Before the lights Equine Consulting

05/22/2026

As we’ve said hours and hours of study and training. As a part of this association, I agree whole heartedly and yes we go through hours of training and regulation.

We were not able to attend the Zoom meeting live, but we were able to watch the replay provided by Colton Woods, and we are incredibly thankful that this was made available to the community.

Near the end of the meeting, several concerns were brought forward that we also feel need to be taken seriously.

One of the biggest concerns is the financial burden this could place on owners, ranches, rescues, and animal caretakers.

If an owner is required to involve a veterinarian every single time they want to bring out a bodyworker for wellness-based support, how is that realistic?

Veterinarians are already stretched thin in many areas. Many clients struggle to get appointments for urgent or necessary veterinary care, let alone additional appointments for wellness-based bodywork oversight.

There is also the question of affordability.

If someone is using massage, bodywork, acupressure, energy work, kinesiology taping, red light therapy, or similar wellness-focused modalities to support general comfort, maintenance, movement, relaxation, or quality of life, adding another required veterinary appointment creates another cost barrier.

For rescues, ranches, and multi-animal homes, that cost becomes even more unrealistic.

Another important concern is placing veterinarians in a position where they are expected to oversee modalities they may not be trained in.

Most veterinarians are not receiving in-depth training in holistic animal therapies during veterinary school. Many openly acknowledge that they do not have the education or confidence to determine when certain modalities are appropriate, especially when we start discussing more specialized areas such as osteopathy, chiropractic-style work, advanced bodywork, or energetic and meridian-based therapies.

So the question becomes:

How are veterinarians expected to oversee something they may not be trained in?

And why should their responsibility and liability be placed on the line for wellness-based services that are being performed by properly trained practitioners?

In many cases, this could create the opposite of what the industry needs. Instead of increasing collaboration, it may cause veterinarians to avoid involvement altogether because the liability feels too high. That creates another setback for animal wellness care, responsible bodyworkers, and the owners who are trying to support their animals in a thoughtful way.

What we believe needs to happen is not the removal of standards.

We believe the industry needs stronger standards.

Organizations such as IAHAP exist to help create that structure. We have strict assessment processes in place for who we call board certified, who receives specialty designation, and which practitioners or educational providers are approved through us.

We do not believe a practitioner should only be recognized if they attended one specific school, one specific educator, or one specific program that paid to be part of a system.

Instead, we assess the education itself.

We look at the program, the hours, the curriculum, the hands-on requirements, the case studies, the assessments, the scope of practice, and the professionalism behind that training.

If someone’s certification does not meet our standards, we do not simply shut the door on them. We help guide them toward a suitable pathway so they can continue building their education and move toward a higher professional standard.

This is not about gatekeeping.

This is about protecting animals, protecting owners, protecting qualified practitioners, and creating a realistic path forward for the industry.

We are not here to gain from fear or restriction.

We are here to support a pathway that encourages better education, clearer standards, responsible scope of practice, and stronger recognition for the practitioners who are doing this work properly.

The animal wellness industry is growing, and with that growth comes responsibility.

But regulation should not make care inaccessible.

It should not place unrealistic burdens on veterinarians.

It should not punish properly trained practitioners.

And it should not take wellness options away from the animals and owners who benefit from them.

There has to be a better way forward - and we believe that better way starts with education, accountability, professional standards, and collaboration.

We have a lot more to do behind the scenes and we still need to make more notes from the meeting.
This is what your membership supports - the hours and efforts put into CHANGE.

We will keep everyone updated as we learn more.

05/21/2026

Speak up now or we’re all loosing especially our animals 💔

The Vet Board meeting was limited to 100 people and filled before the start time at 6:30pm this evening. Because of that, I, personally, wasn't able to tune in. However, I have friends that were able to and they filled me in some. The recording of the meeting is also suppose to be posted on the vet board website within the next couple days.

