build correct muscles and development of the topline. By getting our saddle professionally fitted and ensuring your bridle and bit are a correct fit and appropriate is essential.

I am available for:
💢Nutritional consultation for your horse to ensure that they are being fed a balanced and appropriate diet.
💢Pole lessons to help you and your horse utilise their entire body, developing correct muscles and become more balanced.
💢Emmett4Horses body work to keep your horse in tip top shape.

05/07/2025

I recently listened to a Webinar presented by Poseidon Animal Health with Dr Erin Roddy, Dr Nimet Browne, Dr Lizzie McCready regarding COLIC.

Colic can be PREVENTABLE and can be CURABLE, however, colic can happen at any time to any horse.

While colic is the number one cause of death for horses, it affects around only 10% of the population. Up to 83% of surgical colic will result in survival.

My takeaways from the webinar:
🐴Horses have been evolving for 55,000,000 years – BUT – they have been in domestication for only 0.01% of this time.
🐴Their digestive system has not evolved enough for the way we keep them in domestication.
🐴Horses require a minimum of 1.5 – 2 % of FIBRE per DAY to enable their digestive system to work efficiently and correctly.
2% for a 500kg horse = 10kg per day
🐴Their MICROBIOME in the hind gut IS DELICATE and can easily be disturbed or killed.
🐴Horses can colic from lack of feed, too much feed and stress.

❗️Signs of COLIC can include
- Pawing the ground, lying down at odd times or rolling
- Lack of appetite
- Less manure or different consistency
- Excessive sweating
- Heavy breathing
- Looking or kicking at abdomen
- Stretching out the body in a long stance
❗️Signs of MILD COLIC can include
- Lying down
- Lack of appetite
- Less manure
- Curling upper lip
❗️Signs of SEVERE COLIC
- repeated rolling
- violent movement

❎Risks of colic
❎Changing the diet suddenly, too much or not enough feed, excessive starch, seasonal changes, mycotoxins, ingestion of sand/dirt
❎Stress from their living environment – herd dynamics, box rest, change in grazing
❎Transport, for long periods, in heat, with or without travel companions
❎Lack of water consumption when at competitions, in heat, when travelling, excessive exercise or sweating
❎Worm burden
❎Dental
❎Medication

⚖️Know your horses normal
➡️Heart rate (32-44 beats per minute)
➡️Respiratory rate (8 – 14 breaths per minute)
➡️Temperature (37 – 38.5 degrees Celsius)
➡️Capillary refill time (2 seconds)

If you see any signs of colic, be sure to "examine" your horse so you can give your vet the "normal" of your horse. Include the symptoms that you see your horse doing.

Link to the webinar

Hear from three leading equine veterinarians about the intricacies of colic, including emergency responses, recovery processes, and preventative strategies.D...

30/06/2025

OPEN - OPEN - OPEN
☀️☀️The arena is OPEN again ☀️☀️
Get in quick before the impending rain 🌧 at the end of the week!

27/06/2025

Hi all - the arena is closed for a few days until the parking area dries out. I'll keep you posted early next week!

22/06/2025

I'm not a western rider, but sharing this post as it's a great visual for a being balanced as a rider.

Right rider is helping to balance the horse, while the left rider is "going for a ride" for want of better words.

From reading the comments on the original post (most are encouraging and useful) it boils down to doing the hard slow yards first to gain the strength to get the balance BEFORE you race around barrels.

There are barrel racers and there are barrel racers. There are the kind that help their horses balance and there are the kind that don't. Good riders balance their horse to help them keep their center of balance centered in their body mass, not leaning outside of it. Riders do this by keeping their body mass and center of balance over their horse's center of balance.

The rider on the right is putting more weight in the outside stirrup, which helps the rider stay more upright and centered over the horse's body mass to maintain a more effective shared balance with their horse.

The horse's head position at right is aligned vertically with the rider's balance. This demonstrates the more effective shared balance between the horse and rider. Effective shared balance makes the turn easier for the horse, and it eliminates much of the horse's difficulty in transitioning to the upright position required to take off fast to the next barrel.

The left rider is a passenger aligned with their horse's lean into the turn. The rider is aligned more with the centrifugal force of the turn, which drives the horse outward from the line of the turn. It also intensifies the angle of the horse's lean in the turn, which can slow the horse's transition to an upright exit from the turn into the needed acceleration to the next barrel.

Note that the balanced horse on the right is already lifting their inside foreleg to begin accelerating to the next barrel while the left horse is struggling with their leaning in the turn. Look at the left rider's feet in the stirrups. The outside foot has almost no weight in the stirrup while the inside foot has almost all the rider's weight in the stirrup. This intensifies the horse's leaning in instead of limiting it for a better balance turn.

Riding in shared balance with your horse means you must bring your own good balance to the party in order to share it with your horse for a more effective ride. When a rider balances only by following the horse's balance, they are a passenger contributing nothing to the ride.

