Located near Faringdon in Oxfordshire and offering courses to horse owners. Horse trainer
08/08/2025
One of my lovely Equine Touch students Molly May is retiring her 14.2hh, 7 year old mare, pictured. Please let Molly know if you or someone you know is looking for a companion pony or a pony just to love and pamper. She is a sweet mare and will go out with anything. Also please let Molly know any retirement livery places that have space. Contact Molly May
05/08/2025
You can now book tickets - promises to be a fun day of learning and laughter!
TICKETS NOW OPEN ~ EQUINE TOUCH OPEN DAY & “MORE” 28 SEPT 2025 OXFORDSHIRE
Don’t miss our annual Equine Touch get-together, everyone welcome!
PROGRAMME OF EVENTS - Starting at 08.30 with Registration
AM programme
Welcome and Ivana's recorded presentation
Coffee break
Equine Touch demo
Ride with your Mind demo - Olivia Pollard
Lunch
PM Programme
Osteopathy and how it complements Equine Touch - Suz Crichton-Stuart
Debono Movement demo - Laura Shakeshaft
Coffee break
Bach Flower remedies - Sue Falber
CLOSES at 17.30
Event Venue:
Abingdon and Witney College,
Common Leys Farm Campus
Pitts Lane
Hailey
Oxfordshire
OX29 9UY
This day is open to everyone, limited tickets available. Closing date Friday 19 September
Looking forward to seeing you there! 🙌🏻
24/07/2025
Here is the link to sign up to what I am calling Happy Horse Day in Oxfordshire! Organised by lovely Equine Touch folks it is bound to be a fabulous day of learning and laughter!
📍Ride with your Mind demonstration from Olivia Pollard
📍Osteopathy and how it complements The Equine Touch with Suz Crichton-Stuart
📍Bach Flower remedies presentation by Sue Falber
OPEN TO ALL
When: Sunday 28th September 2025
Registration: 08:30am
Where: Abingdon and Witney College,
Common Leys Farm Campus
Pitts Lane
Hailey
Oxfordshire
OX29 9UU
Tickets & how to book coming soon!!
Get it in your diary…limited spaces open to everyone!
15/05/2025
So fabulous to see 12 fabulous members of the Equine Touch family for this year’s review day! 🎉🎉🎉
02/04/2025
Change of date for the Equine Touch review day - now on 15th May! Send me an email if you would like to attend 🎉
13/02/2025
Intermediate Equine Touch course here at Starlight Cottage, Oxfordshire in March - get in touch if you would like to come along (for the first time or as a repeater!) to learn some wonderful moves for neck, face, sacro-iliac, abdominals, ribs, shoulder… and the amazing Advanced Body Balance!
09/02/2025
On my last course, Sunny was so relaxed after his Equine Touch that he needed the ground to support his nose ❤️🥰❤️ So wonderful that student can have this sort of effect after just a few days of learning this fantastic technique!
25/01/2025
Huge congrats to my student Justine Robinson Equine Touch who has just qualified as a practitioner! Well done and have fun helping horses. Do give her page a follow if you want some inspiration!
So, after about 450 hours or learning, over 2000 miles travelled, 120 ET sessions with 40 case studies, 6 theory and anatomy papers, 3 ULEZ penalties (🤭) and a chunk of my heart and soul, I am thrilled and delighted to let you know that I am now a fully qualfied Equine Touch Practioner! Thanks to Babette Littlemore and Helen Choma, Equine Touch Practitioner & Instructor for teaching and guiding me to this point and to The Equine Touch International for the inspiration. And a huge thank you to ALL MY CASE STUDIES (I will be in touch with you all individually very soon), you and your wonderful horses have been amazing to work with and I hope we can continue that in the future. See you all soon 🤩🐴🐴🐴🥰
19/12/2024
If you are in Oxfordshire and would like a session with the amazing Suz Crichton-Stuart A Holistic Solution with Suz on 4th Feb as I am dragging her to this part of the world and it would be good to make a day full of horses for her. She is amazing at uncovering hidden causes of imbalance in equines and a session with her is always transformative!
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Equine Touch is a hands-on system of bodywork. It consists of an organised series of gentle moves over the soft tissue, and works in a holistic way which means that the whole horse is addressed. It may have the effect of releasing tense muscles, reduce the pain spiral, assist in detoxification and lymphatic drainage by increasing circulation. It can be also used in conjunction with the training or rehabilitation of your horse, helping with the improvement of muscle tone and encouraging recovery from injury and muscle atrophy. My experiences show that ET can facilitate the horse’s innate ability to heal.
Through my work as a registered Equine Touch practitioner, I aim to enable greater athletic performance in the horse, working across all equestrian disciplines, and also to facilitate a more harmonious partnership between horse and rider. Equine Touch is a system of bodywork which addresses muscle tension, encouraging recovery from injury and promoting realignment and balance through the body.
Working in a holistic way, I also consider environment, nutrition and riding styles. I can offer instruction in groundwork and ridden approaches which can help make your horse stronger in the correct muscle groups, to be able to carry himself (and his rider!) with greater fluidity through his back and topline, and to work both sides of his body correctly.
I mainly cover Oxfordshire, but also have clients in areas such as Northamptonshire, Surrey and Hampshire. Do get in contact if you would like to learn more about my work and to discuss your particular horse.
The history of Equine Touch
Equine Touch started in 1997 by Jock Ruddock (pictured in banner image) when he adapted his human bodywork for horses. He had trained in Bowen and was very focused on activating the innate healing systems of the body. News spread and Jock was invited veterinary seminars and conferences, the setting where he met his future wife, Ivana, who was at that time teaching at a veterinary University in the Czech Republic. Jock, who sadly passed away in 2011, was the intuitive bodyworker and Ivana with her knowledge translated his intuition into the educational Equine Touch structre. Today, it is known and recognised as a premier equine care discipline worldwide from Denmark to New Zealand.
Equine Touch may:
Assist competition horses as they prepare for elite athletic performance, or afterwards during the recovery phase.
Help as a preventative measure to reduce the likelihood of injury.
Improve suppleness, willingness and balance during training.
Relieve muscle tightness and lessen asymmetry.
Provide a re-balancing of muscles after veterinary treatment, farrier/trimmer, equine dentist or a period of box rest.
Act in a holistic way to reduce emotional stress and promote deep relaxation.
Overall, it works to balance the horse both physically and emotionally, generating a sense of well-being, muscle release and re-alignment.
I was featured in the March 2014 edition of Your Horse magazine, and the article explains how I became involved in Equine Touch and how it can help horses. Please click here to access the article.
Many instances of ‘bad behaviour’ or reduced ridden performance can be traced back to discomfort or pain. As riders and handlers, we need to be aware of what the horse is trying to tell us, in order to build a true partnership.
From an evoluntionary perspective, horses which showed weakness would be the first to become a predator’s lunch! As such, they do all they can not to show signs of injury or pain. By the time that a lameness is present, or signs of a sore back become evident, it is likely that compensatory pain is also part of the picture. Often I discover tightness through the poll, neck, whithers, sacro-illiac or hamstrings even when the problem seemed to be ‘simply’ pain in the mid-back.
Many horses adore Equine Touch due to its gentle, yet remarkably effective style. Equines of all ages and from all disciplines can benefit. I have worked on foals a few months old to assist correct growth, on equine athletes in their prime, and on older horses who deserve some pampering to keep aches and pains at bay! It promotes optimum function, and is powerful both when used to assist the healing process, as well as preventative when it helps stop small imbalances in the body from persisting and eventually becoming significant problems.
