Articles

In this third and final part, this blog looks at canter. Discover training tips and the benefits of using canter to improve your horse's musculoskeletal health. Canter is an asymmetrical three-beat gait with a moment of suspension. A good canter is rhythmical, balanced, energetic and powerful. Riding exercises in canter helps to improve strength, elasticity, balance, expression - and mobility of the musculoskeletal system. The benefits of canter Whatever discipline or activity you do with...

With good back posture being key to a good performance as well as a happy healthy horse, understanding more about how the horse's back works should be high on the list for every rider, trainer and therapist as this information can help us to keep the horse's back healthy, strong and mobile. Knowing the names of the bones of course help us to communicate with our vet and other team members that help to look after our horses. But in my mind it is having an understanding of the locations, shapes...

If you work in the equine world, you’ll know how rapidly things can change – thanks to new research, products and techniques the way horses are trained, treated and kept is constantly evolving. This is why it’s important to keep abreast of these techniques and skills by pursuing Continuing Professional Development (CPD) – for many professions it’s necessary to complete CPD on an annual basis. Continuing Professional Development describes the learning activities professionals engage in to...

Caring for tendons, or managing a horse with a tendon injury is probably every horse owner’s nightmare. A horse with a tendon injury used to mean months of box rest, which is stressful for all concerned, and with no real guarantee of a full return to fitness at the end of it. Thankfully, vets are now learning better tendon healing strategies from human sports medicine that don't include ice, bute and box rest. You may be surprised to learn that experts now recommend prevention, precision...

In the second part of this blog about the paces we are looking at the biomechanics and benefits of trot. We will also study how to assess your horse's trot and there are tips to improve this pace too. Take a look at our horse in movement video course to discover more about trot Anatomy in Action. Trot is a two-time symmetrical, rhythmical gait where the horse springs from one diagonal pair to the other with the hindlegs at opposite phases of the stride as any one time. There is a moment of...

This is a blog I have been wanting to write for a while, and yet for some reason, every time I sit in front of my laptop with the intention of doing it, I seem to get a mental block. Not because I don’t have anything to say on the subject, but quite the contrary, I don’t even know where to start. But I know that this is a story I want to tell, as I am hoping it might inspire others…. When I first qualified as an Equine Massage Practitioner I had completed my studies over the course of a...

With life being such fast paced it can be so easy to overlook things that may be staring us in the face. This is also true for our horses – as we rush round trying to juggle family, work and horses we can be guilty of not listening to them and this is when the early signs of a health issue may be overlooked and not dealt with until the symptoms are really shouting at us. The topic of biosecurity is now in the forefront of our minds and there is a lot we can do on a daily basis to ensure the...

In this blog article, Jay Mackay, equine osteopathy student and Horses Inside Out social media assistant, reviews the online seminar, Pain Related Poor Performance with Dr Sue Dyson . The seminar recording is available (with handouts and CPD certificate on completion) to purchase and view in the Horses Inside Out Academy. Knowing Sue Dyson’s seminar was going to be 6 hours long, I cleared my Saturday schedule and made a flask of coffee just in case I needed perking up a few hours in. But...

In the first part of this series of blogs about the paces we will look at the biomechanical effects and benefits of walk and also share tips on how to assess different qualities in the walk and how to improve them. You can learn so much more about this topic in the horse movement video course Anatomy in Action. Walk is a regular four-beat gait and compared to trot and canter, walk uses the most thoracolumbar rotation and lateral flexion - this is why it's great for mobilising the back. The...

Struggling with finishing off your shopping for your horsey friends? We're here to help you with some cracking gift ideas that provide education direct to your computer - and you don't need to rely on the post! There's a whole host of fascinating online courses and packages available from the Horses Inside Out Academy. Collections of Recorded Webinars - Series 1, 2, 3 or 4 These recorded webinars give the perfect opportunity to learn about how the horse works, anatomy and biomechanics. Each...