A Happy New Year to everyone!

Wow, what a December it has been with lots of snow and many of us struggling to move around and get on with our usual work routine. Maybe instead of us all complaining when this happens we should just enjoy the enforced change of pace and catch up on re-connecting with our unpredictable and incredibly beautiful environment – though I know that the pressure to keep earning to pay for the inevitable fuel bills makes it hard to relax! Shame that as a society we put so much pressure on ourselves. The snow made sure that the year wound down to a spectacular end.

It was also exciting to be driving to Manchester in the early hours of the Winter Solstice and to see the moon disappear with the full eclipse on the 21st. Apart from all that the horses coped well with the snow and the great thing about being outside is that you can really enjoy the midwinter skies at sunrise and sunset. Pretty magnificent.

May 2011 be a year of new and positive beginnings for us all. I suggest we boycott reading media misery and portents of doom and make it happen. A friend of mine reminded me recently of a great quote:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has”.
Margaret Mead (1901 – 1978) American cultural anthropologist

Here’s to getting on with it.

A rather blurred photo of the eclipse!

Even blizzards don't stop the important task of eating

Trekkin to the Hay Hutch

Winter Sunrise at the horses

Winter Sunset at the horses

Before the torrential rain followed by the present chilly weather (hello winter!) the Autumn/Fall was stunningly spectacular here in Derbyshire this year. The other week I had a new horse client on the other side of the county and my Sat Nav took me through the Chatsworth Estate. The different colours of the trees was incredible and was such a 360 degree panorama that I didn’t know which way to look to take it all in. It was one of those ‘wow!’ moments.
It struck me a few weeks later as we stood outside a friend’s stables watching a huge firework display in the distance, that it’s almost like we try to recreate all those autumn colours in fiery cascades against the overarching dome of the night sky. As below so above.

Anyway, back down on the earth plane we have just purchased a Hay Hutch! This is a very simple but also a very useful idea for being able to feed your horses ouside without wastage and without hay nets. You can also use them in a stable too.

Here is a pic of our three enjoying a water cooler moment at the Hay Hutch Cafe

Horse Verdict : If it's food it's good!

It got their approval but then I guess it was food after all.

Check them out at Hay Hutch

Keep warm!

Tonight, on my way home from a long day at work I stopped off to see our horses as one of them had seemed unwell during the day and I went to check on him. I was tired after my day and didn’t feel much like wandering in the dark but I had to see if Finn was okay.

I drove up the narrow country lane that runs by the side of our field. It was dark with no streetlights and although it was a full moon it was cloudy and misty and difficult to see too well. I got out of the car and the floating patches of mist were evocative and invigorating as my senses heightened and my imagination began to open out and race a little. The horses weren’t up at the top near the field shelter so I headed down the track to find them. It wasn’t long before I spotted their shapes in the distance and realised that they were walking towards me. I spoke to them but – no, they weren’t walking towards me but simply in my direction. It was as though I wasn’t there and I suddenly felt very privileged as they were a small herd of three making their way along the track as though it were some ancient path. They were individually all tuned out but the sense of being a herd was very clear and strong.

They stopped and stood. Statues in the mist. And I stood with them opening up to the feeling of being part of this herd and we stood together for what seemed like an eternity. I walked to the head of the herd and stood in front with my back to them. Wanting to see what it felt like without looking at them. That sense of being part of something together remained strong. I then turned to face them and watched them as their bodies stood motionless before me and their minds seemed off in another place.

Then, in an instant, it was gone. Gracie became present and looked at me. I asked if she wanted to say hello and she came to me. Then Finn did the same – looked at me and came to me to acknowledge my presence. Cassie, our latest arrival and still very wary of anyone, came a little closer and just looked at me.

The mist was very evocative but there was more to my experience than it just being the atmosphere and my imagination. It was a rare moment of being with the herd at night on their own terms and I’m grateful they let me tune in to them. I think I’m going to enjoy the coming season of ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness!’

Last week I had an interesting case through a recommendation of a human patient of mine. Her homeopath has kept horses all her life and one of them has acute on chronic laminitis. The pedal bones have dropped and rotated and the poor gelding was struggling when I saw him but was bearing up better than many horses I have seen in his condition. His owner called me in because she felt he was locked up at the base of his neck around C7/T1.

When I arrived I was pleased to discover that Abi Hogg was his trimmer and was due to trim his hooves. For those who don’t know about the potentially fatal condition of laminitis in horses it can be very serious and in many cases terminal for the horse as the sensitive tissue in the hoof becomes inflamed and the distal bones in the horse’s forelimbs descend through the sole. In extreme cases the edge of the bone can be seen protruding through the horse’s foot.

