ZE Equine Therapies - Zara W

09/10/2025

👇🏼👇🏼

Lameness vs compensation or stiffness - pain vs avoidance of new patterns?

Firstly before reading on, I am not a vet. I do not have a vet’s education and you should in no way replace veterinary investigation and support or advice with any thing i say.

But - a lot of times when people find their horse has some hitch in their get along, something has happened to their horse’s gait or normal responses to riding have changed, they fear pain and back off.

While we can never definitively say a horse is not in pain, there is a difference between pain and stiffness, uncertainty, or fear of changing a pattern.

And- even if there WAS pain and it is now treated, those patterns can still exist - leaving with us with a pain response and (assuming) no pain.

Quite often I help people and their horses through these spots, revealing a magically sound horse who was limping, balking, sucking back or unsteady in their gait just a few minutes or days ago-
It’s not magic, it’s mobility and movement patterns.

If the horse is actually lame - say a bone fracture - it will worsen with movement.

If the horse is STIFF or reserved in movement patterns, it should improve pretty soon with GOOD movement, not just moving around.

Where things get tricky is people often say the horse takes 15-20 mins to warm up and move out of it, and often these are sloppy or incorrect warm up patterns. We need to address range of motion, joint flexion, alignment, breathing, and of course most importantly help the horse feel safe in being in these.

To tie it together with a personal example: I found my knees and joints to be very sore and painful suddenly. I started a mobility training program and really disliked the first week of the work - but I was reminded if I feel stiff that is not the same as pain. I worked through it preserving correct range of motion over depth of squat or intensity and so on - two weeks later I already feel “sound” again.

Joints need to work through their correct range of motion, and when a horse hurts, they often protect themselves, often to their own detriment.

Don’t panic. Ride in rhythm - see what you get on the other end and re evaluate

13/05/2025

Well worth the read! Not enough horse owners understand this

Galloping, Bucking, Not Broken: The Greatest Lie Horses Ever Told 🐎💥

You step into the paddock, coffee in hand, expecting a peaceful morning and a whiff of horse breath that says “all is well.” ☕✨

Instead, your horse is on the wrong side of the fence, looking smug and oddly unscathed—or worse, still tangled in wire. You cut them free, patch up a scratch or two (or marvel at the miraculous absence of any), and thank the gods of lucky escapes.

Crisis averted.

Or is it? 😬

Here’s the problem: the real damage doesn’t always bleed.

Over the years, I’ve met a string of horses who’ve all survived this advanced-level self-sabotage. They’ve jumped a gate (well… tried), crashed through a fence, slipped on a slope, flipped, twisted, crushed or compressed themselves in ways that would make a chiropractor cry and a vet sigh while reaching for the X-ray machine (which, by the way, won’t show the damage either). 🏅💀

The horse recovers. No visible limp. They run. They buck. They play.

You think:
“They’re fine! Look at them go!”
But they’re not fine. Not even a little bit.

Enter: The Invisible Injury 🕵️‍♀️

What you can’t see—and what many professionals miss—is the slow-burn catastrophe hidden deep in the horse's body.

Ribcage. Pelvis. Sternum. Neck. Stifle.
The kind of stuff that doesn’t light up on X-rays or respond to your carrot-stick-wiggly-wand of trust. 🥕🌀

It’s the kind of discomfort that turns “walk, trot, canter” into “grimace, flinch, explode.”

And here’s the kicker: the horse doesn’t limp. It compensates.

Because horses, unlike people, don’t throw dramatic tantrums and demand cortisone shots. They quietly adjust. They twist, tighten, avoid, or overuse other parts of their body to keep going.

They are the masters of stoicism.....until you put a halter on.
You ask for a transition, a bend, a float trip, or—God forbid—a trot circle. And suddenly—

You get emotion.
You get resistance.
You get confusion, agitation, blow-ups, shut-downs—
Every spicy ingredient in a full-blown training meltdown stew. 🍲🔥
The Spiral Begins 🌀

The owner thinks: “I’m doing something wrong.”
The trainer thinks: “We need more groundwork.”
The horse thinks: “Kill me.” ☠️
Eventually, the owner moves on—new trainer, new method, new online course promising the horse will “choose joy and connection.”

But the problems persist.
Cue spiralling shame, rejection of all prior knowledge, and a desperate descent into rabbit holes of essential oils, a connection-based enlightenment facilitator, and equine shadow work. 🧘‍♀️🌿🔮

When in fact, what they really needed was a bloody good vet and bodyworker, and someone to say:

“Hey, maybe your horse’s inability to pick up the left lead can’t be fixed with trust exercises and lavender oil.”

