Skelton Equine

04/10/2025

👀➡️🐴 Did you know your horse’s eyes play a huge role in how polework improves their posture?

When a horse approaches poles, their oculomotor system (the way the eyes track, focus and guide movement) is activated. To safely place their feet, the horse has to:
🔹 Visually scan the poles ahead
🔹 Adjust stride length and rhythm
🔹 Coordinate head, neck, and limb movement with what their eyes are telling them

This “eye-body connection” sharpens proprioception (awareness of where the body is in space). The horse learns to balance their body better, engage the core, and lift through the thoracic sling instead of collapsing on the forehand.

Over time, the repeated oculomotor + postural response builds:
✨ Improved spinal alignment
✨ More lifted, balanced, elastic movement
✨ Stronger topline and core stability

Now - the key here is BALANCED movement, as having improved proprioception means that the horse can coordinate their limbs and body over, around and through obstacles, changes in surface, undulations and speed with ease.

When you’re doing polework, you’re not just training muscles and joints, you’re training the nervous system too!! That’s why it’s such a powerful tool for posture, coordination, and overall wellbeing 👀

03/10/2025

Equine Bodywork and Mobilisation stretches - $65 (1 - 1.5hr)
Pre Competition Mobilisation - $35 (20-30 Mins)
Promoting the health & well being of your horse or pony, using a combination of techniques and Stretches.

I can generally work with the horse on my own and sometimes prefer to when I need the horses to focus on what I am doing.

Benefits of Equine bodywork
Helps relieve muscle tension and stiffness
Helps reduce emotional stress and reduce the pain spiral
Stimulate circulation and lymphatic drainage which can aid healing
Performance tuning for equine athletes
Relaxation and detoxification after illness or strenuous exercise
Stimulation and detoxification for horses on box rest
Deep relaxation and promoting general well being at a maintenance level
Holistic re-balancing of the body following any form of adjustment – foot trimming, dental work, chiropractic etc

Skelton Equine is not an alternative to veterinary care and cannot Diagnose

30/09/2025

30/09/2025

How massage reduces pain — the main mechanisms
1. Sensory gating (Gate Control Theory): Gentle pressure and stroking activate large-diameter Aβ mechanoreceptors which inhibit transmission of nociceptive signals at the spinal cord level — i.e., touch “closes the gate” on pain signals.
2. Descending pain inhibition / endogenous opioids: Manual therapy and massage can activate descending inhibitory pathways (periaqueductal gray → brainstem → spinal cord) and release endorphins/endorphin-like mediators that reduce pain perception.
3. Local tissue effects (circulation, lymph, muscle tone): Massage increases local blood and lymph flow, helps clear metabolic waste (e.g., CK after exercise in horses), reduces muscle hypertonicity, and restores mobility of fascia and soft tissues — all of which can lower peripheral nociceptive input.
4. Neurophysiological and stress modulation: Massage reduces physiological stress markers (cortisol), lowers sympathetic arousal, and reduces anxiety/defensive behaviours — these systemic effects lower pain sensitivity and improve coping.

Bottom line for horses: massage is widely used and plausibly helpful for reducing muscle-related pain, stress, and aiding recovery after exercise.

• Vigotsky AD et al., “The Role of Descending Modulation in Manual Therapy” — mechanisms review.
• Atalaia T. et al., “Equine Rehabilitation: A Scoping Review” (2021) — overview of evidence in horses.
• Haussler & others, “Review of Manual Therapy Techniques in Equine Practice” (2009) — clinical background & evidence.
• Pilat B., “Equine Massage Following Intense Work: Effects On Plasma CK” (2020 student study) — an example physiological study.
• Kumar S. et al., “The effectiveness of massage therapy for the treatment of pain” (2013 review) and more recent evidence-mapping (JAMA Network/Open 2024) for up-to-date systematic review coverage.

https://koperequine.com/why-post-operative-massage-for-equines-can-work-wonders/

30/09/2025

27/09/2025

27/09/2025

The 13 Second Rule - Learn It

When a horse startles, their orienting reflex kicks in - they shoot up to 18hh, lock onto the source, and you swear you can feel their heart pounding through your saddle. Then comes the investigatory reflex - ears, eyes, nostrils all screaming: “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!”

Here’s the important risk management bit: horses are actually brilliant at working out if something’s a real threat. What usually screws it up is us. Riders grab, yank, panic, and - congratulations - you’ve just turned a startle into a full-blown rodeo or bolting freak out. That is because your response made the startled horse feel 10000% more threatened.

