Connecticut River Equine

09/27/2025

🐴 MENTAL DEFICITS IN HORSES
A topic I have not yet encountered in the equestrian world, yet I believe it is extremely important to talk about.

In human society, we have defined a wide spectrum of cognitive and intellectual disorders—reduced intelligence, attention disorders, or learning difficulties. We understand that individuals with such diagnoses face certain limitations and (ideally) we adapt to their abilities and provide support.

For some mysterious reason, however, we tend to assume that every horse is born fully functional and ready to perform for humans. In my therapeutic practice, I have worked with horses who showed signs of various mental or cognitive deficits. I have met horses I would certainly place somewhere on the autistic spectrum, as well as horses that displayed clear signs of intellectual disability.

These horses are not to blame for their condition. They are not capable of performing at the same level as their healthy peers. They may struggle with focus, attention, and learning, have difficulties forming social bonds with horses or humans, or be emotionally unstable and unpredictable. This does not mean they are “bad.” They are simply different.

Owners of such horses are often under extreme pressure from their surroundings. They are criticized for not training or disciplining their horse properly, they move from trainer to trainer, trying every possible approach and level of pressure to make the horse behave “normally.” But such a horse will never be “normal.” The only way forward is to accept this reality and offer support.

💡 Not every horse with unusual behavior necessarily suffers from a congenital mental deficit. Cognitive function can also be influenced by:

👉 Aging – degenerative changes in the brain or nervous system
👉 Chronic pain / physical discomfort – pain can take up attention and reduce focus
👉 Neurological disorders – infections or degenerative diseases of the central nervous system
👉 Metabolic disorders – diabetes, Cushing’s syndrome, or hormonal changes affecting the brain
👉 Lack of stimulation – horses kept long-term without proper enrichment
👉 Stress / anxiety / depression – psychological factors that slow reactions and reduce concentration

❓What can we do? Let’s talk about it! Let’s explore and study it. Let’s support such horses and their owners instead of blaming or shaming them. Every horse has its place in this world—though it might not be the one we imagined for ourselves.

K.

09/23/2025

Look at this Picture - What Do You See?
(A long post for those with resilient attention spans)

The Problem with Only Seeing the Problem

Be honest - your eye went straight to the dot, didn’t it? You zoomed in on the flaw, the mistake, the tiny blot that interrupts the clean page. That’s how most of us are wired. School taught us to circle errors in red pen, work taught us to obsess over weaknesses in performance reviews, and riding horses taught us to fixate on heads, hocks, necks - the “problem.”

The black dot ⚫️

But here’s the thing: your horse isn’t the dot. Your horse is the whole bloody rectangle.

And the sooner we stop dot-hunting, the sooner we actually start seeing what our horses are showing us.

1️⃣ The Seduction of the Black Dot

We humans bloody love a black dot. A lame step here, a sticky joint there, a hoof angle that looks like it was filed during happy hour. We cling to that single “wrong” thing because it gives us something to blame. Something to circle, name, and throw money at.

But horses aren’t black dots. They’re the system - the muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia, organs, hormones, biochemistry, posture, motion, behaviour, and more... including yes, the attitude they give you when you turn up late with the feed bucket.

2️⃣ When the Black Dot Doesn’t Show Up on the Scan

💔 Here’s the truth: sometimes the X-ray machine or ultrasound won’t find the black dot. Not because the horse is faking it, but because the problem isn’t a neat little lesion hiding in a diagnostic pixel. It’s the entire system that’s overloaded, crooked, or worn down.

And that disappoints people. We love a dot we can circle in red and say “Ah, there’s the villain!” But clinging to dot-thinking blinds us to the obvious. The evidence is etched in the horse’s muscles, posture, and behaviour. The horse is telling the truth with every wonky step, every over-developed muscle, collapsed core, or sour expression. We just have to stop dot-hunting long enough to believe them.

3️⃣ Compensation: The Body’s Survival Party Trick

Horses are world-class compensators. If something hurts or feels tight, or one side’s stronger than the other, or the saddle fits like a torture device, the body doesn’t stop. It adapts. That’s compensation: the body’s way of staying upright, moving forward, trying to feel comfortable and keeping you from landing face-first in the dirt.

It’s clever. It’s essential. It’s also a ticking time bomb. Because when the horse leans on the same compensation strategy, step after step, day after day, tissues designed for variety and balance start waving little white flags. Eventually, something gives.

