the-red-mare-project

E18: ECVM, a tale of two mares: Maliki and Rowan’s stories

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 04:54:59 GMT

About This Episode

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

— Welcome: Introducing Jessica Rein & Her Two ECVM Mares

Welcome back to another episode.

We hope you eat your brain food this morning because today's topic is a big one.

Today's guest is an osteopath in training with a well-established bodywork business, and she's here to tell us the story of her two ECVM mares.

If ECVM is a new term for you, don't worry because we go over it in great detail.

Jess walks us through the diagnostics and very meticulous management of her girls with equine complex vertebral malformation.

Welcome Jess, Maliki and Rowan.

Welcome to The Red Mare Project.

Finally, we're back and we do have a couple of things that we want to talk about before we get started.

First is thank you so much for your patience.

We've had to send our beloved podcast system, our RODECAST, our original system that we bought when we first started all of this, had to go to the RODECAST hospital and she died on the table.

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Just give us a minute.

We didn't want to miss this because we've had this person scheduled and we're really excited about it.

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Hopefully, this is listenable.

Yes, for sure.

Then we've got some housekeeping stuff that we need to go over.

Nothing new too much, but we do have some updates to our website, which is really cool.

Yes.

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Thank you, Steve.

Hi, Steve.

He took all of our episodes and transcribed them.

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We never could have done that without you.

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If you want to buy us a cup of coffee, the roadcast isn't cheap and we want to keep putting out good content.

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If you can like, comment, subscribe, share things.

We do plan on putting up a post in the near future, or it may have already come out yet, we're time travel here.

On a Q&A episode, we really want to get some interaction on some posts and see if we could put together a fun episode of just question and answer, and that could be like, hey, Taylor, why do your shoulders look so good?

Or hey, Kahlan, what's your favorite brand of vitamin E?

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Then all of that is on the website, very easy to navigate, the redmareproject.com.

The last order of business is just inviting people to send us your stories.

But if you are interested in sending us a story, we do request that you have a firm veterinary assigned diagnosis.

Yes.

If you just want to email us cool pictures of your horse, and just if you want to do a friendship email, that's awesome.

We would love to hear your story even if it's not confirmed yet.

But if you want to be featured, we do need that because educated ears are listening, and we want to make sure that we're getting out the best, most scientific content possible.

Absolutely.

If your vet said it's X, Y, and Z, that works for us.

Cool.

All right.

Awesome.

You're ready to jump in to story time.

Well, the preamble.

Yes.

Do not glaze over, guys.

We're going to do a pretty nerdy overview of this disease process, because once we get our guest on, we want to be able to just let her highlight her story.

But you do need a little bit of background because this is so complex, literally in the name of the diagnosis.

Take it away, Taylor.

Okay.

Today, we're going to be talking about or hearing stories of Equine Complex Fertile Malformation.

This is a genetic skeletal disorder, and it usually affects the low neck of the horse.

Typically, the cervical vertebrae that are impacted are going to be C6 and C7.

Although T1 and T2, which is just a fancy way of saying the first and the second rib, those guys can also be included.

— ECVM Anatomy Deep Dive: C6 to T2 Malformations Explained

It's that C6 to T1, there's going to be some type of malformation, and it can cause a whole array of issues.

But there's a couple of different chants about it, about whether it's new, cynical or not, blah, blah, blah.

But we will get to that.

We're going to explain first what it is.

Kahlan, do you want to talk about prevalence rates and how common this is in the world?

Yes.

As in a lot of things, there is a higher prevalence in certain breeds of horses.

For thoroughbreds, we're seeing 38% or higher prevalence in thoroughbreds.

Warm-bloods, 30-35%, which means one in three have a partial or complete malformation of the C6 ventral lamina.

In quarter horses, it's a little bit lower, still very significant at 23-25%.

Stock horse breeds frequently exhibit transposition of the ventral lamina from C6 to C7.

Arabians, not super notable at 10% or lower, which is awesome, and we'll get into all that goopy stuff I just said there in just a second.

It's just to keep in mind, give you a picture of the horse that we're talking about.

The research that we do have, Taylor said earlier, he will get, again, even thicker into it, but some professionals say like, oh, it's just decoration on the x-ray, and then some say, oh no, this is a big deal.

This will have clinical presentation and is always a problem.

But, you know, it's true, vets are human.

Well, we'll get into the breathing part.

Yeah, for sure.

Say that again.

I was saying like, vets are human, they're all going to have different, especially when stuff is newly researched.

No one can say for sure.

And so I think vets tend to err on the side of ambiguity.

Sure.

Yeah.

But that also kind of speaks to like what you were just saying about, sometimes they can just be decorations on the radiographs.

But this is where it's really tricky, is that not all bony changes are going to cause a presentation.

So there's a lot of works where they actually will have ECVM that's radiographically diagnosed, but it doesn't impact their performance or quality of life.

And before we get into the two different camps on it, because that's like a whole can of worms kind of thing.

So let's talk a little bit about what it actually looks like.

So we said that there is, it's typically C6 all the way to T2, but that's going to be, if there is going to be an affirmation, that's where it's going to be.

But it seems that C6 is really the hallmark affected structure.

So the interesting thing about C6 is that it does in fact support the low neck, and it houses a lot of major blood vessels, and it provides attachment points for a lot of the core neck muscles, like the longest coli.

So it really is a significant stabilizing structure.

And I have a couple theories about what happens with blood flow impingement and things like that, but we can get to that a little bit.

But it seems that C6 really is, it's going to be affected, that's where it's going to be.

Yeah.

And the other thing that's interesting is that sometimes you can have a bilateral impact, looks like.

So we said that there is, it's typically C6 all the way to T2.

That's going to be, if there is going to be an affirmation, that's where it's going to be.

But it seems that C6 is really the hallmark affected structure.

So the interesting thing about C6 is that it does in fact support the low neck, and it houses a lot of major blood vessels and it provides attachment points for a lot of the core neck muscles, like the longest colag.

So it really is a significant stabilizing structure.

And I have a couple theories about what happens with blood flow impingement and things like that, but we can get to that a little bit.

But it seems that C6 really is, it's going to be affected, that's where it's going to be.

Yeah.

And the other thing that's interesting is that sometimes you can have a bilateral impact.

Those guys seem to fare a little bit better it seems, because there's a balance in the, yeah, well, they're wrong, but they're not being tweaked to one side or another, which is like, it almost, horses are, everything's connected, everything needs to be balanced, so like it almost makes sense if they have like one, especially with, like if there's ribs involved, I think of like, you know, when you get a knot in your scapula, and you just feel like there's an ice pick in your upper back, I feel like it's probably like that versus pain in that entire region, or lack of coordination, like lack of muscle, muscling or nerve pain or whatever, however it presents, it's like, it does make sense.

Yeah.

So the, it's more so, well, not more so, but it seems that the ones that have a unilateral impacts, those are the ones that are going to have a little bit more of, they're just affected a little bit more it seems.

But the big thing that we're noticing is that there's going to be transposition of the lamina, which means that there's a missing bony piece from C6, and oftentimes that is found incorrectly fused to C7 or T1.

So the short way of saying that is that there's a piece of C6 that's either missing or it's connected to the way long place.

And the problem is if there is a transposition, that means that a lot of the attachment points and a lot of the soft tissue and nerves and things like that that go through a certain area, they might not be where they're supposed to be, which changes.

— Transposition, Soft Tissue & Why Placement Matters So Much

It's a significant wrinkle of that on the stabilization of the spine, and it can just cause a huge, huge array of issues.

Well, it's like, it's kind of like there's a road closure, right?

So like, this is in the way now, or this can't attach here, so we've got to reroute it.

Well, now there's a traffic jam lower down in the neck where there's already the horses are supposed to be put together a certain way, like this bone attaches to this bone, the muscle attaches here.

If there's a traffic jam there, there's going to be issues, whether that's blood flow impingement, nerve compression, spinal cord compression, there's so many things that can come of that because this road, one vertebra up is closed.

That's a really good way to praise that.

Thanks.

That's excellent.

That makes fantastic sense, especially when they're saying about the RID abnormalities.

The RID abnormalities seem to really impact the thoracic inlet, and where a lot of the nerves interface within that region.

That's a good way to explain that.

Going back to what you're saying about the issues with C6 and how there can be a traffic jam.

One thing that I think is very interesting, and there's no science to back this up, but there is a lot of vascular protection that takes place in C6.

If you look at some of the stories of horses with ECBM, it seems as though later in life, once things become really quite clinical, they'll almost start to have a degree of cognitive decline.

I've had some people say that their horses almost seem demented to a degree, which I don't think that's the case for Justice Girls.

They seem to actually have a really nice story.

We'll leave that.

But it was Audrey DeClew and Kate Workman.

He recently did a podcast on ECBM, and they were speaking about how if there are blood flow impingements, I was even thinking about this beforehand.

If there's blood flow impingements to the brain, that's a stroke.

Or at least like a TIA, like a mini stroke.

Yeah.

The more I've been thinking about it, the more I'm like, are we, is it, how far down the line is it for that to be looked into further?