As I understand it, it boiled down to a "we're just enforcing what's been on the books since 1999" with no clear explanation of what changes they plan to make. There was also talk of changing legislation to take "alternative" options outside of vet med completely. To do this, we need Texas State Reps to actually work for "the people" and do the jobs they're voted in to do. So! We're back to this: The Vet Board meeting on July 21st will have a discussion of the purposed changes (the ones they haven't clarified at all and are just leaving as vague guidelines with any number of ways to interpret them). The Bodyworkers of Texas can not fight this on our own. We, as a collective, need our clients to stand up and fight with us also. So, PLEASE! Write your state reps, write the governor, write the vet board, write the licensing committee, and write the sunset commission. Also, sign the petition thats still floating around.

THIS IS NOT JUST FOR HORSES! THIS IS FOR DOGS AND ALL OTHER ANIMALS AS WELL!

If you want to continue having the right to choose what type of care your animal receives and by whom, you need to make yourself heard. If you, bodyworkers, want to continue to have the right to work in the state of Texas, you need to make yourself heard. The following list is where you can find your state reps and start sending messages to all the others.

How to find your state reps:

https://wrm.capitol.texas.gov/home

Governors office:

https://gov.texas.gov/contact

Department of Licensing

https://www.tdlr.texas.gov/help/

The vet board:

https://veterinary.texas.gov/contact-us/

The Sunset Commission:

https://www.sunset.texas.gov/about-us/contact-us

The petition:

https://www.ruralamericainaction.com/petition/stop-the-texas-vet-boards-proposed-rules-that-would-eliminate-equine-care-practitioners?fbclid=IwVERDUARDQlRleHRuA2FlbQIxMABzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR5KWnS2Ox2DzReF6Ld5M0KrBX8CqDY_4l255CuVshlJH5pYk9VKFNzdkrb3NQ_aem_6FAOw7Cs6u6Y7u0DNwEP3g

Let me be very clear in what I say here. I am NOT anti veterinarian or anti vet med. However, I do not believe that those who have not been educated and are not knowledgeable about a field should have any place regulating what they aren't educated about or in. I am FOR regulation. But! I believe it should come from WITHIN the fields and be done by those who actually practice in those fields. I am VERY pro veterinarian and vet med and strongly believe in collaboration among the fields being the best way to go. Bodyworkers NEED vets. But we can also HELP them in many many cases. Let the fields regulate themselves and let the bodyworkers and vet work collaboratively together for the betterment of the animals. Unfortunately, the Vet Board wants to dominate everything instead of playing nice. THAT is the fight I'm fighting against. Please help us fight this!

05/20/2026

NOWS THE TIME TO SPEAK! This goes way beyond just us. This is just the beginning of corporate culture demanding how and what we can do with our animals. Itll leak down to your pets too. We do not have enough vets for this as is and most vets take these therapy courses as a 12 hour electives…. Which holds nothing against our 150+ hours of certifications and hours upon hours of continuing education. We are regulated and licensed under stricter guidelines then a 12 hour class they take once.

This isnt just livelyhood this is your horses wellness where some vet modalities fail. This is overwhelming an extremely small vet community with tasks they cant take on.

Equine vets are scarce and the least paid of all vet classifications. I know amazing equine vets but they would never have the skills or time to do what we do which is why they send those clients off to us.

Dont let corperate decide your animals health, happiness, and longevity!

If you rely on, provide, or care about bodywork, chiropractic, acupuncture, PEMF, laser therapy, or any holistic modality for horses- tomorrow night (May 20) at 6:30pm CST via zoom (link below) the Texas Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners is hosting a webinar on Alternative Therapies.

I encourage you to be on this call, whether you’re in Texas or not.

Our pushback on the rule changes they've proposed to Chapters 571 & 573 were front and center at the April 21st board meeting and that is when they announced this webinar. They've continued reinforcing their reputation of poor communication and expect this webinar will be a one way conversation of them sugar coating their intentions, but we have to show up and see what they have to say.

I encourage you to make it a priority to listen in. We need as many eyes and ears on this as possible. The more of us who attend, the harder it is for these decisions to get made quietly.

