Free Flow Equine Therapies - Susan Rousak

10/03/2026

This is a really important conversation to have, I know I'm guilty of not looking after myself, and through my learning, I've realised how asymmetrical I am, how unfit I'd gotten and how much harder that was for my horse. I now go to the gym, get my own bodywork and try to look after myself as well, and I can see that improvement in my horse as well!

What do you do for yourself?

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09/03/2026

I've spent the last 5 days at a craniosacral course. It's such a powerful modality, and the changes seen in the horses were amazing.

Thank you to Emma Loftus Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy for Horses and Humans for sharing your knowledge and passion for this modality. You created a supportive and engaging environment in which to learn. 😃

Thank you to Boyne Equine Health - Sinead McCann for organising, supporting and bringing the Irish humour!

Thank you to Dave and Sue Leigh from The Barefoot Bloke for your hospitality, and providing such a lovely, inviting venue and horses.

I'll do a post at some point on what craniosacral therapy is and benefits. Right now though I need to go rest up and process all the learning 😄

04/03/2026

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"He's had everything checked"

When people post about issues they’re having with their horse, any mention of it being a physical problem is often met with “he’s definitely not in pain, he’s had everything checked”. More often than not they mean they’ve had his teeth looked at, his saddle looked at and some kind of bodyworker have a look at his back. Unfortunately there are more parts to a horse than the back and the teeth.

Sometimes people have gone further than this and have dutifully taken their horse to the vet for a work-up and nothing of note can be found. The absence of significant lameness does not mean a horse is pain-free. Sometimes you need to look deeper and find the right vet to help you do that.

If you pursue something as a purely behavioural issue when there is underlying pain, at best you end up with a miserable, shut down horse performing the task regardless and at worst you end up with an even bigger problem in the long run. You’ll also end up with a horse that has learned humans will ignore his attempts to communicate so he either needs to shout louder, or put up and shut up.

A factor that is even more difficult to navigate is that all professionals aren’t one and the same, so you can end up thinking you have had things checked properly by a relevant professional, and they’ve actually missed something. For example, it is not unusual for me to go out to a client who has tried their best by getting a made to measure saddle fitted and yet it is clearly causing the horse discomfort and doesn’t actually fit at all. I will always listen to the horse’s opinion above anyone else’s.

Having said all that, there are many postural/training issues which can cause soreness throughout the body which can be rectified with appropriate, gentle work teaching the horse a new way to move and carry themselves. So we don’t necessarily need to immediately rack up a 10k vet bill when we find nothing obvious.

A quick note about ulcers, it is extremely common for horses to have ulcers, however they are rarely stand alone. It can be easy to find ulcers and think you’ve found the whole problem, only to be disappointed later when the behaviour doesn’t change or the ulcers return once treatment stops. Ulcers are often secondary to pain/soreness/stress/management and we need to address all of it to successfully heal the horse, not just decide because we’ve treated the ulcers that any further issues are definitely behavioural.

Another one to note is the rise in awareness and research into various muscle myopathies. I think there are a lot more horses affected than we realise and when I look back at some horses I’ve known over the years I realise now that is probably what was going on with them, we just didn’t know about it and couldn’t diagnose it at the time.

Using "he's had all the checks" as a justification to put a horse through high-stress training until they comply is unethical and any "result" is simply a shut down horse, perhaps a success story for the humans involved, but the horse continues to suffer silently.

I cannot tell you the amount of times I have gone out to see horses who have been seen by multiple professionals and "cleared" for pain who later get diagnosed with significant pathology. If it quacks like a duck its probably a duck.

If a horse is telling you they are struggling and in pain, believe them.

We need to let go of this narrative around some horses needing to be dramatically trained or ridden through explosive behaviour in order to "fix" them, if a horse truly is having "just behavioural" issues, the training should look calm and quiet and not push the horse into loud behaviour. Any training that looks dramatic and high-stress is not for the horse.

You are ultimately the only one who truly has the power to advocate for your horse. If you feel something is wrong, even if you’ve had “all the checks”, seek out professionals who don’t dismiss your concerns and are willing to help you look a little deeper rather than telling you your horse just has to get on with it. 🐴

02/03/2026

The more I learnt the more I saw horses that, while tracking up, were not balanced or actually working well. But I was also taught tracking up was the goal so it's taken me a bit to unlearn that!

Food for thought 😃

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For years, many of us were taught that a horse was sound and working well if they were tracking up.

“Push him forward - he’s not tracking up.”

Sound familiar ?

But knowing what we know now, perhaps it’s time we stopped obsessing over that one measure.
For many horses - especially young horses, pony / cob types or those still building strength - early on, tracking up can only happen if they rush and lose their balance.

The moment we chase it, we often see the next instruction:

“Keep him between leg and hand.”

And suddenly it becomes a push-and-pull battle.

I can't tell you how awful i feel thinking back to the lessons where I was told to ride forward and make him rounder to achieve the tracking up in trot...

Now i know better, I prefer something different.
Leg without hand.
Hand without leg.

First, we build balance.
We develop functionality within the pace.

Only then do we refine the quality - in balance.

tracking up alone is not the goal.

Balance, harmony and functionality is.

If you have to have a quick " zoom zoom " round to awaken/influence him then so be it, nothing is productive if the horse is behind the aids so we must have that desire to go forward first but we must always come back to the goal of working in balance.