Because a lot of the times, like if a horse is at that degree, they're pretty progressed in the disease, like they're pretty, they're done, right?

Like you're not going to, that's not a horse that's thriving anymore.

That's a horse that's at its end of quality of life.

And in, during the dissections, that's not something like, you're not, the boat has, the ship has sailed at that point.

Yeah.

So it's like, I wonder, and how, you know, for diagnostics, that's diagnostics at a hospital to see if that act, there's any evidence of that in the brain.

So how many of these horses are even viable to get on a trailer and go, and people are, you know, spending money to do all these brain scans, to see if there's any damage.

And the horse is going to go down anyway.

So right now, it's just a theory, but it makes sense.

I mean, that's exactly what a doctor would be scared of in people if this was a situation.

Yeah, I would think so.

And it seems like it is, like you said, towards the end as things progress, because there is a degree, like a lot of times these guys, I don't want to say they're okay because it really depends on the severity of the malformation.

But a lot of times it's not until there may be like five or six, depending on the breed and how quickly the skeleton closes.

But it's not uncommon for them to be okay.

And then all of a sudden they're not.

And I'm curious if it's that where they are in development, if that changes the skeleton enough to walk them in a place where the malformation is extremely clinical, and then that clinical reasons why the malformation just escalates, and then eventually there's an end of life care.

Yeah.

Well, like you said, there could be...

That's two different horses.

As the arthritis progresses, as growth plates close, as horses get more and more impinged blood flow, and like they're going to get muscling differently.

It's not a progressive disease in the traditional way that you think about it, but a horse can get significantly worse.

Which, did you want to talk more about the anatomy portion?

Because that's a good way to lead into the symptoms.

Yeah, yeah.

So just the muscle attachment.

So there's going to be a lot of the muscle attachments are just going to go to places where they're not supposed to be.

And because of that, there could be a destabilization of the neck and a change in the way that the action flex, as well as posture too.

So a lot of times we might see horses doing a really unique stance.

And I'm probably jumping ahead on this, but that's fine.

If you have a horse that is in a relief seeking posture, you might actually see them crossing their front legs, perhaps.

I've seen that like a time or two.

And I think by doing that, they're trying to just create a little bit of slack within the pecs.

Yeah, there's a lot of strain there.

And like, we had talked about it in conversation.

You know, every time we have a topic and we do any research on it, you think, oh my God, did that horse that I saw have this?

Or did that horse that I rescued, was this the missing link that we didn't know about?

And I was before about the thoroughbred that we had that I'm, I would be so confident had this, because as his arthritis progressed, his weird posture changed, like he did a lot, he was very intelligent, and he would stand in the cross ties.

— Recognizing ECVM in Thoroughbreds: Posture & Arthritis Clues

He would almost like get himself really square, and then cross over in the front, and he would have one leg, like fully braced and on the ground, and then the other one, like, almost like when a dog lays down and does fancy paws And it was almost like he was putting pressure on the leg that was fully standing, like weight-bearing.

It was very weird.

They come up with some really interesting ways to explore their bodies.

Yeah, they're so smart.

And like he had a really weird, like he was very eunect, and he had a weird overdevelopment here, and his pecs were really uneven, no matter what we did.

He struggled with any kind of stretches, like he couldn't, carrot stretches were, I wouldn't let people do carrot stretches with him, because he couldn't do it.

Like it physically was hard for him, and people will think like, oh, he's just stiff.

And the more I think about it, the more I think that was probably the case, is that he had ECBM, he had a thoroughbred of bloodlines that, whatever.

But I think a lot of that too can also speak to the nerve transmissions and how, we have to remember that the spinal cord blends through the central canal of C6, and how there can definitely be some miscommunications in there.

And there's also a candidacy for compression.

So that kind of speaks to the whole world of wobblers.

No, that was, what episode was Teddy's?

That was recently.

That was a few back.

That was three, four ago?

Three-quarter, yeah.

But check out, if you want to hear more about wobbler, which is stenosis or spinal cord compression, check out Teddy's Legacy episode.

We go into really good detail about that.

But I think something to keep in mind is that wobblers can exist without ECVN, and ECVN can exist without wobblers, but they can coexist.

Yeah, they tend to be.

But also that's again, breed and- Yeah, there's a lot that goes into it.

And a lot of it can also be like where they are in development as well.

So there's a million different variations on what can actually happen between C6 and T2.

There's a bunch of different variations, but C6 tends to be the vertebrae that is most impacted.

When it comes to the ribs, T1 and T2 can be weird.

They can sometimes bifurcate where they split like a chicken, like a wishbone.

One can be a floating rib.

They can be wildly soft and under the belly.

Kahlan, do you want to talk about the symptoms and how we broke them down into three separate worlds?

Yeah, absolutely.

So symptoms typically fall within three distinct categories, and it is kind of easier to look at it that way.

So I'm just going to run through and give some examples.

So for neurological signs, that'll include anything that affects the spinal cord or nervous system is going to be your neurological signs.

So if the bony malformation or any secondary arthritic swelling, so like as they get older and arthritis develops because of the malformation, if that's encroaching on the spinal canal or the nerve roots exiting the vertebra, a horse can display neurological symptoms.

So anything from mild to moderate ataxia or end coordination, clumsiness, snuggling over, unexplained tripping, all of those go from neurological signs to these are proprioceptive deficits that you could see in real time.

So something that horses are really, really good at, which I'm sure we all have experience with and it's really scary, if they trip, even just the tiniest trip, they're really, really good at re-stabilizing themselves.

These horses are not.

They may struggle to catch themselves if they trip and they're more likely to trip.

They may have a hard time balancing on uneven terrain, really uncoordinated when they are asked to transition or back up, which the backing up, I'm wondering if it's, if they're getting that like that compressive nerve pain, that shooting pain, and that's why the back, because horses tend to kind of go behind the vertical and, and lean back on their chest.

So I'm wondering if that's why or if it's the lack of confidence because of the in coordination.

I don't know.

That's an interesting thought.

Like why back up specifically, and some will just flip right over, but that's another, that's another disorder.

Yeah.

I can imagine that that is because of the nerve pain versus in coordination, whether that's because, because these horses also, it's, it kind of, as with everything, it kind of all goes together.

So if you're having an end of nerve compression or like inflammation in nerve bundles, you can have that pins and needles feeling.

So like the way I'm sitting right now, I've got my leg crossed and I've got an ankle under my thigh.

When I stand up, it's going to feel like my leg is covered in ants and I've got TV static in my skin.

TV static.

Sure.

I picture under my skin just looks like TV static until the blood knows.

Right?

And if horses are consistently living with that, it may be frustrating to do things like backing up where they don't feel confident.

Obviously, something else that we haven't, I haven't heard of, Taylor noted it somewhere else, but I do want to bring it up, is like biting at their heel bulbs.

So it would be, imagine, I would imagine it'd be really hard to ask a horse like, hey, are you having pins and needle feeling in your chest and down your legs?

— The Horse Can't Tell You: Pins & Needles, Phantom Pain

You know, how do you know?

But I would imagine it's with that crossover, that leg crossover like we were talking about earlier, and things like biting at their heels because it's frustrating.

Like if you do sit weird, you sit crisscross applesauce and your leg goes to sleep.

It's uncomfortable and it gives you a lack of confidence in your next step.

So that's where you're going to see things like the performance issues.

Like there's a whole bunch of stuff that goes into it.

Those are just the neurological symptoms.

Like we also have biomechanical and performance issues that are, in my head, easier to see as the owner or the rider.

Well, and the trainer too, being able to pick out like, is this a training thing, a weakness thing, or is it more insidious going on?

Yeah, these horses tend to be not just one-sided, but like totally not able to function to one side.

Like they may have not just a hard time with a lead, they may be beautiful in one direction, and then completely locked, stiff, blocked, or it in some cases, like it just depends on the horse and the personality and the severity, but some horses can become like really angry, like really agitated and just completely shut down on themselves, which is another place that if we time travel 10 minutes backwards, that comes up with like the bilateral changes, might be even easier to manage there.

Because if you've got a horse that goes beautifully to one side and is a complete monster that's in pain and trying to kill you to the other side, that's a big red flag.

There's a difference between, oh, my baby doesn't know how to pick up a left lead versus, it's trying to kill me when I ask it to go left.

But I mean, that makes sense.

One thing to add to that too is that my trainer always says and I really appreciate this, we actually have like four different gates.

We have the wall, the trot, the left lead and the right lead.

Because there's going to be a hand in it, right?

So there is going to be a handedness that's in there.

But what we're getting at is that there's going to be, if the canner is impacted, it will be so profound to one side, it's undeniably going to be a weak thing.

But again, this is where the horsemanship and the training really comes in, because every horse is going to have a better right leader.

Our good side is our left side.

Cannering to the right, there's definitely a weakness, and there's a bit of like, there's just a difference in there.

But we realize that it's a rider thing, and it's also a weakness thing, but it's getting better.

Really being able to have a trainer tease out, okay, is there something more nefarious going on?

Another thing too would be the gooseneck thing, which is really interesting.

