29/07/2026
Regular (weekly 🫣) bodywork is not a magic fix – it’s about monitoring their muscles, identifying areas of tension, helping their soft tissues recover after exercise, and keeping them as comfortable and mobile as possible alongside appropriate training, management and care.
Horses are naturally on the forehand (which makes sense when they should spend at least 13 hours a day grazing with their heads down), and I find that the neck, shoulders and thoracic sling often carry a lot of tension in many horses.
Poppy is a mare who tends to shorten her neck, curl behind the contact, become heavy in the hand, and develop short, choppy strides. It’s easy to imagine how sore and tight she could become with poor training or management.
To get the most of a training and above all, for a horse that feels good in her body and is happy to try, she gets massaged very regularly as part of her overall management. The horse before the rest ❤️