Here is the zoom link to join:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84369119238?pwd=FLHXK2hXpUbZKqL0WggEfDmtz1E4i1.1

And for those wondering how they can legally do this, under Texas Occupations Code §801.151, the TBVME is legally required to adopt rules ensuring that alternate therapies defined as: ultrasound diagnosis and therapy, magnetic field therapy, holistic medicine, homeopathy, chiropractic treatment, acupuncture, and laser therapy are performed only by a licensed veterinarian or under the supervision of a veterinarian.

P.s.- if you know people who have not joined us in the fight, send them this link to invite them ask them to sign the petition->

https://www.horseindustryvoice.com

Join the community. Stay informed. Make your voice heard.

05/15/2026

This is why we FRIMLY believe in Prehab. Our methods keep your horses in work longer and their bodies strong so you as owners and trainers don’t have to come out $$$ on medical therapies and treatments that offer shorter term benefits and even shorter careers. Want a horse for the long haul, start with a strong base to build off of.

Just like human athletes, performance horses can be left feeling chronically sore due to the cumulative effects of aging, previous injuries, and the wear and tear associated with doing their jobs. Fortunately, when it comes to mitigating chronic discomfort in the equine athlete, a modern-day veterinarian has many more tools in her arsenal beyond “take two grams of bute and call me in the morning.”

Today, keeping equine athletes feeling their best is generally the result of an approach that combines pharmaceutical, therapeutic, rehabilitative, and complementary modalities.

Read on at the link in our comments — available with a COTH subscription.

📸 Arnd Bronkhorst/Arnd.nl

05/07/2026

What do we do on rainy days?

Continue our education ❤️

Today we’re participating in certification to be a Certified Equine Ergonomist with an 80 point checking system that help us body map and fitting for all saddle types ❤️

04/24/2026

Food for thought

Beyond Behaviour (Part 1): The Internal Factors Driving Horse Performance

If you’ve been following along with my Collectable Advice series, you may have noticed I disappeared. Not dramatically. More in a “somewhere in Western Australia, covered in dust, horses, and catching up with good friends” kind of way.

So let me make up for it by a longer post with some important ideas.

This is something I believe is one of the most overlooked aspects of horse behaviour and performance.

Three years ago, I bought an Equestic Saddle Clip (see first comment for details). I come from a research background, so I like measuring things. It allows you to test assumptions, experiment and explore observations.🤓

The clip analyses a few aspects of motion but for this post I want to focus on its ability to examine trot symmetry. It can reveal the rhythm, landing force, and push-off between diagonal pairs.

I assumed riders would make horses more asymmetrical.

The data showed the opposite.

Horses consistently became MORE symmetrical when ridden.🤔

That sounds like improvement.

It isn’t always.😎

Around the same time, I came across Tami Elkayam, who helped shift how I see the horse’s body.❤

Horses are not designed to be straight. Asymmetry is normal. The goal is not straightness, but function, adaptability and ambidexterity.

This is where compensation comes in.

Compensation is not a flaw. It is how the horse maintains balance and avoids discomfort.

But when the cause remains, compensation becomes a pattern. Load shifts. Strain builds. Movement becomes less efficient.

What starts as a solution becomes a limitation and can eventually snowball into injury.

The clip showed me something I could not unsee and Tami helped me appreciate and respect it.

How a horse moves when it has choice, and how that changes when we take that choice away when we ride them.

This example is one case. One horse. One snapshot.

The horse did not appear lame. The concerns were behavioural, particularly contact and canter.

On the ground, the horse showed a clear difference between diagonals in the landing phase of trot. Around 19 percent, which is significant. The clip developers recommend any horse with a difference greater than 8% to seek veterinary assessment.

Under saddle, that difference almost disappeared.

The horse has produced a graph that is more symmetrical.

But the horse did not suddenly become sound.

The horse became constrained.

On the ground, the horse organised its body in a way that allowed it to cope by compensating.

Under saddle, that choice narrowed.

The rider introduced load and restriction. The horse reorganised because it had to.

The result was the horse forced to move with greater symmetry.