A lot of these horses will go around as what we call goosenecked, where yes, they will have an erect posture and they'll hold their head up, it's almost as if the thoracic sling is physically unable to lift and engage.

But again, that's going to take a very, you need to decide between is this a weakness or is this an actual biology that we're teething apart?

One other thing I want to try and travel back to the heel biting thing, another thing that comes to mind as well, some of these horses will also self-medilate and they will also bite their chests.

If there's something going on in the low neck, people will try and bite their chests, I've seen.

I wonder if that's another way to tell, like to distinguish if it's a nerve pain, like the pins and needles pain, because I would imagine that communication, like that would be very frustrating.

Yeah, I don't know, but I'd imagine it would be a similar, like if they're biting, I would imagine it would be more of a nerve pain thing.

Like the heels and then the chest fighting.

So do we want to get into the behavioral changes?

Kahlan, do you want to talk about that?

Sure.

Yeah.

So again, it's hard because there's so many nuances to it, but resistance to contact is a big one.

I would think it's obvious.

It could be as far as like violent shaking of the head when a side rein or geometric turn is applied, behind the bit significantly behind the vertical, head tossing or conversely leaning heavily on the writer's hands.

I wonder if that must feel scary because that must go in with the tripping, like the proprioceptive thing where they can't pick themselves back up.

So they're like, hold me, catch me.

I can't do it myself.

They also tend to be really spooky or panicky, like out of character reactions where if a horse is typically a super chill horse, they may turn their head one direction or try to do a movement and absolutely lose their shit because it triggers that nerve pain.

So where we've had horses with like, MFM horses tend to have those blind, panic, runaway spooks, these tend to be, it seems like maybe they're shorter lived, they're more acute spooks.

Maybe.

I'd be curious if Jess has anything to comment about on with that because also Line is going to have that really intense hypervigilance as well.

That's true.

Yeah.

They also tend to, because of postural issues and difficulty finding like their comfort space, you have to feed them differently.

Not, you don't have to, but you may need to listen and ask them how they like to be fed.

— Feeding Posture: When Ground Feeding Isn't the Right Answer

We always think of feeding a horse on the ground is the best.

But if a horse has a hard time keeping their head down for that amount of time, if they're resistant to getting enough food in their bodies because it hurts or they are not coordinated to be able to do that, then you have to adjust, maybe spine neutral is better to feed them or just slightly off the ground.

They may have those difficulties raising those of posture or they may do this thing to try to accommodate where they, if you've ever seen a giraffe bend down to drink water, where they go all the way out to the side, they splay their legs way, way out.

They may try to do that, which I imagine for an ECBM horse would feel crazy to have that opening in their chest and then try to get back to neutral.

So that needs to be noticed because they could visibly struggle and choose not to eat enough forage, which obviously is going to lead to a whole bunch of other stuff.

Yeah.

So one thing going into the postural part is what we found is that anytime that there's a ribbed involved, there's going to be a straddle twist, which I think is very interesting.

I don't know if that's going to speak to them having a laterality or high-low syndrome within there.

Typically, if there is a unilateral malformation, it is going to reflect in their feet.

I think it's very interesting that anytime there's a ribbed involved, there is significant straddle twists, because that's going to completely change the trajectory of how they hold their bodies and how they operate with gravity.

So I wonder if that's less likely in the bilateral cases.

I don't know.

You mean both ribs being in there?

That's a question for Sharon and Pamela Eckelbarger.

Yeah, right.

Because the external bits, I'm imagining they're trying to find relief, right?

They're trying to be able to function around either that nemo rib or something that's connected, weird, that's causing pain, whatever.

But if it's on both sides, how do they operate?

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know if I've seen.

I feel like anytime I've heard there being a floating rib or an affected rib, it's only one of them.

But I mean, there's a million different variations.

Yeah.

It's a combo situation.

So it's really hard to say.

Well, that's tough.

Okay.

So diagnostically, how do we diagnose this stuff?

Step one, call your vet.

Call your vet.

Don't call your mom.

Call your mom on the way to call her vet.

Yes.

But radiographs are going to be the main way to do this.

There is a very specific radiographic protocol on how to do this because if you take just a lateral view, for example, C6, C7 and T1 and T2, that's like deep in the cavity.

So those are really hard to get in the field.

You can get them, but they're just very challenging.

But there is a very specific protocol where you have to take very unique oblique views because if you just take a lateral, you might miss if there's going to be a unilateral or bilateral impairment.

You can see right through it and you might miss something.

So there's a really specific protocol for it.

You can also do CT scans or myelography.

You can be bad as well.

But the tricky part with the diagnostics, and the tricky part with all of this, if you're radiographing the neck and it's not for a PPE, you have a reason you're radiographing it.

This is where it gets sticky.

Exactly.

Because the thing is with ECBM and this is the part where it creates a lot of the word for it.

Not shade, but yeah, maybe shade.

That's what we use with it.

Suspicion.

Yeah, that's a good word.

Yeah, suspicion.

So if you have a horse that does have ECBM, it might not lead to a clinical presentation.

There are many horses that have ECBM that are clinical.

But how do we know which one?

It's like we've talked about it so many times at this point, because Taylor and I talk every minute of every day.

It's like with the navicular thing.

If you were to PPE a horse and light them up, get an x-ray of every single inch of the animal, and they had bony changes, but they were completely sound, you know, barefoot, rock crunching, having a good time, heel first sound, I wouldn't think anything other than that.

But if you have a horse that is having caudal heel pain and you get them x-rayed, they may or may not have anything visible.

So it's kind of the same thing.

It's like, you know, if you are doing this for a PPE, how much does it matter?

What are your goals?

Because a lot of these horses, as we get into kind of our wrap up of what next?

Like what do we do with this horse?

There's not a cure, but a lot of these horses can be managed.

It's just harder with the higher level sports.

So you may not be able to do a three-day with your ECVM horse, but you may be able to be a happy hacker and go out on the weekend with your girlfriends and go on a trail ride.

Your horse is perfectly happy, maintaining that level of fitness and living a good quality of life.

So it depends on severity, it depends on clinical presentation at the time and it depends on your goals.

If you are someone who gets a PPE and gets these views and they don't look perfect, but you'll keep an eye on it, you know you're a good listener with your animals, and you'll keep getting things checked and keep asking your horse how they're feeling, you probably are fine to buy that horse.

— PPE Red Flags: Knowing What You're Signing Up For

But if you've got a six-year-old warm blood coming up as an option and they've got a couple of these clinical signs, clinical signs, and then you go to X-ray, it's worth looking at and reassessing what you do in the future with them.

Yeah.

I think a lot of people forget too, a PPE, it's not a pass fail.

A PPE is this horse has this, are you willing to manage this?

That's what a PPE is.

No one gets out of this life alive, right?

No one gets out if no evidence of living, whether that's genetic or arthritic or I got kicked in the head when I was a baby and I got a dent in my head.

If we x-rayed and CT'd and MRI'd every inch of us once a year, there would always be changes and you may not feel them.

Bodies do things, bodies change, so it's just triage for your individual lifestyle and your goals with your horse.

Exactly what you said about considering what your goals are, what you want to do.

Also, I think another important thing is to recognize when you do the radiographs.

So Dr.

DeClue and Dr.

Workman just released a podcast episode on ECBM, where they do a literature review on a recent study that came out, and a lot of the horses that were radiographed and deemed ECBM, they were still quite young.

The thing that's interesting about that is a lot of times these horses won't become clinical until later in life.

Not always, but they might not become clinical until later.

If you do an ECBM radiographic protocol on a five-year-old, and you find the meat changes, and then they're deemed clear because they're not clinical, wait a couple of years, check back in, we haven't done that yet.

They might be deemed non-clinical ECBM, and then you come back four years later and all of a sudden, well, the orthostatic euthanized because of neurological issues, will that use the data?

Yeah.

It is a really hard thing to get clean research on, especially when there is such a polarizing thing with whether it's clinically significant or not.

That's always going to be hard to get, lots enough research to be able to know.

I know that, I can't remember who it is, they're working on figuring out genetic markers.

Hopefully that will help.

If we consider ethical breeding and what we're doing with these horses before they hit the ground, that would obviously go a lot farther than managing and euthanizing a horse because it's hard.

They're already on the ground, they're walking around, they're a living creature, and they may not have any issues until they're eight years old, but at this point, you've bred the mare, and the cycle continues.

It's a really tough thing, so it's not like we're here to give advice, but it is something that needs to be heavily considered, especially with bloodlines.

Hopefully, we'll know more.

Hopefully, it seems like there's more attention being paid to it.

I think so too, especially with insurance companies, because insurance companies now are being really vigilant about it because there have been a few lawsuits that have been going on because people have spent over six figures on these very well-bred horses to do the upper levels.

Then all of a sudden, they'll pass the PPE, or pass, they shouldn't be deemed as a pastel, but they will do a PPE, and the horse is deemed as having very manageable, appropriate, things that are not a big deal to manage.

Then a couple of years later, after the breed, the mare, all of a sudden, they're super clinical.

So we do need a lot more on it, but I think it's becoming so common.

