About FS Equine Touch

Who am I?

I have been working in the equine industry for almost 30 years and rode when I could as a child. I have worked on a livery, competition, hunting, RDA and riding school yard. As a competition groom and in a riding school where I also taught a range of people from children to adults, beginners to more experienced. I am a BHS Level 3 APC (Accredited Professional Coach) and Intermediate Stable Manager Level 4. I am also an Equine  apprenticeship tutor and IQA (Internal Quality Assurer) which means I keep up to date with current practices and I am still working within the industry, and I am a qualified Equine Touch Practitioner.

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How did I get into Equine Touch?

I have always been interested therapies such as physiotherapy, chiropractic and osteopathy and through seeing horses I worked with being treated, and then my own horse having physio and chiropractic treatments, I have learnt a lot about how different issues affect the horse and their performance.

I finally got my own horse when I was in my mid-twenties and he taught me a lot through various issues over the years, especially being a head shaker.

Gump was 30 years old when he passed away in 2022; he was a 16.2hh Belgium Warmblood, who show jumped with his previous owner then has mostly done dressage with me and some fun jump schooling over show jumps and cross country as well as fun rides.

When Gump was almost 20 he had quite a serious check ligament injury on his near fore from getting over excited in the field. Unfortunately, the prognosis was that he would probably only be able to do light walk hacking as he would not be sound enough to school anymore. After a long period of time off and then steady rehabilitation he was able to be semi-retired to light walk hacking only. 

Gradually as Gump got older, he became a little slower and shorter striding on his hacks and at the age of 28 years old I was quite concerned about his posture as he was resting his off hind a lot, was not happy to stand square and through the summer he was not rolling much and sometimes struggled to get up again when he did roll. He saw the vet and was diagnosed with possible hock arthritis in both hind legs and an undiagnosed off fore lameness, to add to the near fore ligament lameness. Gump could not be given Bute to help keep him comfortable because it caused him colic, he couldn’t have injections into his hocks because of his age and the risk of laminitis being induced so I needed to manage his lameness in another way.

I then heard about The Equine Touch and did some research about it so I could understand more about what it was and how it worked and how to become a practitioner, then booked onto the course. I went home after the course and was practicing on Gump; at this time, I was still doing very short walk hacks with him a couple of times a week. He began to become a little more interested again but was obviously still struggling on his hacks. By the end of August, I took the decision to completely retire him and was really quite worried that he might not make it through the winter, especially if he struggled to lie down and get up again in the stable over-night (he lives out 24/7 in the summer).

Within a few weeks of being retired and having weekly Equine Touch sessions Gump started to stand square, look bright and alert and was happily rolling. 

As I progressed with my Equine Touch training up the levels there was even more improvement to Gump’s posture and attitude. Gump became an Equine Touch addict; he loved the sessions and spent a long-time processing between moves. Equine Touch meant Gump was more comfortable for the last couple of years of his life, I wish I had found it sooner.

Whilst training towards becoming an Equine Touch Practitioner I have worked with many very different horses as part of my case studies, and it is great to see how they react to it and their performance often improves afterwards.