4️⃣ Load Transfer (a.k.a. Force Transfer for Nerds)

Every step a horse takes is about load transfer - how weight and stress move through the body. Biomechanics nerds call it force transfer, but it’s the same idea.

⚖️ If the ground reaction force (that’s the push from the earth every time a hoof hits the ground) doesn’t travel through the joint in a neat, balanced way, the soft tissues have to fight like mad to stop the joint twisting into oblivion. A little of that? Fine. Every damn step, every damn day? Hello tendon injury, fast-tracked arthritis, anxious horse or much more.

5️⃣ The White Rectangle View

The rectangle is where the truth lives. The posture, the history written into muscles, the way they stand, move, swing, bend, and rotate. The way a horse’s behaviour shifts when its body isn’t coping: the refusal, the napping, the agitation at the mounting block.

See the rectangle, and you stop playing endless whack-a-mole with symptoms. You start seeing the story. And that’s where prevention, longevity, and actual soundness live.

6️⃣ So What Do We Do About It? (Spoiler: Stop Thinking Like Accountants)

This is the part where someone always asks: “Yes, but what can we do?” As if there’s a neat checklist, a black dot solution to the rectangle problem.

The answer: stop thinking in silos. Start thinking holistically.

Hooves: A foot isn’t just a foot. It’s a bloody foundation stone. An unbalanced hoof torques everything above it. Farriers aren’t trimming toenails; they’re managing load transfer.

Teeth: That uneven wear isn’t cosmetic. It twists the poll, skews the neck, derails the front end. Teeth give the brain important data. If the teeth are out of whack, the data is faulty — and the whole body pays.

Saddle fit: A saddle that pinches or slides doesn’t just annoy the horse. It rewrites posture, one compensation at a time. You’ve just trained asymmetry, not to mention damaged tissues.

Gut health: Fascia, muscle tone, and behaviour all go to hell when the horse’s internal chemistry is off. A cranky gut = a cranky body.

Bodywork & training: The right hands and the right exercises don’t “fix” the horse. They give the system options. They remind the body of pathways it’s forgotten, instead of forcing it to hammer the same old crooked groove.

No single guru, gadget, or injection is the magic dot preventer. It’s the collaboration — vet, farrier, dentist, saddle fitter, nutritionist, trainer, bodyworker, and your impact in the saddle — that keeps the rectangle intact.

7️⃣ Believe the Horse

Here’s the take-home message: stop waiting for the X-ray fairy to conjure a black dot so you can finally “believe” your horse.

The horse has already told you. It’s etched on their bodies and it’s shouted through movement and behaviour.

Believe the horse 🐴. Believe the rectangle.🔲

Because once you stop dot-hunting and start rectangle-seeing, you don’t just fix problems — you PREVENT them. You don’t just “manage” breakdowns — you stop them happening in the first place.

That’s how horses stay sound, willing, and alive in body and spirit. Not because we circled the right dot, but because we finally had the insight to see the whole bloody page.

RESPECT✊: To Tami Elkayam Equine Bodywork for opening my eyes and teaching me to see rectangles and not black dots. Canter Therapy Podcast just released a full discussion with Tami on this exact topic. We also discuss some seriously important insights about mares - link below❤

09/19/2025

Lots of my drawings go in the
"I dont like it enough yet" bin
This is what takes such a long time its not putting it into a picture its the jiggling about to make it clearer and not to busy this is the 5th attempt😃 I then usually go watch some tele and come back to it and usually it then falls into place

It's a bit like working with horses if you try to hard you often miss the easier option, often if you stop, go away and then come back to it the puzzle does not seem so hard, maybe its because when learning we often think of giving our horses time to process the ask but we forget that often we need that time aswell so if you are struggling sometimes stopping, regrouping and trying again with a new mindset can make the difficult easy.

Off to do draft number 6 😄😄😄
Sometimes its not skill its the determination that keeps us going 😄

Not finished yet so dont reprimand me until i have finished 😀😀

09/08/2025

Fall Laminitis Awareness

It's time to keep fall laminitis on your radar for your equines! Depending on where you are on the globe, the seasonal shifts may already be causing some problems, and for others it may be a bit later into the fall.

There are a few reasons why fall laminitis happens in equines.