You can't ignore it anymore.

It's getting louder.

Yeah.

Which unfortunately, that's just the way of research.

There's not going to be funding for research for a pathology or disease that's not affecting people.

There's got to be money involved.

It would be proper research done.

So there's got to be a lot of money-wise, not just ethically speaking.

There's got to be a lot of money-wise for things like this to be funded.

But something that I didn't want to forget to talk about in our management section is the body.

Yeah.

Talk about that.

Good point.

So there's a couple of things that we can do.

Physiotherapy, core strengthening exercises, obviously specialized, you know, talk with your farrier.

If there's anything that's changing in your horse, they're going to notice it first because everything shows up in the feet first.

Horses are like creatures of compensation, and movement is such an integral part of how they show up sound in the world.

Your farrier will notice it first.

So pay attention to that.

If you've got all these other things going on, definitely consider asking your vet about it.

But the thing that we normally reach for, I know I do, if a horse is, I don't know, stiff, acting weird, having a hard time picking up a lead, stuck behind the vertical, just not quite where I want them to be, my first reaction is to call a body worker, right?

But with these horses, they rely so heavily on their funky posture because they may be missing a rib, they may have nemorib, they may have arthritic changes, they may have at C6, they've got compression and so if they stand in a certain posture, they can relieve themselves.

If you destabilize them too much with bodywork, you can actually make them significantly worse.

They're in some case, and it's not all of them, but in some cases, these horses are barely holding it together and you cannot, it's like the Jenga piece pulling the tower down.

— Jenga Analogy: Why These Horses Are Barely Holding It Together

So definitely more conservative approaches with bodywork of any kind.

I know some horses' MagnaWave particularly, like specifically is a little hard on them.

So when you're looking at these adjunct therapies, just make sure to start, which this isn't my advice, this is just from what I've heard, start gentle because they may have just one Jenga piece holding them together.

Yeah.

That's an excellent point too.

And make sure that you're working with a body worker and a care team that recognizes, okay, this Jenga piece cannot be touched.

Do not touch it.

And do whatever you can for more like, perhaps even like comfort care, it's like that.

Like, yeah, and there is a lot of, oh, go ahead.

No, I just said you can absolutely destabilize them.

Like it's, and that would be probably heartbreaking.

Yeah.

I think a lot of, there's also a lot of back and forth.

There's a pretty significant dichotomy too, when it comes to injections as well.

Some people claim that injections are safe and good and helpful.

And then other folks think that injections are going to be problematic and destabilizing.

So I think it depends on the variations that the course has, how they're managing, fixerating.

I don't know if this is the type of, I don't want to say disease, I don't know if this is the type of pathology where you can have hard and fast rules about what you can't do because there's so many variations in it.

There could be a horse who lived its entire life and you don't even know it has ECVM.

Exactly.

Yeah, that horse obviously is going to be managed differently than one who's got mimo ribs and they're falling apart in the front and they are in pain all the time.

Those are completely different animals.

With most things, especially with healthcare in any realm, there's not going to be a lot of hard and fast rules with art.

Like, yeah, just because, I mean, everyone is different, like bodies are different, they present different, and with this, it's like a combo meal.

You could have just the fries or you could have the whole shebang.

That is true, though.

There's so many different variations that it's really hard to piece out.

And then also, like, you know, this is the part that's kind of a nightmare about it.

You can have a horse with these clinical malformations, but it's not clinical, but then guess what?

They have Lyme and they may have Lyme disease that's masquerading with PCVM.

So how do you know if or, like, you can have a horse with PCVM and then they develop or they have MFN.

So that, I think, is where the horsemanship, having a really good veterinarian, having a great care team to really be able to parse out because you can have multiple things.

Which, as we've seen, you've had lots of, lots of guests come on and they're like, hey, my horse has this and this and this and this and this, and it's all diagnosed, but they're doing fine.

Yeah, and it's been a while.

Which is awesome, you know, like, unfortunately, I say it in every fucking episode, the thing that your horse has that is ailing them, you will become an expert at.

So learn to listen to them and figure out what exactly is going on that is affecting them, how you can best support their individual case, and just communicate with your vet, and also follow Sharon May Davis.

Yeah, Sharon's going to be the one, and Equus-soma, Pamela and Diane, they have some just excellent, excellent stuff.

So, all right.

Yeah, there's a whole bunch of other things that can go into it as well, but I'm sure it's going to come up in the story that Jess asked for us, and I'm curious to hear what specifically her girls are dealing with.

But she did say both of her mares are rideable, and they're well, and they're sound, and she has figured out, they have different variations, but she has figured out how to keep them going and how to keep them happy.

So, I think we're due for a happy ending too.

I was just about to say that.

I'm so excited to just sit back and hear that they're doing well.

Just tell us how you manage them.

We want to hear a good bedtime story.

We've had some heavy ones lately.

All right.

Well, I think she's here.

So, are we ready to switch gears and go into story time?

Yeah, let's do it.

Cool.

All right.

Here she is.

It's so good to see you.

It's very nice to see you.

How are you?

Wow.

We're doing good.

Yeah.

Keep them busy.

My period.

Yeah.

You're getting married too, girl, and you're finishing up your exams.

You got a lot going on.

Yeah.

Next week, I have flight of Florida and my exam is the 29th.

It's coming up really fast.

I actually have my good friend who, she's already gone through the course.

She's been tutoring me.

She's coming to stay with me this coming week for a few days to just refine anything that needs to be refined.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah.

Cool.

All right.

Kahlan, do you want to get us started?

Yes.

Okay.

We are really easy to get along with, but I do go over rules beforehand, and the main rule is that there are no rules.

So you can say whatever you want, you can curse, you can be yourself.

We really want you to be yourself and tell your story.

If there's anything that you want to cut out, Taylor is an excellent editor.

So if you catch yourself in the moment and say, oh shit, I shouldn't have said that, or, oh shit, I don't, nevermind, totally fine.

— The Bodywork Practice: Jessica's Journey to Magic Hands Equine

Just let us know and we'll do the timestamp.

And if it's afterwards, totally fine.

Make sure you send us a picture of one or both of your horses and that's it.

Okay, perfect, can do that.

Awesome, okay.

So to go ahead and get us started, Jess, why don't you tell us a little bit about you and your just life with horses and kind of segue that into your professional life?

Because I know you are a fellow professional, so tell us about that too.

Yes, okay, so I'll try to not make it too long and wordy, but I mean, when I was a kid, I just ran to the barn as fast as I could.

I mean, I always was interested in horses growing up.

I didn't come from a horse-y family, but they really supported it and I'm really thankful for that.

And I got my first horse when I was 14 and it's just kind of been, I've just been accumulating ever since, as we do.

Accumulating, that's great.

Accumulating.

And yeah, and then I moved south to South Carolina for a little while.

I thought that I wanted to get into training and I thought that was kind of where I wanted to be in the industry.

It really wasn't, it just didn't work out for me.

And I tried to go home, go to college, do the normal, you know, business school kind of situation.

Didn't like that either.

I was like, well, this is just not what I'm, I want to do.

And it wasn't actually very long after I got home that I sustained a traumatic whiplash and head injury.

Actually, by my first horse, she unfortunately passed away that day, the same day I got injured.

And I then struggled for a year or two afterwards with something called post-concussive syndrome.

So essentially, it's like you have concussion symptoms long-term.

So I really struggled with headaches and vertigo.

I mean, I still have vertigo.

Vision issues, memory issues, just like your concussed.

So I actually was introduced to osteopathy through my mom.

She went to this osteopath and she was like, let's just go, let's just see if it helps.

Because I had been to neurologists and everyone's like, oh, it's just anxiety, you're just anxious.

I'm not.

Can't function.

I love just everything's anxiety.

Anyway, so I had my first session with the osteopath and my first experience with craniosacral therapy and it was just immediately life-changing.

I was like, wow, I love this.

I need more of this.

At that point, I had already started exploring massage therapy.

I knew that I wanted to become an osteopath at that point.

I just didn't know where to go for all that, where to begin.

I actually started with massage therapy.

I went to school for that and finished that, began my business as a massage therapist, and eventually started my journey at the Vlugan Institute, which is now coming to an end, thankfully.

I'm sorry to be dumb at school.

I've taken some courses in between the original massage certification and the osteopathy that have been very transformative, I think, for me.

That's how I got into the bodywork.

And yeah, it served me really well with my horses.

I really enjoy it.

It's hard work sometimes, but it's very rewarding, so I enjoy it a lot.

Is there a certain population that you really enjoy working with?

Like, do you prefer performance horses or like hospice care?

Where do you feel like you're being drawn to?

You know, I really thought for a long time, I wanted to be in the performance world.

That's really changed for me.

I just, I've spent a lot of time, I mean, really, my mare is being diagnosed with ECBM was very catalytic for me, and it sent me on this other journey of learning about pain science and ethology and different training practices and just exploring kind of what they need versus what we need, or we want, I should say.

Want to do with them, yeah.

Yeah, and then I started kind of seeing things that I couldn't really unsee.