Whilst always remembering we can't run horses into balance.

📸 Fine Photography By Georgia-Emily

26/02/2026

Everything is connected!

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Did you know? The hoof and the horse are always connected!?

Sounds silly right but…

I still regularly see compartmentalised thinking in this industry. The hoof is treated as something created by the farrier, while the body is treated as something shaped by training, posture, management, or pathology somewhere else. As if these are separate problems that occasionally influence one another rather than parts of the same system.

Hoof balance is not a shape, a measurement, or a visual ideal. It is a moment condition. The distal limb must satisfy an equilibrium between external ground reaction forces and internal tissue moments. When that equilibrium is met, phalangeal alignment, hoof–pastern axis, palmar angle, and capsule morphology emerge as consequences rather than targets. When it is not met, the system does not immediately fail. It compensates.

That compensation is bi-directional. Forces do not only travel upward from the hoof. Posture, neuromuscular tone, limb orientation, and movement strategy all influence how the hoof is loaded in the first place. The hoof receives force from the ground, but it also feeds information back into the system through mechanical strain and sensory input. Hoof form and whole-horse organisation continuously shape one another.

However, the hoof is a persistent boundary condition. Posture and movement can vary from stride to stride, but hoof geometry influences every step the horse takes. If the hoof alters the timing or direction of force, the limb must change strategy, the trunk must stabilise differently, and the nervous system will preserve that solution. This is why compensation can appear functional for long periods of time, even as tissue cost accumulates elsewhere.

The point is not that the hoof is everything, or that the body is irrelevant. The point is that separating them is the mistake. Farriery alters boundary conditions at the ground. Those conditions either allow the horse to resolve forces within its elastic and biological reserve, or they force the system to organise around constraint. Hoof balance is therefore neither purely local nor purely global. It is the interface where mechanics, biology, and behaviour meet.

That is why the last webinar with Dr Haussler was so important, understanding the difference between compensation and maladaption!

https://equineeducationhub.thinkific.com/courses/compensations

23/02/2026

Good info here from The Bit Doctor about French Link bits. When I was younger we all thought these were the best, but now we know better we can do better 🙂

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22/02/2026

Looks like some rain this week! That means we might need to do some appointment shuffling so please keep an eye on your messages. Please remember I rely on you to let me know if it's raining in your area and if your horse is wet or not.

If you've got the Equigate app and have connected with me, don't forget you can message me directly through the app 😃

13/02/2026

Mandy from ErgoX2 is in the area this weekend for rider and saddle assessments. A spot has opened up Sunday morning! If anyone is interested, please get in touch with Mandy to organise. These assessments are quite interesting and have helped me a lot 😀

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11/02/2026

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Regular bodywork without any change in training is often symptom management, not rehabilitation.

And that doesn’t mean bodywork isn’t valuable — it absolutely is.
But it does mean we need to be honest about what it can and can’t do on its own.

If a horse’s poor muscle development, tension, or recurring discomfort is coming from:
- unbalanced movement
- restricted range of motion
- incorrect joint use
- compensatory muscle patterns
- or training that doesn’t allow the body to function well

then bodywork is, by nature, only ever addressing the surface.

It can release tissue.
It can reduce tension.
It can help the horse feel better in the short term.

But if the underlying movement patterns don’t change, the body will simply return to the same state again — because the cause is still there.

This isn’t a criticism of bodyworkers.

Good bodyworkers are doing their best within their scope. Many do flag concerns about saddles, training, workload, or exercise choices. Many encourage rest, changes, or further investigation. They are often the first people to notice that something deeper is going on.

But bodywork on its own can’t retrain movement.

True, lasting change only happens when bodywork is used alongside training that supports:
- correct balance
- proper alignment
- healthy joint range of motion
- appropriate muscle recruitment
- and correct function for that individual horse

Bodywork should support good training — not replace it.

When training is genuinely helping the horse move better, bodywork tends to become:
- maintenance
- occasional support
- part of a bigger picture

Not a constant cycle of “fixing” the same areas over and over again.

And that’s the key red flag.

If the same issues keep returning, or new compensations keep appearing, it’s worth asking why. Often, especially in the early stages, these aren’t signs of unavoidable unsoundness — they’re signs of dysfunction that hasn’t yet been addressed.

This is where teamwork matters.

Trainers, bodyworkers, saddlers, vets — none of these roles work in isolation if we truly want the best outcome for the horse. When everyone is pulling in the same direction, the horse benefits.

Because bodywork can only create real, lasting change when the way the horse is moving is also changing.

Otherwise, we’re just helping the horse cope — not helping the horse improve.

09/02/2026

EOI - Braidwood area - Bit fitting / Bitless bridle fitting

I've had a request to visit Braidwood so thought I'd put it out there to see if there is enough interest for a visit. I can offer bit fitting, bridle fittings or bitless bridle fittings. If so please send me a message here or SMS to 0426880955

😀

06/02/2026

04/02/2026

Beautiful Accession is an OTTB who found comfort with a Fager Emil bit 😍

Accession was showing signs of discomfort with his bit and not wanting his bridle on. After trying a few bits we found the Emil allowed Accession to relax, move with more freedom and listen better to rein aids. The smile on his rider's face says it all 😄

Bit and Bridle Fitting Canberra ACT and NSW
Horse Bit Emporium
Fager Australia