But not necessarily comfort or function and hence the deterioration of behaviour under saddle.

This is the blind spot.

Most people assess their horse under saddle.

But the moment you sit on a horse, you change the system.

You reduce its ability to compensate.

Movement becomes more organised, often more symmetrical.

But what we are seeing is what the horse can produce under constraint, not how it actually functions.

The bigger the difference between those two states, the more pressure is placed on the system.

And that pressure shows up as behaviour.

Spooky. Sensitive. Rushy. Reluctant. Inconsistent. Resistant. Difficult.

Not attitude.

Coping.😕

This is why it can vary day to day.

Surface, workload, fatigue, gut comfort, and environment all influence what the horse can tolerate.
The window shifts.

The behaviour follows.

Sometimes, without meaning to, we create the problem.

We guide the horse into a posture that is technically desirable, but not yet tolerable. We reduce its ability to compensate and increase the load on areas it has been protecting.

And then we call the response a behaviour problem.

I want to be clear - Good training matters. Clarity matters. Reducing external tension matters. This is a big part of helping horses.

It is what I do.

But it is not the whole picture.

If there is an internal issue, training sits on top of it.

It may help, but many times it is not enough because it may not remove the cause.

This is where we get it wrong.

We focus on what we see and overlook what the horse is experiencing.

Then we mislabel the result.

A horse that is restricted and compensating becomes “naughty” or “difficult” or "sensitive".

It is neither.

It is coping.

So when the supplement, the pole work, or the latest gadget does not fix the problem, pause.

Those tools are not necessarily the issue.

But if the root cause remains, adding more DEMAND will not solve it.

It will often make it WORSE.

Before you add something new, ask:

What is the horse already managing?

Because real change comes from understanding the WHOLE system.

Inside and out.

Because sometimes riding a horse and forcing it to move more symmetrically is magnifying their struggle.

Collectable Advice 198/365. Please hit SHARE or SAVE. Please do not copy and paste.

04/24/2026

🔗: https://equimanagement.com/research-medical/research/understanding-iron-homeostasis-in-sport-horses/

The essential mineral iron is a component of hemoglobin and myoglobin, a cofactor for metabolic enzymes, and a regulator of immune function and development. With these physiologic roles, iron is important for horses’ performance.

Iron homeostasis in equine athletes might be impacted by exercise-induced inflammation’s effect on hepcidin, a liver-derived hormone that is a key regulator of iron balance in mammals.

04/18/2026

ISG restriction in the horse — often overlooked, yet critical to the entire movement chain.
The iliosacral joint (ISG) links the hindquarters to the spine, playing a key role in force transfer and overall stability. When this area becomes restricted, the signs are rarely obvious and often show up as vague or secondary issues, such as:
Dragging through forehand
Difficulty with canter quality or transitions
Cross-cantering or inability to maintain the gait (cross firing)
Trouble engaging, loading, or sustaining impulsion
No hip swing in the walk

If you’re interested for a before and after check out our page for a coming soon!

04/12/2026

T13: The Gear Shift Nobody Talks About

Everything in front of T13 is built for motion. The ribcage expands, the thoracic sling lifts, the back swings with that easy elastic quality where energy just moves through without resistance. T12 feeds that rhythm — clean, consistent, lift and flow. You can feel it under a good rider on a well-developed horse — that sense that the whole topline is one continuous, breathing thing.

T13 doesn't generate that movement. Its job is to receive it and pass it through.
The dorsal serratus plays a significant role in setting that up. The front ribs lift, the back ribs draw in, and T13 sits right at the intersection of those two forces — not creating either one, just managing the handoff between them. It's a transition point in the truest sense. The thoracic spine, which is oriented around expansion and swing, is giving way to the thoracolumbar junction, which is oriented around support and transfer. T13 is the vertebra that lives in both worlds simultaneously, and that dual role is exactly what makes it so consequential.