All horses are different and there are no miracles but with an informed and intelligent trimming of the hoof it can be possible to trim the toe so that new hoof growth helps to take the pedal bone out of its rotation. A good trimmer like Abi is a vital requirement. Check out Abi’s Site

When I saw the horse who I’ll call Timmy (client confidentiality and all that…) he was very jammed up in his shoulders. Inevitably really. If you look at the classic stance that a horse adopts with acute laminitis you will see that they rock back onto their heels and support themselves through taking their weight through stiff legs and pivoting high up in the shoulders. A useful picture of this can be found Here

The natural centre of gravity is shifted from over the forelimbs as the horse braces itself backwards and holds its shoulders stiff putting increased pressure on the cervical/dorsal junction and the brachiocephalic muscles.

Timmy’s owner was right about the position of his bodily discomfort (apart from the raging pain in his hooves of course) but it didn’t seem appropriate to add to his discomfort by doing a high velocity thrust manipulation on his lower cervicals.

Timmy responded well as I eased off all his hindlimbs using gentle body adjustment articulation and stretching. When I got to his forelimbs he was at the stage where he seemed to trust me to move him. I managed to ease the brachiocephalic muscles with some long lever articulations of the lower cervicals and then focussed on craniosacral tissue release around the withers and front of the shoulders.

I later heard that, just after I left him, Timmy had laid down to sleep.
But the really satisfying feedback is the way that he got up afterwards.
Apparently his feet had been so sore that he had been getting up like a cow: hind legs first and then up on the forelimbs. However when he got up after his post treatment sleep he got up like a horse: forelegs and forehooves first. You have no idea how great I felt to hear that news!
What it confirms to me is how important it is to treat horses wholistically (as with humans).
In laminitis we are inevitably focussed on the poor horse’s feet but we can still improve its general well being by working intelligently on the whole of its body. Hence bodywork, nutrition and our own influence on the horse are factors which need assessment, honest appraisal and application. The best way to do this is working with others as a team to help discover the best way forward for the horse.

Spent an interesting afternoon up in Hebden Bridge yesterday treating three horses.  Two I’ve seen before who are doing really well and a new one.  One thing I am finding though in my equine craniosacral work, and something I’d like to share with you, is the wonderful sense of release the horse experiences when a strain pattern releases.

My osteopathic approach with horses at the moment often follows a general pattern of: 1. assessing them through feeling the torsion and tension patterns in the body  2. stretching or articulating or adjusting specific joints or muscles that ‘ask’ to be adjusted or rebalanced and 3. getting into the deeper pattern and releasing the fundamental torsion deep in the tissue.

The thing I am really enjoying though is getting a release through the body’s craniosacral mechanism.  If you have never heard of the craniosacral mechanism before the way I normally describe it to my human patients is as follows:-

All living tissue has movement.  It is dynamic and ‘breathing’ and flowing. When an osteopath or a craniosacral therapist puts their hands on a person or a horse they palpate the rhythm in the tissue.  The knack of this is to sit back and let the movement come to you rather than to focus down onto it.  Once you have got it it feels initially like an expansion and contraction type movement in the tissue.  As you sense this rhythm you can also begin to sense where there are strain patterns; where the tissue isn’t moving like it naturally wants to.  As a therapist you act as a catalyst to help the movement free itself.  As an osteopath this may be through a focus on joints, muscle, fascia or a more subtle fluid level.

So the reason I mention all this is simply to say that I have noticed that when you get a big release in horses it is often accompanied by the most amazing deep inbreath and outbreath of the horse and then a deep relaxation.  The great thing over the weekend was that as I worked craniosacrally and felt the lumbar/sacral joint in one of the horses release, and the withers in the another,  there was this instant deep breath reaction and release. They each did it.  It was a great feeling for both me and each of the horses.  Who says animals can’t tell you what is wrong and when it feels better! It never ceases to amaze me with horses just how much they tell us if we bother to REALLY take the time to listen and understand.

Talking of such things I’d recommend you to another excellent article by Mark Hanson who is so insightful about how horses think and how we should work with them.  His work is 21^st century natural horsemanship without the crass branding and self promotion.  See Hidden Horses

Let’s keep it real and keep learning from our four legged equine teachers.

Well, that was all a bit of an anticlimax! Today we took stewardship of Cassie (see blog ‘The Herd Grows Aug 16th) We were all quite gee’d up expecting all that horsey chasing around that normally goes on when a new horse is introduced. Cameras were at the ready – sport picture setting for continuous picture taking of all those action shots and … nothing. Cassie ambled in and Finn and Gracie could barely drag themselves away from their hay. Not much to comment on except to let a few pictures speak for themselves. She is a beautiful horse though and the underlying dynamic of the herd feels very different to yesterday. It will be interesting to see how they develop with each other. Here they are! :-

‘err who’s that?’