Behaviors, management, things like that, and I have performance clients and they're lovely, they're wonderful people and they really care about their horses.

But as a whole, they're not my focus.

I really enjoy the retirees or the adult amateur who just has a surplus of money they want to spend on their horse and just have them.

My favorite line from a client is, I just want them to be happy.

I'm just like, you know, I love that.

So, I mean, I'm not object to working on performance horses.

It's just not where my heart is at this time.

So, yeah.

Absolutely.

I love the oldies.

I do too.

I just love the oldies.

Oh, yeah.

It's so much more rewarding because the goal is not a movement or an accomplishment.

It's just you can see that they're grateful and you can see like, oh, wow, I really made this horse have a better day.

Yeah.

And that's everything.

Yes.

Okay.

So, where do your girls come in?

What, where did you, how did you get connected with them?

Um, so.

Origin story, all the way back.

Yes.

Yeah.

I guess I'll start, I'll just start with Maliki.

She's in the picture I sent.

She's the big draft mare.

Pretty, yeah.

I got her when I was 17 and she was six or eight months old.

So she was very young.

Oh, baby, baby.

Oh, she was a baby, baby.

She was a donkey.

I got her from someone in Massachusetts.

They wanted a lesson horse.

I had a thoroughbred at the time that I really like it was just she was too much for me.

She wanted to be worked more than I really wanted to do.

She just needed something else.

So they took her, I took the full.

— How Maliki Came to Jessica: A 12-Year Partnership Begins

And that's how I got her.

And I've had her now for she's 13, so 12 years.

And it's been a very interesting road as you can imagine, having the ECVM diagnosis, which we found that kind of accidentally.

And then for Rowan, the chestnut, she came into my life.

It was 2022.

Yeah, it was late 2022.

My girlfriend was working for this very beautiful high-end facility.

I mean, these horses are worth more than my house.

And she reached out to me and she was like, hey, do you need a horse?

And I was like, I already had three at the time.

I was like, no.

But let me see the horse.

Well, she's a chestnut mare.

And I was like, say no more.

I'm in.

I'm like, I'm a lethal.

Yeah, I don't know what to think her of.

So, but essentially the story was that she was unsound.

They had found some changes in her pastern that they thought were the reason for her unsoundness.

So, they wanted to find a new placement for her.

And it was between me and like a lesson program.

And so, I went and saw her and I watched her go and all that stuff.

And I was like, I really think I can work with this.

I didn't think, I looked at the x-rays.

I had vets look at the x-rays.

It's like I didn't really think that that was the problem that we were seeing.

And so far, knock on wood, those findings haven't been relevant in all of this.

So, that's how I got her.

I got her for free.

And I walked away with the worst I would never be able to afford otherwise.

Oh, hell yeah.

Yeah.

It's just, I'm very fortunate.

She's a really good girl.

What was her breeding, did you say?

She is a Belgian Warmblood.

She's a Belgian, okay.

Yeah.

What was the intent of her breeding?

Is she like for dressage or show jumping or what was she?

She was bred for the hunter ring, definitely.

And I actually, I work on one of her cousins.

Oh.

Which is actually, and they're like carbon copies of one another.

Unfortunately, he has ECBM too.

But we can get into that.

We'll try to bookmark that.

Yeah.

And, but yeah, she was definitely bred to be in the upper level hunter ring and just didn't make the cut.

I don't know exactly if that was truly why they sent her away.

Like if it was just those findings on the x-ray, I don't know.

That's what they told me.

But I got lucky.

Yeah, you did.

Yeah.

So timeline wise, like I would assume it was your first horse.

When did we first start seeing symptoms?

Like how did we get here?

So like I said, we found it accidentally.

Yes.

Tell us everything.

Yeah.

So it was 2020 and we had already always had some issues under saddle.

She's a big girl.

She was young at the time.

She was seven at the time, maybe just going on seven.

She's not put together great.

Just having some issues moving forward, balancing, self-carriage, all of those things.

I noticed one day, I was like, your hocks, they have some effusion on them.

I was like, maybe you have OCDs, you're big, you're in the right demographic for it.

So I had her x-rayed.

They did find at least one lesion in her hocks.

They were like, okay, you can send her up to Dover if you want in New Hampshire, and operate on it.

So we did, we did.

And I was like, cool, well, this will hopefully be the solving of our problems, and just wave our hands a bit.

So while we were up there, I just asked them because she's, again, she's a big girl and she was already under sedation.

I said, could you just x-ray her neck?

I said, we kind of, like, we kind of were suspicious of wobblers, not because she had ever tripped or fallen or stumbled, she has never done that, which is odd to me.

But when she moves, she, more specifically, at the walk, she almost looks like a drunken sailor, but she passes neurological examinations.

So she knew like that where she almost walks, not at like a shoulder in, but at an angle where she's almost like on, like would she walk on three tracks?

Not a tight rope, more like is she walking on like three tracks?

That's a great question.

I do think at times yes, because she also, she, at least at that time in her life, she also would be very, she was very face narrow.

And I don't, specifically in the front end, not so much in the back, but in the behind end, she has a lot of mobility through her hip joint, specifically.

And like she's actually quite hypermobile.

She can do things I've really never seen a horse be able to do.

I mean, she's very athletic for her size, and to not fall or stumble or trip.

It's very odd how a horse that looks drunk is so proprioceptively aware in movement, but under saddle really struggled.

So anyways, I know that X-rays are not the gold standard for wobblers, but I was like, okay, if they suspect something, if they see something, I was like, okay, maybe we'll do the myelogram.

So the X-rayed her, and they said, no, no, her neck is beautiful, everything's great.

Her hops, they actually only found one OCD.

They said her hop joints were beautiful.

She was good to go.

It's like, great, awesome.

Like it's all in my head, you know?

And so I bring her home, she rehabs fine, whatever.

And then I stumbled on Facebook across one of Pamela's posts, Pamela Eckelbarger.

And she was at the time looking for X-rays and hair samples of affected and non-affected horses with ECBM.

I had no idea what that was.

Sure.

I didn't know Pamela.

I didn't know her whole program.

I knew nothing.

But I reached out.

I said, hey, I have X-rays of my mare's neck, and I've been told that they're perfectly normal.

— Sending X-Rays to Researchers: Neck Radiographs & ECVM Confirmation

So if you would like them for your research, I'm happy to send them to you.

So she took them and she looked at them and she was like, I'm really sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your mare actually has ECBM.

Yikes.

I'm like, no, Rowan, what is that?

That's how it came to be.

And that's what it's going to be.

Unfortunately, in 2020, which really wasn't that long ago, but I guess in respects to how much traction and awareness has come to ECBM in the most recent years, I was completely lost.

I had no idea what this was.

I had no idea.

I didn't know anyone who had a horse with it, nothing.

Everything I was reading and hearing was really bad.

I immediately retired her.

I thought we were actually going to put her down.

I was like, I can't ethically get on her if she's struggling so much.

That's how that came to be.

It was accidental, devastating.

But it was just purely coincidental that we found it.

What were the changes that Pamela was seeing?

We didn't get a good image of her C7.

She's again, very large.

We did get a good image of C6 and we did see a unilateral presentation on C6.

We don't know if C7, if anything, has transposed onto C7 and we don't know the status of her first ribs.

I don't know that we will until we dissect her.

But that's what we know at this moment.

Wow.

Yeah.

Can you say a little bit more about just some of the weird stuff that was going on under Saddle?

Yeah, absolutely.

So it's interesting because she and Rowan have a lot of similarities and a lot of obviously not similarities.

One of the biggest things for both of them is having a very difficult time in the canter and a very difficult time with forward motion.

I found with Maliki, she really struggled with vertical balance.

So balance between the left and right hemispheres, I could not figure out how to travel straight through her shoulders.

And energy would just stop right underneath my seat, right at the front of the saddle.

I could feel it stop.

It couldn't go further forward.

So we had a lot of difficult time building up stamina, building fitness.

She was obviously very grumpy.

She and I did not get along for the first few years of her being under saddle.

And looking back, it's all pain.

I didn't know.

Yeah, of course.

So the lack of impulsion and movement forward, she actually, if you tried to work her over ground poles, whether it was on the lunge line or under saddle, she would just stop in the middle of the ground poles.

You could not keep her moving over them.

And I think because she knew internally that she could not maintain her balance well.

Which is very, again, conflicting when you see her out in the field doing the things she does.

Yeah.

So there was that.

She also, on the ground, I found this to be very consistent since she was very young.

When she's stressed, she will do this very odd behavior where she like flings her head, like just to one side, just flings it.

And sometimes a foot will like fly out or, but it'll be walking, it could be trotting, it could be cantering, she'll just fling her head around.

And when she was young, it almost looks like, you know, when Arabs are kind of like flipping their head upside down and he can get around with her.

It was almost like that, but it only occurred in times of stress.

Was it always to one side or another?

No, it's pretty even both ways.

I mean, she, she'll, and it's odd because it almost looks like she's, she's like a battering room.

Like she's trying to like knock something off of her head.

Yeah.

I've been whacked by her.

Now?

Unfortunately.

And it's a very odd behavior.