When the ribcage is moving freely and the timing is right, T13 does its job without any drama. Motion comes forward, gets organized, and continues into the back of the body seamlessly. The rider feels suspension. The horse feels easy. Energy that originates in the hindquarters travels forward, and energy from the forehand travels back, and somewhere in the middle they meet and pass through each other the way two waves can cross without either one losing its shape.

But when something is even slightly off — a restriction in the ribcage, a timing disruption, a subtle asymmetry in how the serratus is firing, even a change in how the horse is carrying the rider's weight — T13 hesitates. The incoming motion doesn't quite arrive in the form the system was expecting, and for a fraction of a second the handoff stalls. Think of it like a driver who misses a gear change at exactly the wrong moment on a long straightaway. The engine is still running. The car is still moving. But something in the sequence broke, and the whole drivetrain felt it.

The front doesn't quite deliver. The back doesn't quite receive. Just a gap — small, brief, almost imperceptible.
That's enough.

Because the body won't tolerate being out of sync, it completes the shift — just one vertebra late, at T14. And that one vertebra makes an enormous difference. T14 is not wired for motion the way T13 is. It doesn't sit at the intersection of expansion and transfer — it sits at the beginning of the thoracolumbar junction proper, where the architecture of the spine is already shifting toward load-bearing and stabilization. When T14 is asked to do what T13 should have done, it answers in the only language it knows. It locks down. It organizes. It holds.

It becomes a governor rather than a gearbox — protecting the system by containing it rather than transmitting through it. The muscles around T14 thicken into that role over time. The soft tissue responds to the new demand. What started as a single missed shift becomes a habitual pattern, and the body starts building around it.

What you feel from the saddle is a back that isn't swinging freely anymore. The movement is there, but it feels managed rather than free. There's a quality of effort where there should be ease, a slight stickiness in the thoracolumbar area that no amount of stretching or massage seems to fully resolve — because the tissue isn't the root of the problem. The pattern is.

Most people assume the restriction lives at T14 because that's where you can feel it, where the muscle tension is, where the horse is sensitive to palpation. And they're not wrong that something significant is happening there. But addressing T14 without understanding why it locked in the first place is working one step behind the problem.
The moment everything changed was earlier — quieter — at the shift T13 missed.

04/08/2026

Does your horse feel off — but you're not getting answers?

You know your horse. You feel the shift before anyone else does — something in the way they move, the way they respond, the way they're just not quite themselves. But the lameness exam comes back clean, and you leave without clarity.

That's a frustrating place to be, and it's more common than most people realize.
Traditional lameness evaluations are designed around visible, measurable asymmetry. A horse generally needs to present with an obvious movement deficit before the standard diagnostic tools can do their job. That means early soft tissue strain, developing suspensory changes, or low-grade pain that's quietly altering how your horse moves often goes undetected until it's become something harder to turn around. Nerve blocks can help narrow things down, but they're broader in their effect than they appear — they can blur the picture as easily as they clarify it.
There's a lot of ground between "nothing's wrong" and a formal diagnosis, and that's exactly where we work.

With years of hands-on experience in equine rehabilitation, prehabilitation, and athlete development, our approach is built around catching dysfunction early — identifying compensation patterns, movement restrictions, and the subtle signs that something is building before it becomes a breakdown. When advanced diagnostics or veterinary collaboration are the right next step, we'll point you there. But more often than not, there's meaningful work to be done before it ever gets that far.

If your horse has been leaving you with more questions than answers, a conversation is a good place to start.
We're offering 2 free consultations in May — reach out to get yours on the calendar.

04/08/2026

“Long rides. Wet saddle pads. Focused, consistent training. That’s how great horses are made.”

We believe in that foundation — and we’ve built our programs around it.

Because real performance isn’t just about putting in the work… it’s about building a horse that can handle the work.

We develop the muscle, tendons, ligaments, and nervous system to support the demands of serious training — creating horses that stay strong, sound, and capable under pressure.

This is where performance meets longevity.
Where hard work is supported by intentional development.
Where your horse doesn’t just train — they thrive.

We’re giving away 2 FREE consultations for our athlete development program for May 2026. Reach out now to book yours!