The seasonal changes, like increased rain, can trigger new growth of grass, just like it does in the spring. This new grass growth is higher in sugar. The frosty nights that start occuring add another layer of problems. Photosynthesis, which creates sugars during the day, is happening just like in spring and summer, but in the warmer temperatures, respiration occurs overnight and the plants utilize their sugar storage for growth,making grass lowest in sugar in the early morning. In cooler temps, respiration is suppressed and the sugars are retained overnight so that sugar content is not going down! Often we will tell people in the spring and summer that early morning grazing is the safest but that is NOT the case when the temperatures drop below 6 degrees C (43 F) at night.

On top of the grass being higher in sugar, another factor is that equine's metabolisms are gearing up for the winter! The body naturally goes through hormonal shifts to increase fat storage and quite a bit of energy goes into growing the new coats. Insulin levels naturally rise this time of year, but in animals with metabolic issues, the sugar levels in the grass can create dangerous levels of insulin in the body, triggering laminitis.

And then there is PPID ( Pituitary Pars Intermedia Dysfunction-formerly known as Cushings disease), which is responsible for a lot of fall laminitis cases due to the seasonal rise of ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) during the late summer/Fall.
It's normal for ACTH to elevate in all equines this time of year as it is part of the body preparing for winter, however in PPID horses the rise can become quite excessive. This rise creates elevated cortisol, which can either cause hoof pain due to decrease in circulation or induce insulin resistance, triggering laminitis. Equine's don't even need to be eating fall grass for this to occur as it happens all on it's own when they have unmanaged PPID. Access to higher sugar feed ( hay, grass or concentrates) increases the risk of insulin related laminitis even more in these animals. Subclinical or acute fall laminitis is often one of the first signs of PPID, so make sure if you have an equine that is showing signs of sore feet this time of year, that PPID and insulin testing is part of your investigation into why. Keeping your PPID animals moving as much as possible over the colder months is also imperative to keeping their circulation healthy and preventing fall and winter laminitis.

Something else that isn't always discussed is also how the new grass growth affects the gut. Sudden changes in diet, increased carbohydrates, different fibre/moisture content etc can change the microbiome in ways that negatively affect the animal, either just with diarrhea or f***l water, or more seriously with colic and laminitis. This type of laminitis is not always linked to insulin, but actually to toxicity in the gut due to unhealthy bacterial growth or die off and how that affects fermentation in the gut. An equine does not need to have insulin regulation issues to suffer from this type of laminitis.

There are other factors that may contribute to sore feet during this time of year that are not caused by laminitis. One of the main ones is seasonal shedding of callused material. This shedding is perfectly normal and natural, but depending on the footing they live on, or the weather, this can cause temporary discomfort because their built up summer protection has disappeared. In a healthy hoof, the newly exposed and softer sole and frog should harden up quickly. Having hoof boots on hand to aid in this transitional period during seasonal shifts can help for exercising comfortably. In cases where hooves are already compromised or rehabilitating, good therapeutic turnout boots or some other form of hoof protection ( tons of options these days!) can keep the comfortable.

If your equine is experiencing hoof pain this time of year and it is accompanied by heat, digital pulses, reluctance to move ( so many people call subclinical laminitic horses "Lazy"), exaggerated heel first landings in the front feet, leaning back off the front hooves or standing in strange postures, laying down more frequently or for longer periods, increased respiration, difficulty turning or going down hills, or other unusual signs of discomfort, please contact your vet and hoof care provider. Laminitis IS an emergency, and the triggers need to be identified and eliminated ASAP and a treatment and rehabilitation plan put in action to prevent serious damage and dysfunction.

07/28/2025

07/15/2025

07/03/2025

Listened to the episode on arthrogenic muscle inhibition today. Excellent content!

My Podcast is coming back!!

*Vet Physio Research Rewind* explores the background, science, and significance behind equine physiotherapy research. Join me as I reflect on my own studies, critique methodologies, and connect the dots between past findings and the wider industry landscape. It’s a deep dive into the ‘why’, ‘how’, and ‘what next’ of veterinary physio research. It’s a mix of storytelling, science, and reflection for anyone interested in how we care for our equine athletes and companions. There's also some doggy tails in there too!

https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/gillian-tabor/episodes/Vet-Physio-Research-Rewind---My-new-podcast-direction-e34v14r