Dr Andrew McLean showed that if we stay calm, a horse’s heart rate can start lowering in about 13 seconds. That’s it. Thirteen measly seconds. So breathe and start counting, wait for the ear flick or head shift, and only then step in.

Because your calm buys recovery. Your panic buys chaos.

This is Collectable Advice 31/365 – Save it or Share it (no copying and pasting).

IMAGE📸: Incredible image captured by the amazing Lynn Jenkin.

27/09/2025

How Horses Actually Make Sense of Us

Ask people how we communicate with horses and someone always chirps: “With our aids.”

Not wrong—just shallow. It’s like saying humans communicate “with words.” Yes… but words are only sounds your ears detect, or shapes your eyes read, or signs your brain interprets. Different senses, same goal: meaning.

So let’s ask again: How do horses actually interpret us?
➡️ Vision — posture, gestures, body language.
➡️ Hearing — certain sounds or cues.
➡️ Touch — the big one. Horses learn what different feelings on their body mean: halter, bit, legs, seat. Good training turns those feelings into meaning so they can follow willingly.

That’s why I run my favourite demo at clinics. I put a hand on someone’s shoulder and tell them we’re going to have a “conversation.” No words. Just touch and pressure. At first it’s clunky: they brace, feel unbalanced… then they soften and follow. The audience always leans in.

Then I flip it. I show the other kind of conversation most riders have without realising. My touch is random, sloppy, heavy-handed. Confusing. Even alarming. My demo humans bail out fast.

And horses? They don’t get to bail. They live with that reality every day.
It’s like me writing to you like this:
*CA////. / n youuuuuuu&understanD t hsi?

Would you put up with that — and then accept being blamed for not understanding?😡

So if you’ve rolled your eyes at the term “follow feel,” thinking it’s cowboy poetry or irrelevant — it’s not. It’s the horse’s clearest language: you create a feeling the horse can recognise, teach what it means, and they learn to follow.

And if you don’t get that? Don’t be surprised when your horse treats you like static noise — or feels uneasy in your presence.

That’s why I teach the way I do, and why my programs are built the way they are: to help people master the skill of creating clear, consistent language that respects what horses actually need in order to make sense of us.

And for the record - it is THIS that sits at the heart of my problems with horses - poor communication.

This is Collectable Advice Entry 37/365 of my notebook challenge - save it, share it but no copying and pasting.

20/09/2025

Finally I am onto the hind end, well dabbling in and out.
We often forget about muscles like the Gastrocnemius yet look where it merges to create part of the Calcaneous tendon 👀, we often look at how the foot lands as just as foot problem yet it can often be further up that is creating an instability, we look at a gluteal issue as a top end problem without looking at why a group of muscles are struggling to create a more even pattern
As someone who suffered a Gastrocnemius tear it literally stopped me in my tracks the pain was immediate and high on the scale of ouch 😃, and it took ages to heal as the tendon had been affected it was a fine line of always maybe doing to much but not knowing was how much
We always forget the middle 😊, looking at how the hocks are moving, looking at how the hocks orientate when stood still can say alot about how the horse is loading the whole hind end, and if the springboard cannot spiring then how can we ask for correct movement without something else compensating for the slack (or wobble)
Remember hocks only tell part of the story and why hip, stifle, hock, fetlock often mirror each other's issue
Try it yourself stand up rotate your hips Inwards and outwards and see how your legs move to accommodate the angle, try walking, then trotting 😉 how long is it before you become uncomfortable, what happens to your ass they either squeeze together or your lower back goes like a duck then what about the sacriolliac joints ??? How many horses stand with their tail stuck in their butt??? Could you run with your knickers doing a wedgy ?? How many horses when you pick up the hind limb over abduct or abduct what about all the other muscles that have to work as a team if one team member is down then the others have to pitch in and then maybe they become tired quicker while multitasking.
It's why I get a bit annoyed when people diss injections because sometimes horses need immediate pain relief and that sometimes comes in the form of an injection
And we havent even hit on any compensatory issues that maybe why the hocks were in trouble right from the start

20/09/2025

Thank goodness for the difficult horses.

The ones who don’t let us cheat..

The ones who force us to be better horse people and better stewards..

The ‘quirky’ ones who force us to listen..

The ones who force us to problem solve..

The ones who show us the reality behind the curtain..

The ones you didn’t necessarily want, but most definitely needed..

These are the horses who push us out of our comfort zones and turn us into great horse people- who listen to their horses and prioritize what the HORSE needs over our desires.

https://abequinetherapy.com/academy/

20/09/2025