Cassie spots the hay

Some serious ‘getting to know you’

a little bit of token chasing up and down

everyone settles into the new arrangement in their own way

Well, I don’t know what that big horse in the sky was up too last week (see Blog August 9th) but it seems to have shaken up the bottle for our cosy horsey twosome and we are inheriting the horse from our neighbouring field to join our two. Our neighbour has a lot on with another horse of hers so has asked us if we will have Cassie on permanent loan. Cassie joined Gracie and Finn for a while in May when we moved them into another field together in order to have our regular land harrowed. They got on great. There is a real buzz in the air at the moment and she definitely knows she’ll be moving in with us! We are putting it off until Saturday so we can spend some time with her and trim her hooves before she joins us for some serious horse bonding with Finn and Gracie. We are all looking forward to this and to the energy of the herd that will develop among the three of them. Watch this space …

Finn checks out Cassie … Cassie checks out hay

Gracie wonders if it will mean less food for her …

Lost in thought

Cassie ready to go and wondering why the delay

When we went to see the horses this evening there was the most amazing rainshower and the sky filled with a huge shape (those with a very active imagination may even say it looked like the belly of a great horse …) and then a patch of vivid turquoise sky suddenly appeared as the sun shot through a cloud and a bright rainbow hit the path to our field

Ahhhh special moments that you don’t get sat in front of the telly. You just have to not mind getting soaked to the skin

While we are musing on ‘ahhhh’ type moments have a look at this fantastic video that’s in the public domain and doing the rounds at the moment of some lucky fellow’s foal playing with a ball.

I’m in philosophical mood today …
there is a lot to treating horses that goes way beyond body adjustment. Sure, it is fantastic to be able to treat a horse and see how much freer and more comfortable it looks after treatment but we miss out so much if all of our relationship with a horse is one way.

When I meet a horse I get a lot of information. Not just on how it moves physically but on how it seems constitutionally and how it feels emotionally.

In order to learn and take in anything you need to STOP and LISTEN and BE and allow information to come to you. Cranial osteopaths and craniosacral therapists know all about this. If we do this with a horse we learn a lot. But the thing I wanted to talk about here is the ‘information’ we get from a horse. One could also say the ‘inspiration’ we get from a horse or even the ‘intuition’ – the teaching we recognize within ourselves.

Not having time at the moment to write a whole paper on this I just want to flag up the difference between connecting with one horse, connecting with a few horses, connecting with a herd and ultimately connecting with that greater something which one might simply write as ‘HORSE’ using capitals.

Looked at in this context a horse by itself is a bit like a finger without a hand. Fingers are very interesting things and are also very useful things but their engagement with the world and their ability to express themselves by themselves is limited. A horse, being a herd animal acts in a very different way when it is by itself. A hand of fingers appears and acts very differently to a single finger. A herd of horses is very different to a single horse and when dealing with a herd and when treating horses within a herd the approach and energy is very different. One needs to address the herd as a whole as well as each individual horse.

Beyond the hand is the rest of the human being. Beyond the herd is the sense of the consciousness of the horse. That horse consciousness that we might term ‘HORSE’. An ‘oversoul’ – if you like. Ultimately the great driving force of the horse which is HORSE can teach Us a lot more than we can teach It.

From a healing perspective if we are going to get to the root of a horse’s problems we also need to treat it within the collective herd of which it is a part or, if it is kept on its own, realize that there is a connection with HORSE that never leaves it and is always worth acknowledging.

Had busy day working up in the North East covering for Emily again. It was a long one starting at 7am from home and returning at 11.30pm 9 horses and 2 human beings later! Didn’t expect to be quite so busy but, as often happens at eventing yards, one booked in horse turned into four that wanted treatment.

One horse owner I saw earlier on in the day, Hilary, has a fantastic way of getting her horses to exercise their backs with a mixture of clicker training and an old mattress. Lotti, one of her horses, was more than happy to go onto the old wobbly mattress and then to bend and stretch as asked. You could really see her lumbars and lumbar/sacral junction flexing beautifully without any effort at all. It seemed to me that it also increased the horse’s awareness of its back as its limbs shifted the weight to each corner – a kind of equine pilates! I’d say it’s a good excuse to change the mattress on your bed. In that way everyone wins: the horse can work on its core stability and your back will be much better off with a bit more support ☺

With thanks to Hilary for letting me take these pictures of Lotti, and for allowing me to display them here