The Warning Signs We Miss 🚩

Here are the red flags waving harder than a liberty trainer at sunset:

The horse becomes emotional, reactive, or weirdly robotic.
What should be simple feels charged, unpredictable, and unnervingly fragile.
Training progress flatlines, no matter how much effort you throw at it.
The horse starts avoiding halters, floats, mounting blocks—or life in general.
The problem isn’t always psychological.

Sometimes, it’s a bloody rib.
Or a pelvis rotated like a cheap IKEA table leg. 🪑

But we don’t look there—because the horse looks fine.
It bucks in the paddock! It gallops!
It must be okay!

Nope. That’s not health.
That’s compensation.
It’s adaptation with the odd short step.

Or worse—when they can’t limp because everything’s uncomfortable.
That’s when it gets really insidious.

What Happens Next is Predictable… and Sad 😢

These horses often get labelled as:

Difficult
Shut down
Disrespectful
“Needing more wet saddle blankets”
Or… “Needing a softer approach”
Or… “Not aligned with your energy” 🙃
No one considers the simple truth:

It hurts to do what we’re asking.
Not in a “don’t feel like it” way.
In a “my sternum’s fused to my shoulder blade and I can’t rotate left without seeing stars” way. 🌟

They suffer in silence while we rotate through training ideologies like a midlife crisis through motorcycles—all because we never asked the most obvious question:

“Has this horse ever had an accident?”

Because if they have—if they’ve failed to clear a gate, slipped, fallen, crushed, or tangled in wire—it may have changed everything. Not just the body, but the brain.

Pain messes with movement.
It makes easy things hard.
It turns willing horses into wary ones.
And it ruins good humans who start to believe they’re not good enough.

What You Can Do Instead of Losing Your Mind 🧠➡️🧘‍♂️

Take my good friend Tami Elkayam’s advice:
If something happens, write it down in a diary. ✍️

Even if they seem fine.

Then, if things start getting weird months or years later, don’t reach for your third liberty course or $800 worth of chamomile pellets. 💸🌼

Consider that maybe—just maybe—your horse isn’t emotionally broken, disrespectful, or traumatised by a training method.

Maybe those fractured ribs are hurting when you do up the girth.

Before You Burn It All Down… 🔥🚫

Before you give up, throw out your halters, block your last five coaches on Instagram, or trade your saddle for an oracle deck… pause.

Reflect.

Is it possible your horse is trying—but simply can’t?
Could it be that what they’re resisting isn’t you—but a physical reality no amount of groundwork or paddock bonding can fix?
Is it time to stop blaming yourself, your horse, and everyone you’ve ever learned from—and instead… dig deeper?
Because sometimes, the source of your training failures, your emotional spirals, and your eroded confidence…
..was a bloody gate.
That your horse didn’t clear.
That day. 🐴💔

If this switched on a lightbulb 💡, hit share. Pass it on.

Disclaimer: This is satire. Humour helps people read long posts they’d usually scroll past—so they don’t miss something that might actually help them or their horse.

Feel like tone-policing? Fabulous. Write your own post. That’s where your opinion belongs.

📸 IMAGE: My Aureo—the horse who taught me this lesson...even the bit about lavender oil 😆

24/04/2025

Bookings open Thursday-Sundays
I’ll be travelling down south to the Huon valley area soon so can fit in horses anywhere from Cambridge to Dover. Pm me to book 🐴

16/04/2025

A bit about me!
I’m Zara and I am a certified Equine Sports Massage Therapist and McLoughlin Scar Tissue Release practitioner.
I will soon start studying more modalities in order to offer more to Tasmanian horses.
I am a massive dog lover, and I have been riding horses since I was 10 years old, but fell in love with them long before that.
I am passionate about equine welfare, nutrition, training and body work.
I have two beautiful horses, my oldest has been with me since my teenage years and we have done it all together - show jumping, eventing, dressage, trail riding and showing!

I love learning about the equine body and look forward to many years of study to further my knowledge and continue to help horses feel their best.

01/04/2025

I have bookings available for the coming month of April to get your ponies feeling good after a busy season 🐴

Shoot me a message for availability

20/03/2025

🙌🏼

07/01/2025

I hope everyone had a lovely Xmas and New Year break, with lots of time spent with their four legged friends!

My books are now open again for bookings after having to take 14 months off to heal from injuries.
Limited availability in January, but come February my available days are Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and some weekends. Offering Equine Sports Massage and McLoughlin Scar Tissue Release (MSTR).