It has gotten much better over time now that I've changed a lot with her, but in her younger years, it's constant.

I mean, I could be leading her up to the barn and whacking me in the head just about.

Yeah, it was very odd.

Would you consider that self-mutilation or like an attempt at self-mutilating?

Or is that more like, almost like stimming?

I have to wonder if she was looking for some kind of sensory feedback because, well, I mean, looking back, she never bit herself.

It was never like she was going after her side or her chest.

But I have to wonder now knowing what I know if she was trying to find some equilibrium just because of how intimately connected their jaw is with their entire proprioceptive system, and she was in shoes at that time for most of her life.

Which I mean, I'm not anti-shoe.

I do think it makes a difference for these horses, um, proprioceptively.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's, I think it was more related to finding her new, like finding a balance.

And again, the increase in stress that alters your proprioception.

So you know, that's what I would attribute it to.

That's an interesting thought.

Was she just in a plain perimeter shoe, just nailed?

Just a regular shoe?

Yeah, she's always just been like a regular, she never had anything, no wedge, no like barb shoe, no nothing fancy, just straight shoe.

That's an interesting thought that it could be because, you know, that shoes do quiet proprioception.

That's undeniable.

That's not, you know.

It's not an opinion.

Yeah, it just ends.

So that's an interesting thought that that could kind of.

Yeah, it got, it became lesser when the shoes came off.

And again, there were other management changes.

But, oh, the other thing I will add also, they, both Rowan and Maliki, very consistently have their teeth done.

— Dental Ramps, Hooks & Consistent Dental Care for ECVM Horses

And they constantly have huge ramps and hooks.

Even if they have teeth every six months.

I mean, it is constant.

We are constantly chasing.

Yep.

Constantly chasing that.

Wow.

Yeah.

So again, I don't think, I don't think with their, how, again, how intimately connected the TMJ is with their whole vestibular system that it's, I don't think we're getting right feedback.

I just don't, you know.

So.

So you, here you are, you have your diagnosis, you're reading all this stuff, you, you know, what was your first step in changing management?

How did you come about that information?

Cause this is, this is before we even have that much information.

So what was your next step?

I mean, you cried, I'm sure.

And then.

Oh.

Then I cried, I bargained, I did a little bit.

My first step was just leaving her alone.

I was just like, I'm either, I don't know how much time you have left.

Because again, the average time of diagnosis is between five and seven years old.

And then at that time, my understanding was they didn't make it past 15.

She was already halfway through her life.

And she wasn't doing so hot at that point.

So I was like, okay, you're going to get what you get.

You're going to be in a field with your friends.

And we're just going to call it when it's time.

And at that point, again, I was doing the massage.

I started taking supplementary courses.

Most specifically, one with Thurza Hendricks, who she focuses on functional biomechanics.

And yes, I really like her work.

And she does work with ECBM horses too.

I really appreciate her.

She's very intelligent.

And then I actually found another woman that owned a course.

She was actually, what did she do for a profession?

She was for 30 years, like a human movement specialist, but then she moved into horses.

And she had a pain science course.

And her course was focused around, again, the science of pain and intrinsic motivation and how, how stealth efficacy can be more powerful than correct biomechanics.

So I was taking these two courses that were very directly conflicting with one another.

Take home message.

I really appreciated the technicality of Thurza's course, but it was really Kathy's course that I think was the most profound.

When I started understanding more about how pain works, more about how internal motivation and intrinsic motivation works, and how the body can essentially like, I don't want to say rewire itself, but you can help sort of how I want to word this.

You can change a lot about how a horse feels in its own body, in a person too, just by changing how they feel motivated, motivated about movement.

Because pain is very complex.

It's not, it's very contextual.

It has nothing to do with tissue damage.

So yes, there is a lot of pain that is caused by tissue damage, but there is also pain that is caused by central sensitization, and that isn't related to any kind of tissue damage, but more a nervous system response.

And that was just so impactful, because I started working with Maliki with some of these practices.

It's actually when I started picking up positive reinforcement.

And we did a lot with authentic movement, and just moving forward when we want to move forward.

And I know how silly that sounds.

No, no, no, we totally get it.

But giving a movement goal instead of just saying move forward.

Because the brain doesn't work, the brain doesn't find movement to be authentic and verifiable.

If we externally are saying, move this leg, move your hip, move your barrel, move whatever, it doesn't register in the brain as like, I'm agile, I can manage this movement, I can organize myself.

The self-organization, the self-efficacy comes from it's an internal knowing of, I can do this, my body is capable of doing this.

The problem with pain is pain alters proprioception.

It dampens it further, unfortunately, and so does stress.

After you've been stuck in this fight or flight for too long, your movement possibilities may become less optimal.

I'm really like sparknotes in all of this right now.

Of course.

This is good.

But it was a very intense course and I really appreciated it.

But essentially, if you're constantly moving through just one range of motion and not exploring other ranges of motion and other movement possibilities, you're not only setting yourself up for injury and breakdown, but you're also leaving yourself vulnerable to more pain.

Because you're not exploring all these new movement possibilities.

So her course was really centered around that.

I probably totally butchered the whole explanation on it, because it's been years since I've actually looked at the material.

But it was really transformative.

One of the biggest things in her course was she utilized a gym mat.

Literally what kids tumbled down in gym class, like a four by six foot, one inch thick gym mat.

She did a lot of static and dynamic exercises or tasks on this gym mat.

With the idea that the slightly unstable surface triggers or activates those mechanoreceptors in their feet, in their frog, in their digital cushion, that can help them explore new movement possibilities.

It can essentially heighten their awareness of what their feet are doing, what their legs are doing, improve their proprioception and hopefully make new neural connections that can improve movement and posture and all of that stuff and help reduce pain.

— ProSix & Proprioception: Building Neural Connections Safely

Of course, the reducing pain part is more related to being intrinsically motivated and playing, essentially.

But we did a lot of work with that.

And again, we used a lot of positive reinforcement.

And it really didn't take very long for me to notice a difference in her with just that.

I mean, the taking off of the shoes was huge.

Changing the dental work was huge.

She was always outside.

That I would never take away from an ECVM horse ever.

Constant turnout.

I would never take that away.

But that's kind of where, I don't know, that's kind of where this journey kind of took me is more down the pain science route.

And slowly, like she went from being this sour, nasty kind of mare, you know, like you think a mare and you think of ears back and lips snarled and all that.

She went from being this like salapus, this like total sweetheart that I knew she could be.

But you know, she and I were constantly butting heads and it's because I wanted something and she physically couldn't do it.

So over time, I started meeting more and more people with horses with ECVM that they were riding.

Thurza in particular had a mare that was in her, that she showed in her course that ended up having ECVM and she was riding her.

And she was just so happy and so comfortable.

And I started talking to other people with ECVM horses and that they were riding and working comfortably.

So this was the first time I was introduced to this idea of like, wow, these horses actually can be rideable.

It's possible.

So I actually started experimenting with Maliki a little bit.

I went, I switched her to Bitless because the bits caused her an immense amount of stress.

And whether that was due to poor training with the last trainer I had had with her, or because it interrupted her jaw mobility too much.

I think both could be a little bit true, but moving to Bitless was huge.

And I brought her actually just like a bareback pad, like a police bareback pad.

And it was, it's just been like night and day.

I mean, I'm not saying she doesn't struggle still, but you know, it used to be, I'd approach her with a saddle and she'd pin her ears and you know, switch her tail at me and lift the leg.

She doesn't do that anymore.

She used to be yawning constantly, constantly, constantly with this horrible stress look on her face.

Anytime you try to put a bridle on, that's gone.

And we were actually getting forward movement.

I mean, wanting to move forward, not just me saying, hey, you got to get going.

She was like, I'll offer this for you, which was never happening before.

So we started introducing that again slowly and then she really kept improving.

And actually she's quite fun to ride when she's in shape.

Of course, if I can't be consistent, I just don't bother because she does struggle to get fit more than a regular horse.

I think they do struggle with fitness more than a regular horse.

But that's kind of how I reintroduced that back to her.

And it's gone pretty well.

That's great.

So you're just kind of happy hacking around your property wherever she is?

Yeah.

And I mean, this year I haven't done anything with her just because I'm focusing on my other two and I have a crazy schedule.

But she became far more balanced, straighter through her body, actually wanting to move forward.

It just, her whole body has just changed for the better.

And I'm just, it's not something I thought was possible.

But it took a long time.

I mean, I'm not going to say it was overnight, but she is in a much better place mentally and physically now than she was when she was diagnosed.

And I didn't think that was possible.

I thought it was just going to be this slow burn until we...

She couldn't do it anymore.

Yeah.

So what's really interesting about your story in particular with her, these aren't big changes.

I haven't heard you one time say that, that came out and did this, that came out and did this, we tried this, we tried that.

I'm hearing small management changes have made the biggest difference for her.

Yeah.

The bit list was the biggest.

Shoes also, probably the second biggest thing.

I actually, I know I've had at least a hand, half a dozen or a handful of ECVM horses pass through my program, and they're all bitless, and they do really well.

