HN Equine Therapies

07/12/2025

🚨 8 reasons your horse needs extra TLC from a professional during the winter months:

1. It’s cold = bunched up, tight muscles and stiffness.
2. Lack of daylight = rushing to get exercised potentially leads to insufficient warm up/cool down time.
3. Wind and rain = horses are not moving in a relaxed posture, risking the onset of painful strains.
4. Stabling = less movement means less synovial fluid to keep those joints lubricated and healthy. Hay stations have the same effect = just because they’re outside, doesn’t mean they’re moving much!
5. Frozen, uneven ground = sore soles, footiness and compromised distal limbs.
6. Rugs = tight, restricted fascia, especially around the withers, scapula, deltoids and triceps.
7. Turned away for winter = harder to monitor and see new, ‘niggly’ problems emerging, less human input to address straightness problems.
8. Remain in work = wet, slippery, muddy conditions increases the chances of injury.

💬 No technical jargon here! Just simple, basic and obvious reasons to ensure that your horse has regular, maintenance work completed this winter.
📑📝 Tailored programmes can also be discussed and created for your own individual needs.

05/12/2025

❤️ So beautiful to watch and naturally assisting the healthy function of the ridden equine. This is what a horse should be doing to ensure their health, comfort, spiritual wellness and longevity.

Watch carefully and note:

💫 NO hands pulling back into a false, compromised “outline”
💫 NO constant kicking forward “into the contact”
💫 Horse and rider in balance and harmony, moving fluidly, together as one

❤️ This is the riding I want to watch and emulate. For me, it applies osteopathic principles within ridden (and groundwork) form.
🙌 Always happy to discuss and point you in the direction of people to get you started. It’s not scary, or elitist, I promise.

05/12/2025

❄️ Winter brings lots of limitations to equestrians - if you let it!
✨ A quick play at liberty in the paddock, prompted by Henry, first thing in the morning was just the job!
💫 So much can be achieved from the ground, with play sessions incorporating gymnastic exercises to work, warm and mobilise cold muscles/joints. Lots of processing and stretching out afterwards 💕

03/12/2025

📸 A friend taking a photograph of a friend for social media, who is taking photographs for their friend’s social media accounts 🤪🤯

🙈 Self-promotion doesn’t come easily to all of us and is something I still struggle with (I can do it, but feel a sense of unease about it all!) Moments like this help to bring a sense of comedy value to the process 😂
Horsemanship Hub - Horsemanship Showcase

02/12/2025

❤️ Throwing my mind, heart, body and soul into creating a peaceful, restorative, communicative and highly effective mobile “office” space.
👌 I couldn’t resist taking a quick picture of this after working through her stifle! Moments like this remind you to be thankful, hopeful and present.

30/11/2025

❤️ Great to spend time catching up with Jennifer from Equine Osteopathy and Algotherapy this weekend at Horsemanship Hub - Horsemanship Showcase.
So pleased our paths crossed last year 😊

28/11/2025

📸 The light outside was changing between the time I started and finished this mare, but hopefully you can see some of the changes that occurred within her muscles and fascia.
🤲 My gosh she holds tension through the core of her body. However, I think she’s ready to start letting it all go.

26/11/2025

🖤 Dogs always know the right things to say 🖤
I would never be without my animals. And whilst I owe them everything, they owe me nothing at all. Their love and companionship is all I need.

25/11/2025

✨ I spent many INSET days, during my teaching career, with my head in my hands. Being told how to cater for a child with this need, that need… it ALWAYS came back down to the same basic aspects of being an excellent, responsive teaching. It really was that simple.

✨ And I think the mysterious “rehabilitation” word might just be the same. It doesn’t matter what type of horse you have, the injury sustained, the end goal etc. If you want your horse to be happy, healthy and functional, you simply need to be an educated owner who is responsive to their horse’s need.

• Horses are a constant work in progress - there is never really a start or end to “rehabilitation”
• Every horse has a weakness that we are continually working on and supporting
• We should always be focusing on building strength and gymnastic ability, which can only be achieved by establishing straightness and balance
• We constantly need to adapt our ground work/riding to the horse that turns up on the day. And this varies because they are living creatures too!
• There cannot be a week by week plan to be followed, with set exercises and rigid goals - horses are unpredictable, life is unpredictable and we just have to adapt to the present situation.

✨ So I’m not sure I want to use the term “rehabilitation” anymore. It suggests a target driven, hyper-focused plan that often proves detrimental to both horses and humans.
Let’s just enjoy being on a journey, with highs and lows. Sometimes we progress, sometimes we have to take a step back (that doesn’t mean regress) and it really is that simple.
Just be an excellent owner, dedicated to understanding and responding to the needs of your horse.

25/11/2025

👀 This looks like a great webinar to cheer us up in January - good value, a wealth of knowledge and something we all need to consider when planning for a healthy 2026.

⭐⭐Webinar⭐⭐

If you’ve been following my recent series on the withers — and especially if you’ve been curious about booking an assessment but haven’t quite taken that plunge — this new webinar will help you understand your horse’s body on a completely different level.

Most horses show signs of tension, crookedness, or early discomfort long before they ever look lame or resistant. These subtle signs influence everything: posture, movement, balance, and how your horse responds to your training.

So on Wednesday 8th January at 7:30pm GMT, I’m hosting a 1-hour live webinar:

✨ How to Read Your Horse’s Body - Part 1 ✨
£15 — Includes 14-day replay access

In this session, I’ll teach you how to spot the early signs of:
🐴 tension
🐴 Balance
🐴 crookedness
🐴 discomfort
🐴 compensation patterns

…through posture and movement

This isn’t about teaching you how to fix these things.
It’s about opening your eyes to what your horse has likely been showing you all along — so you can make better decisions, train with more clarity, and support their body from a place of genuine understanding.

Perfect for you if:
✔ you enjoyed the Withers Series
✔ you’re thinking about getting an assessment
✔ you want to improve your eye for posture and movement
✔ you want to start the new year with better awareness of your horse

🎟 Tickets: £15
📅 Live: 8th January
🕢 7:30pm GMT
⏳ Replay available for 14 days

🔗 Link in comments

I cannot wait for this one — you’re going to see your horse differently after this. ❤️

24/11/2025

🐴 Working with horses is far from the glamour most non-equestrians believe it to be (especially in winter!!)
But in a world where AI is replacing the human workforce at a scary rate, I realised today that my grubby old hands will always have work for two reasons:

1) Only a living hand can feel the function and dysfunction within another living being.

2) No horse is ever going to let a robot anywhere near them!!

😆 Job for life!