Message me for available dates 🐴

23/12/2024

A great bit of information regarding ECVM, a must read!

There has been so much going on around the topic of ECVM, this congenital malformation is one we are diagnosing, managing and studying at Denali Equine in partnership with Rexos Inc, under the guidance of the legendary Dr. Sharon May-Davis. We wanted to give you the top ten points on ECVM facts. (Sorry this is long- Well worth the full read!)

1. ECVM is a congenital condition, meaning they are born with it. We suspect it is a recessive genetic disorder because two unaffected adults can produce offspring with it. There are several groups racing to find the genetics behind this condition. More information on the horizon.

2. ECVM is not a fatal diagnosis. However, it can be. It depends on the severity of the malformation and how well the horse can functionally compensate.

3. Radiographs of the lower neck are necessary to diagnose the condition. These radiographs must be clear lateral and obliques of C6, C7 and ideally T1. These can be done in the field for most horses. However larger generators do get better images.

4. Variability: Horses can be either a bilateral or unilateral malformation of C6, which in 52% of C6 cases can transpose either bilaterally or unilaterally. To C7; T1 and the first ribs are variably affected.

5. Studies show horses with transposition of the ventral lamina to C7 are more likely to suffer from clinical neck pain than horses with normal anatomy. In our experience horses with rib malformations have more severe clinical signs than those with normal ribs (no clear studies yet).

6. The bones absolutely do not tell the whole story. However, bones do not lie. They often indicate the level of soft tissue malformations present. The more severe the boney changes- the more severe the soft tissue is altered around them.

7. Clinical picture: all horses are not lame, but they do all have subtle clinical signs. Most often the clinical signs are not limb related lameness (but can be). These horses can show signs of the pain ethogram, rearing, sporadic behavior, abnormal front limb flight patterns (especially with equipment), girthiness, resistance to go forward, doesn’t like physical touch (brushing, blanketing ex). The signs are so variable for every horse!

8. The common things heard from owners/trainers:
* The horse was always bad from the start (this is concerning for the more severe cases)
* The horse was fine until it wasn’t. We find this is from something changed in the program. i.e., was imported, switched barns, changed jobs.
* They don’t understand why the horse is failing quicker than usual as it gets older. As the horse ages the clinical signs become more apparent. The body can only manage for so long. Think of it this way- the foundation was built wrong from the beginning. Therefore, it takes time for the cracks in your walls or floors to show, it then takes those cracks a while before they become a structural problem in your house.
* A minor incident happened and now they’re not ok. Suspect an injury can cause the horse to spiral out of stabilization or have the ability to compensate. An example could be getting cast or trailering event then the horse was never the same. Example, you do not know your house wasn’t built well until the storm blows it over.

9. These horses have significant soft tissue pathology on necropsies. Therefore, no matter what the data is showing us: If the horse has ECVM, is clinical, and other differentials have been ruled out these horses are clinically affected by the ECVM.

10. On necropsies we have found:
* Missing, malformed and fractured ribs
* Abnormal nerve patterns, these nerves can be totally entrapped and compressed by abnormal muscle patterns. The dorsal scalene can trap the large nerves of the brachial plexus within its abnormal paths. The phrenic nerve can get pulled inappropriately and leave impressions within the ventral scalene.
* Abnormal muscles: dorsal scalene, ventral scalene, iliocostalis, longus coli, re**us abdominal, intercostal muscles, serratus ventails cervicis. All these muscles have critical roles in stability, proprioception, and biomechanics.
* Abnormal vascular patterns
* Trachea abnormalities
* Fascial changes

ECVM is currently a controversial and sensitive topic so we thought we would share a few known quick facts to help you understand this issue better. Please go to our website (www.DenaliEquine.com) to find more information and links to the current studies on this disease. We are researching and studying these horses! We are working on several angles of research right now throughout Non-Profit Rexos Inc. If you would like more information on how you can help, please reach out!

DeClue Equine saddlefitting.us

17/11/2024

Hello! You might have wondered why it’s been so quiet on this page, and that is because I’ve had to take a bit over a year off massage to heal from two injuries and rebuild my strength.

However, things are turning a corner and I am opening my books again for January onwards, to new and existing clients!

Spaces will be quite limited as I slowly ease back into treating horses again.

Shoot me a message to enquire about booking your horse or pony in 🐴

12/11/2024

Have you heard about ECVM? If not, I strongly recommend having a look through the amazing Becks Nairn’s page to find out more about it. She has a wealth of informative posts on her page from doing many dissections. As a horse owner it is very important we start educating ourselves on these things!