They do a lot better than with a bit.

Again, I do think that is related to range of motion.

Their TMJ, their hyoid, their whole proprioceptive network.

I do think that, for some, I don't know every ECVM horse out there, but everyone I do know is bitless, and they do really well with that.

I probably can just hear better without that interruption, especially with metal.

Have you ever done any experiments with soft material bits, non-metal bits?

I used rubber until I ditched them.

With Rowan, before I ditched the bit, she was in a rubber bit, and it didn't- I never tried leather, or- I actually don't know what else they had out there.

There's a woven one too.

It's like a war bridle, I think.

Well, no, war bridle.

No, war bridle.

Yeah, not bad.

But they do have a woven one where it looks like a boat rope.

It is not, but it- Yeah, weird.

But you just say they need that freedom.

I think that I really do think they need that freedom of their jaw.

I think because they have proprioceptive deficits, maybe not fully classified as neurological, but because I do believe they have proprioceptive deficits, I do think that they tend to fare better if they have freedom of movement of their jaw.

— Proprioceptive Deficits: Why ECVM Horses Trip & Lose Their Footing

I actually think all horses should have freedom of movement of their jaw.

I don't necessarily think that always means bitless, but like flash nose bands and all.

Don't bring it down.

We're ever doing that.

You're correct.

It's the same for people.

We need freedom of movement in our jaw to balance.

I mean, our jaw is also very intimately connected with our entire vestibular network.

When you clench your jaw or when your jaw is restricted, it actually does affect your gait, it affects your balance, everything.

So the horses are no different.

So that was big for her.

Was there the tie-in?

Because the feet and the teeth just echoing all of it, super innervated.

So did she have a laterality or even go as far as saying high-low syndrome or what her feet look like?

She does not have high-low.

She does kind of have the classic draft feet where, you know, they just like a big little slap.

Okay.

We forget it.

They like to go.

She definitely loads more medially and likes to flare laterally.

But there's no, she actually doesn't have a high-low, no clubbing, nothing like that.

And aside from, actually, with the exercises I was doing with the gym mat and all of that, she's no longer as face-narrow.

She now stands much more like square and wide.

Square.

Yeah, not all the time.

But I mean, she's not like standing on a little rock anymore.

Like she was.

I have pictures of her where her feet are almost like on top of each other.

And this huge 17-hand horse, I mean, you don't really want that.

It's improved, but yeah.

Were there any frogs, like are her frogs the same size?

That's a good question.

I've never noticed a difference in that.

If there is, it's probably minimal.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Sometimes it can be pretty loud.

That's why I was curious.

But usually that's going to go hand with like a laterality.

I've heard that, yeah, that the smaller frog will be on the side of the malformation.

I don't see them.

Okay.

Cool.

She's like standing for hoof care or anything like that?

I mean, when she was younger, she struggled.

I don't know if that was age-related or if it was balanced.

Maybe both.

I will say her first ever failure appointment when she was a weanling, she laid down on the barrier.

Which was really, I mean, it's funny now.

I was not wanting to.

Oh, no, of course.

Huge as a weanling.

But no, she's sometimes with her front feet, she won't really snatch and rip her foot away, but she might tug a little bit.

I do think that might be related to maybe some low neck pain.

But other than that, she's very taller.

I have noticed she and Rowan struggle with the extended butch on the skin.

My favorite note doesn't do that for her, for either of them.

It just works with it.

Other than that, they're very good.

I've had a couple where, a mare taught me this one.

I think we may even talked about this in an episode in the past.

But some of them, if I bring their foot forward, I almost have to put it up, not almost like a 90-degree angle, but very high because then it encourages them to actually use their hind end.

Because if you put it forward and it's still low, it just pulls them.

Yeah.

Like he's that way.

Yeah.

They just appreciate it.

Yeah.

That's interesting.

If your trimmer doesn't need to do it, then don't worry.

I love my trimmer.

She's wonderful and she's very much like she just goes where they are most comfortable and great.

That's been my experience with them.

Well, and you know, especially to like if you have a horse with a pathology where you do have to like, everyone has to participate.

It's a team effort.

Yeah.

And it takes a little bit to kind of figure out like, okay, this horse is cool with this.

I have one where like they can only bring one foot forward.

And that's fine.

That's the only one that we bring forward.

I do the other one the other way and we're good to go.

So everyone kind of figures out their little survival routine to get it done.

You've got to get a good team.

Yeah, yeah, find the right people and all that.

So yeah, yeah.

Any issues with spooking or anything like that or like, yeah, oh, there it is.

Okay.

She is Maliki in particular.

I mean, I don't know how much you want me to go into Rowan's stuff yet, but we'll get to Rowan.

She, some days, she's like an old camp horse.

Like you could just put anyone on her.

And then there's some days where we are looking at every little thing.

And it's, you know, I can't say there's really any consistency to it.

Some days, again, she'll come out great.

And then the very next day, it'll be like, everything is terrifying.

But when she's fitter, it gets much better.

If she's out of shape, it's pretty bad.

She doesn't, I'm very blessed, she doesn't bolt, buck, rear, none of that.

But she will, you know, do the whole, you know, like, blanking out and all that.

That's scary on a big horse.

Yeah, it could be worse.

But yeah, she can be very spooky.

Do either of them do better or worse or spook more or less?

Or she's not really a tripper, but like, do either of them have better success on a specific kind of footing?

That's a great question.

I haven't noticed.

I can't say I've noticed.

No, because we have sand, we have stone dust, we have grass, we have just like millings, like roads.

I can't say that any particular footing makes it better or worse.

— Footing Variations: Does Ground Surface Make a Difference?

Good, really.

Yeah, it's a good question.

Yeah, it's a great question.

Yeah.

Well, thanks, I made it myself.

That's good though.

I would be concerned that like if she were on even like a sand that's too deep, I would be concerned about like really just- Stressing her out?

Yeah, stressing her out, becoming spooky, and maybe even just not knowing where her front end is in space.

Right, like losing that pre-reception.

And then also like on a harder surface, I would think that like- and it may be just because of her, I don't know what grade she is technically, but it could be with some horses and maybe not just her, but like triggering that neuropathic pain.

Like on a harder surface, kind of like how when she was in shoes, she wasn't as confident.

Like I would think a harder surface would be more like a stinging neuralgia type.

Yeah, and truly we don't know.

I mean, I do know she does have some lower neck arthritis.

She did at seven.

I mean, mild enough that the vets were like, this is nothing.

I'm sure she has more now.

But not knowing also what her first ribs are doing.

There could be some kind of entrapment somewhere.

Who knows?

Definitely could be a possibility.

But as of right now, we're not asking questions because you have the secret sauce and she's doing well with management.

Well, right now she's living in La Vida Loca.

She's on retirement right now just doing nothing.

Great.

But it's a lot outside.

Let her hang out.

Yeah.

So after all of the proprioceptive work that you've done with her, does she still do that three-track walk, that almost little crab walk that she was doing?

I will say it gets better when she is fit.

Okay.

If we're doing groundwork where, so she has a very lateral walk.

If we're either riding or doing groundwork, where we're doing a lot of lateral work, or I'm asking her just to shift her weight back a little bit, she moves out of that lateral walk entirely and moves to regular four-beat walk and it's very much a two-track.

But that's very hard.

So it's not something she can keep up with consistently.

That's an exercise for her.

Yeah.

I found with her and with Rowan, quality over quantity matters and shorter intentional sessions are way better than going for an hour trying to get the same movement a million times.

Yeah.

Then I just drop them out.

They get tired fast.

Sure.

Do you want to switch gears and tell us a little bit more about Rowan and her?

Yeah.

She's been, I think, a little bit more exciting.

Anything other than the fact that she just was way more symptomatic than when I got her.

I mean, at least Maliki, she grew up with me, so I just saw this.

Gradual.

Also again, she's a drought.

She's not really going anywhere fast.

It was just a little bit more watered down.

Rowan was very much in your face.

I tested her, I x-rayed her before.

Actually, let me back up.

When I got her, she was morbidly obese.

She was stalled for 23 hours a day.

That's if the weather was good, it was bad, they were just in.

Nice.

She had shoes and she was on a very long shoeing cycle.

I've heard through my girlfriend who worked there, it was sometimes as long as 14 weeks.

She had never had a dental.

Okay.

Wait, she was at a fancy place though, right?

Wasn't she at this high dollar farm?

She was at a farm where horses were going for sometimes half a million dollars and she was bred on the farm.

Shut up.

She was considered to be the cremie horse.

She would maybe have only gone for 150.

Is that all?

Yeah.

I'm not kidding.

The horses at this place were worth more than my house.

But you'd imagine a place like that. 14 weeks is acceptable.

You would imagine.

I don't agree, obviously.

Don't take this out of context.

I don't fucking agree that horses should ever be in 23 hours a day.

However, I understand that's how it's done in certain places in the world.

I understand the mentality.

I would never have it, but I understand what their thought process is.

Sure.

You get it as part of the industry.

But the 14-week trim cycle or shoeing cycle is absolutely insane.

There's no logic that can support.

Like what the?