06/06/2025

🌿GRASS 🌿– the natural, renewable food for your horse ‼️⁉️
Isn’t it fantastic when your horse can eat grass! Well, unfortunately, some horses can’t or have to be restricted, especially during Spring and Autumn.

Grasses use photosynthesis for their growth, and they aid in the survival of ALL living things. Photosynthesis is the process where a plant uses the suns energy ☀️ to convert water, carbon dioxide and minerals from the soil into oxygen for the air and glucose for the plant. The products made from photosynthesis support life – oxygen 🫁and food 🌿.

The glucose that is produced during photosynthesis can be used straight away by the plant for growth. Any glucose that is not used is stored as starch. Utilising glucose for growth has priority over storage of starch.

⬆️Starch storage increases when the leaf area of the plant is adequate to meet the growth needs and the rate of growth is slower (cooler temperatures of Autumn).

⬇️Starch storage decreases when the leaf area of the plant is inadequate to meet the growth needs and the rate of growth is rapid (warmer temperatures of Spring).

As photosynthesis occurs during the day using the suns energy, at night, any starch that has been stored is then used by the plant. As a general rule, grazing in the early morning is safest as the grass contains the least amount of sugars and starch.

Glucose and starch are both carbohydrates. Carbohydrates provide the plant with food and structure and they are the main form of energy 💪🐎 for a horse. Carbohydrates can be broken down into Non-structural and Structural.

▪️Non-Structural Carbohydrates (NSC), sugars and starch are digested in the small intestine of the horse producing energy. As sugars and starch are digested, the blood glucose levels increase resulting in the pancreas to produce insulin. Insulin allows glucose to enter cells where it is metabolised into energy for exercise and to maintain life. If too much sugars and starch are consumed at once it can overwhelm the small intestine and travel to the hind gut where lactic acid can form and this can have a negative impact on the gut microbe population.

▪️Structural carbohydrates (the rigid structure of the plant, i.e helps it stand upright), are the fibre content of grass plus fructans (NSC). These are fermented in the hind gut by the gut microbes. These structural carbohydrates are harder to digest and are fermented by the enzymes produced by the gut microbes. Fermentation produces Volatile Fatty Acids (VFA’s) which is energy along with creating the B vitamins and vitamin K. By-products of fermentation are heat and gas (gas can create the hay belly).

🔴The newer the grass, the more sugars and starch (NSC) are present. Increased and excessive consumption of new grass can result in metabolic issues and colic.
🔴The older the grass, the more lignin present, meaning higher Acid Detergent Fibre (ADF) and the less digestible and palatable the plant becomes.
🔴If your hay/pasture is higher in fructans than sugars and starch, it can lead to laminitis (fructan is fermented in the hind gut and too much can lead to lactic acid being produced).
🔴If your hay/pasture is higher in sugars and starch than fructans, then this can lead to insulin resistance (higher glucose production creates higher insulin production to compensate).

The dry matter of grass is approximately 20%, compared to hay which is approximately 90% dry mater. Dry mater is the volume of the feed after water has been removed. The lower the dry mater content, the more that needs to be consumed to achieve the correct nutritional quantity.

Kathleen Crandell, Ph.D and Equine Nutritionist from Kentucky Equine Research did a study on grazing horses and found that a horse grazing will consume 7 – 15kg of grass in a 24 hour period which equates to 1.6 – 3.2% of their body weight. The National Research Council (NRC) has recommended that a horse at rest should consume between 1.5 – 2.0% of their body weight.

Massey University has a brilliant plant identification section in their website - https://www.massey.ac.nz/about/colleges-schools-and-institutes/college-of-sciences/our-research/themes-and-research-strengths/plant-science-research/pasture-plant-identification/

References:
🔹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis
�https://www.hill-labs.co.nz/media/bthfc3rz/26606v4_technical-note-carbohydrate-testing-of-plants-and-feeds.pdf
🔹https://feedxl.com/grazing-for-laminitic-horses-when-is-the-best-time/
🔹https://germinal.co.nz/knowledge-hub/grass-nutritional-value/
🔹https://ker.com/equinews/calculating-pasture-and-forage-consumption-of-horses/

⚖️ I can help you and your horse by creating or amending your horses diet to be correct and appropriate. www.boundaryequestrian.co.nz

15/05/2025

I have had a cancellation for the 11am individual lesson on Saturday - PM me to book.

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07/05/2025

Trot poles....so many benefits

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06/05/2025

🦄Trot Pole Lessons 🦄
Saturday 17th May - all details below.
PM to book

04/05/2025

I was fascinated reading this post -it really resonated how horses act in different environments, and with different horsey friends - convert this to the domestic horse when they are bought and sold and move to a new home where everything is different. The horse is way out of kilter with a new routine, new horsey friends, a new owner, new grass/diet, new paddock, new things assault their sensors.

We need to step back and take a breath and allow the new horse to settle in.