Equine Nutrition Australasia (ENA)

04/01/2026

Stable Secrets with a wonderful post on ARKLE !

04/01/2026

The Horse Physio Thanks

🎗️ What is Equine Taping, and Why Do I Use It?
I’ll never forget the first time I saw kinesiology tape used on a horse. Brightly coloured strips stood out against a glossy bay coat, and I wondered if it was more fashion than function. Over time, and through my own practice, I’ve come to appreciate tape as a subtle yet valuable tool.
Kinesiology tape is a stretchy cotton tape, designed to move with the body. It doesn’t immobilise or hold anything in place. Instead, it offers a constant, gentle input to the skin and underlying tissues. It’s thought to work partly by lifting the skin fractionally, which may support blood and lymph flow, and partly by providing light sensory feedback to the nervous system.
For me, the real difference shows up not in what I see, but in what I feel. When I run my hands along a horse’s back after taping, muscles that had been tight may feel softer, or an area that had been reactive to touch may feel calmer. Horses often confirm this in their own way — a sigh, a lick and chew, a quiet shuffle to stand more squarely.
Tape on its own is not a solution. But used alongside physiotherapy, veterinary care, and good training, it can help maintain positive changes for a little longer. It’s one more way we can support our horses kindly, without force or restriction.
🌿 Want to learn more about supporting your horse’s comfort and performance? Join my free newsletter here: https://www.thehorsephysio.co.uk/newsletter/
🎗️ Get your tape here: https://www.equinektapinguk.com

04/01/2026

Koper Equine
Thanks

Explore the thoracic sling's vital connection to horse forelimbs and its role in balance, posture, and movement for better equine performance.

04/01/2026

Clare MacLeod MSc RNutr Independent Equine Nutritionist
Thanks

GASTRIC ULCER 101

Gastric disease (including ulcers) is very common in performance horses and also affects leisure horses and ponies.

Glandular lesions (EGGD) are more difficult to treat than squamous (ESGD), and are generally not related to the diet. Ask your vet about the new types of medication available and take advice from your vet or nutritionist on how to feed to ensure the medication is most effective.

To minimise the risk of gastric ulcers:
☑ Feed ad lib forage where possible, and avoid more than 4 hours without any forage or feed
☑ If pasture grass is scarce, supplement with forage
☑ Make all dietary changes gradually – both forage and bucket feed
☑ Restrict dietary starch ideally to no more than 1g per kg bodyweight per meal e.g. 500g for a 500kg horse, and ideally less than 2g starch per kg bodyweight per day
☑ Use vegetable oil (linseed or rapeseed, or corn if your vet recommends - but be sure to balance corn if over 50ml is fed) as a useful source of energy for hard-working horses, if necessary
☑ For horses prone to ulcers, feed 2 litres of alfalfa or grass chaff half an hour prior to exercise (horses with active ulcers should have soaked alfalfa pellets or soft grass chaff, but in theory would not be in fast work)
☑ Give as much turnout to pasture as possible
☑ Avoid solitary confinement
☑ Provide continuous access to water
☑ Control stress levels, so stick to a routine and prepare horses for travel and competition as much as possible
☑ Horses with or prone to EGGD should have 2 full days off exercise per week (split rather than consecutive - according to specialist vet & researcher Dr Michael Hewetson).
☑ Limit the number of carers in EGGD prone horse because some evidence shows an association with better outcomes with less carers

Members of the online Equine Nutrition Learning Centre have access to the entire article from which this post has been taken.

For details of a webinar I'm doing about feeding ulcer prone horses, comment webinars and I'll send you a DM with a link.

Feel free to share 🐴🍏

04/01/2026

Many Thanks to Dr Shelley Appleton Calm Willing Confident Horses

Confidence Is Not a Feeling. It’s a Receipt.🎟

Confidence is not something you wait for.

It does not arrive after a pep talk, a deep breath, or wishing harder.

Confidence shows up after you learn what to do, practise it deliberately, get coached when you miss, and repeat the process until your nervous system stops filing emergency reports.

If you are waiting to feel confident before acting, you are asking the effect to precede the cause.

Do the work.🙌

Collect the receipt.❤

This is Collectable Advice 122/365. My principle #2. Save it. Share it. Learn it properly inside The Complete Reboot - Bootcamp starts on the 7 days (details in comments on FB or link in bio on Insta )🤓

IMAGE📸: Image of Stacey Wallace and her horses. She has owned a horse for nearly 3 years, she has transformed herself into a highly competent rider and horse handler over a very short period of time. We interviewed her on Canter Therapy Podcast - keep an eye our for in the coming weeks.🎙

04/01/2026

Many Thanks to The Whole Horse Journey

Horses are not living in the past or the future. They are not replaying old experiences or projecting what might happen next. They are continuously orienting to what is happening now, moment by moment, breath by breath, shift by shift.

This is not a philosophical idea. It is how their nervous systems are designed.

A horse survives by staying exquisitely attuned to the present environment. Subtle changes in sound, movement, posture, breathing, muscle tone. These are not background details to a horse. They are primary information. Their system is always asking one quiet question: what is happening right here, and what does it mean for my safety?

Because of this, horses do not respond to who we think we are. They respond to who we are being.

They are not listening to our internal narratives or our intentions. They are not measuring our knowledge, our experience, or how much we care. They are responding to our physiology. Our breath. Our tension. Our internal pace. The emotional weight we are carrying into the space with them.

This is why horses reflect us so accurately, and why that reflection can sometimes feel uncomfortable.

As humans, we live largely in our heads. We rehearse conversations, analyse situations, worry about outcomes, carry the residue of old experiences forward with us. Our bodies often lag behind our thinking. We can believe we are calm while our shoulders are tight, our jaw is clenched, our breathing is shallow. We can tell ourselves we are present while our nervous system is already anticipating the next task.

Horses feel that discrepancy immediately.

Not because they are judging us, and not because they are being difficult or sensitive in some abstract sense, but because they are responding to what is actually there. A braced body. A rushed system. A distracted presence.

This is why technique alone never tells the full story. You can do all the right things on the surface and still feel as though the horse is unsettled, resistant, or distant. When nothing obvious has changed, people often assume the horse has an issue, a memory, a behavioural problem that needs fixing.

Very often, what has changed is the human.

A different level of stress.
A heavier emotional load.
A nervous system that is stretched thinner than it was before.

Horses do not hold onto stories about yesterday, and they do not worry about tomorrow. They do not punish us for past mistakes or test us for future intentions. They simply respond to what is present. Again and again.

This is also why being around horses can feel profoundly grounding when we allow it. When we stop trying to manage, perform, or control the interaction and instead slow down enough to actually arrive, something in us begins to settle. Not because the horse is doing something to us, but because their way of being invites us out of our heads and back into our bodies.

At The Whole Horse Journey, this is where science and soul naturally meet.

From a scientific perspective, this is nervous system regulation, co-regulation, and embodied communication. Horses are responding to real-time physiological cues that tell them whether an interaction feels safe, neutral, or uncertain. This happens below conscious thought, in both species.

From a soul perspective, this is presence. Not curated presence. Not mindful performance. Real presence that cannot be faked because it lives in the body, not the mind.

This is why horses are such honest mirrors. Not because they are here to teach us lessons or heal us, but because they cannot pretend. They do not meet our masks. They meet our state.

When we stop trying to be someone for the horse and instead allow ourselves to be as we are, something often shifts. The horse softens. The interaction becomes quieter. The system reorganises, not through effort, but through authenticity.

Horses are not asking us to be perfect or endlessly calm. They are not asking us to have it all figured out.

They are asking us to be real, here, in this moment.

And when we truly are, even briefly, they recognise us immediately.

04/01/2026

Thompson & Redwood (T&R) Western Australia 🇦🇺 & Mitavite Asia (MA) Malaysia 🇲🇾 collaborating through 2026 with exciting new feed formulations for your horses 🐎

04/01/2026

Equus Magazine Thanks

04/01/2026

Equitation Science Training Thanks

Being clear and consistent is kinder than being blurry and confusing.

What looks ‘soft’ to humans often feels unpredictable and confusing to horses.

Calm firmness creates security; inconsistency creates anxiety.

I see the truth of this so often. Especially for sensitive, reactive horses. Blurry handling really exacerbates their tension.

Be clear to be kind.

04/01/2026

At Thompson & Redwood, Australia 🇦🇺 (T&R) they produce high quality horse feed that is affordable & nutritionally balanced to suit all horses & ponies. Made in Western Australia, their horse feeds only contain the highest quality ingredients sourced from local farmers to ensure the feeds are healthy, natural & fresh.

03/01/2026

Vet Physio Phyle Thank You

Okay — breaking down one of my most common reasons for physiotherapy treatments.

Often times, owners or riders will say “I feel they’re tight on the left side of their body”. When I ask why, the response is usually “they really struggle on the left rein”.

When a horse struggles to bend either way, it is usually because the side of the horse’s body on the outside of the bend is experiencing dysfunction and tightness.

The outside of the body is then “shortened”, meaning the horse will fall in on turns, &/ find one rein significantly easier than the other. Other symptoms are; difficulty cantering one way, feeling like one of the riders legs is pushed out, poking of the jaw, asymmetrical hoof shape and more.

An important note here is that neither bend will be correct until your horse is symmetrical to bend each way. Just because they’re easier to bend one way, doesn’t mean that the body is actually functional; it will be likely due to the inside of the horse being more contracted and therefore positioned for “bend”.

Skipping over how I treat these cases (I will return at a later time with a post on this!), a few points on how exercises can help horses that experience one sided stiffness (of course after the cause has been investigated, identified and treated!!):

🐴 Instead of forcing the bend, counter flex your horse on their easier rein and yield the ribs inwards. This will help mobilise the ribs on the outside of the body, increasing flexibility and improving straightness.

🐴 Mobilise the pelvis — so many people reach for the neck, but if the pelvis can mobilise symmetrically to each side in quick succession, it can provide a basis for straightness and suppleness. Use transitions & & renvers on a figure of eight, progressing to counterflexing in each transition.

By trying to ask the horse to bend more, you will often be met with more bracing, so instead use gentle mobilisation work to loosen up and improve symmetry and function to both sides of the body.