No dental.

And no dental is insane.

I'm actually happier with that than the opposite, because I think you can both read my mind and know where I'm going with this.

Yeah.

I'll stop, you go.

Yeah.

And I mean, they were nice people.

I will say I just, the more time I spent with her, the angrier I got about it.

And I've kind of tried to put that anger to bed a little bit, but because I just think it's inhumane.

So she came home, as you can imagine, out of her fucking mind.

And I knew, so when I went to go see her, I took one look at her feet and I was like, I think this is probably why you're laying.

She was, her feet were like soda cans.

I mean, they were so huge, so high.

And I looked underneath and her heels were so contracted.

Her froth was like a sliver.

And she had a mechanical laminitis, essentially.

Like she, her lamina was so stretched.

I mean, it was horrible.

So I knew right when I went and saw her, I was like, I'm going to take a chance on this horse because your feet suck.

Yeah, I get you out of here.

And she wasn't horrifically lame.

She was just a little bit off.

I think if we get this in order, we're going to be in a much better place.

So I brought her home and we pulled the shoes and made her lose weight and got the dental and.

And, and, and.

— Getting Flack: Defending Management Choices for Rowan

She, I'm, I got a lot of flack for this horse.

There was a lot of you all intended in some ways, but other ways, maybe not.

But, you know, there was a lot of like, why did you get this horse?

And, you know, what are you doing?

And, you know, all this, all this stuff.

She was literally out of her mind.

Very explosive.

I don't really think she was that safe to be around on the ground.

I mean, she, you tried to pick a pine leg and she'd be trying to nail you.

I mean, she was fast.

And, you know, if you scared her, she's double barreling at you.

I mean, she kicked me one.

She meant it.

And she was extremely claustrophobic.

So, again, I kicked her outside.

I was like, you live outside now.

Figure it out.

Be a horse.

Figure it out.

And again, she was, she was out of her mind.

And I tried to explain to people, I'm like, if you put a kid, a child in a closet for five years, seven and a half years, and then you took the kid out of the closet, do you think the kid would be very well adjusted to life?

No.

Like everything she's experiencing is like.

The first time she's experiencing it.

And under all that, unbeknownst to you guys, she's in pain.

And she's in pain.

And she was very clearly.

And so it was very interesting.

The first few weeks, she jumped over a couple of fences.

Like, I mean, like over four foot fences to get her over her horses.

And at first I was like, I was like, if I can't contain this animal, she's going to have to go back.

Eventually she stopped doing that.

She was very talented.

And right off the bat, you know, I just wanted her to kind of figure out how to regulate herself.

Come down off of this, you know, like stress.

Adrenaline.

Yeah.

She was just, she was very stressed.

The barn was a big problem, a big area of contention.

So if I wanted to bring her in to like groom her, I actually like couldn't because she was explosive and very unsafe to be in the barn with.

And so I immediately started doing again some of the positive reinforcement work with her.

And which I think, you know, not everyone agrees with.

I do think there are people that, you know, even, you know, where I bored that maybe thought it was kind of stupid.

But it started to pay off over time.

Actually, the failure I had at the time really didn't like, like the fact that I was using positive reinforcement, actually not in my face about it.

Damn.

And yeah, it was it was a whole thing.

But anyways, the whole biggest issue to start with was just getting her in the barn just to relax in there.

And that took probably, I don't know, maybe eight, nine months to get her in there kind of comfortably.

Not being like, yeah.

And I didn't need to bring her in there.

So I worked very.

There was no time limit.

I did not put her on any kind of timeline.

Really, it was just you need to be comfortable.

You need to learn how to regulate yourself.

And really, with the positive reinforcement, I was trying.

It sounds really dumb, but I would I would reward the spook, which is something I've heard over time, like through it's like a training thing, someone's technique.

Anyways, fear isn't isn't logical and it isn't conscious.

It's you know, she wasn't just like thinking like, oh, I'm going to spook at this.

She was like legitimately fearful of everything.

It's not premeditated.

It wasn't premeditated.

She was absolutely afraid of everything.

And so I started rewarding the spook.

And after a while, these big explosions became less and less and less and less to the point where, you know, something would scare her.

And instead of blowing up and running over or anything, or leaving, she would, she'd be like, wait, okay, this is scary.

And then I would reinforce her essentially.

Instead of the blowing up, we actually went from literally like running you over or jumping over you to, I'm just gonna, it's gonna be okay.

And then I reinforce it.

And that's, that's awesome.

It's, I didn't think it would work really at first.

I was like, we'll just see.

Well, screw it, try it.

It's not gonna make her worse.

And it, it really did.

It really was huge for her.

That was probably what I did with her for the first year and a half.

And again, like my, the farrier I had at the time was not a fan.

I did not feed treats during farrier visit.

She did not like it.

I respected that.

I understood she wasn't totally safe at that point.

So I practiced with her with treats on my own, and then we just kind of, whatever.

But I remember very specifically, I had been doing really well with her, and actually she had been improving with the farrier a lot.

And we had just finished trimming her, and it was a really good session.

She didn't have any kind of like a meltdown or like, I need to move or anything.

No snatching legs.

And I was like, okay, I'm going to bring her in the barn.

And I was like, why?

Wait a second.

Why?

I was like, you don't need to do that.

I was like, we just had a really great reception.

And she's calm and she's relaxed.

Let's just be done.

Like, she was so good for you.

And she was like, no, I'm going to bring her in the barn.

And I didn't know how to speak up for myself at that point.

Was the training done at that point?

Did you guys already finish?

It was done.

Oh, he just wanted to be your trainer.

He just wanted to prove to you that he could do it.

Yeah.

Well, the thing is he couldn't.

So he brought her to the barn and she's like flat out refusing.

— Rowan's Flat-Out Refusals: When She Says No, She Means It

I don't know.

No, thank you.

No.

We're not my friend.

We're not good like that.

I don't trust you like that.

So he kept trying and trying and I was like, I said to him, I was like, I don't think she's ready for you to do that.

He came over to me and he got in my face.

He was like, you need to be the sources leader.

I was like, I can get her in the barn.

I don't have a problem with it.

But she and I have a relationship and we've been working on this.

She knows I'm not going to push her or pressure her into something that she's clearly not comfortable with.

She was like, show me.

I was like, okay.

I went into the barn and I handed him the doors and went to the barn and I got my little fanny pack and I walked back out and I grabbed her from him and I walked her into the barn and then I backed her out and then I walked her into the barn and then I backed her out.

I walked her into the barn and I backed her out.

I said, do you want me to keep going?

Because I can and no hesitation from her.

It made me feel good because I was like, what I'm doing is actually working.

Yeah.

It was paying off.

For him, it came down to like, oh, we need to be this horse's leader and she needs to respect you.

I'm like, you can't demand respect and she's definitely the kind of horse you cannot demand respect from.

If you don't have a rapport with her and a relationship with her, I mean, she has stranger danger, it's gotten a lot better now.

But at that time, she was still in a very delicate place.

Yeah.

It was something we were working on, but she wasn't quite ready for all of that.

But anyways, I've used positive reinforcement with her throughout the entirety of me having her.

It's been transformative for her and for Maliki.

I know everyone has their own opinion about it, but you can do it wrong, absolutely.

And I do think that you could do it right.

And I may not always get it right, but my horses aren't out of control jerks that have no manners.

You know, when they're picking barriers and stuff, they stand nicely and they behave and all of that stuff.

Oh, real quick, I want to go back to, because I have a question about this, because I've always kind of had a thought about, well, reinforcing the spook.

So, I don't know, and I'd love your thought on this, I don't know if it would necessarily be reinforcing or a redirection, because if we are giving them a little snick-snack, they're having to move their jaw and that's going to kind of, it's not going to shift them into parasympathetic, but it might point them in that direction.

Get them closer.

Right?

Because I'll do that a lot of times too, like if my mare is, she has this weird thing about like a flatbed trailer going empty over a gravel road.

You know that like rattle noise?

Yeah.

That's her nemesis.

That is her, she can't do it.

And anytime that she just can't handle it, she's like, the world is ending.

Over stimulating.

Yeah.

She just don't do it.

And when that happens, because I'll hear it coming down the road, I'll just like shove treats in her face and it's enough to kind of distract.

So what are your thoughts on it being a distraction more so than a reinforcer?

Does that make sense?

Yeah, no, it totally makes sense.

So I think maybe in the short term, it would be a distraction, but I think you could use it as a reinforcer and actually, I think creating self-regulation because at this point, with at least Rowan, I haven't done anything with Maliki this year, she'd probably be a nightmare to start.

But at least with Rowan, the things that used to make her blow up, she doesn't even give a second thought to at this point.

I don't even need to reinforce them.

Well, I wonder if the treat, the reward is a distraction and then the maintaining that nervous system regulation is the reinforcement.

Well, I do think that when horses are stressed, they try to self-regulate by like snatching grass.

At a show, you'll see a horse ripping the lead out of one's hand, to snatch some grass.

They're trying to self-regulate.

They're trying to downregulate their nervous system from this like sympathetic flight or flight into a more parasympathetic state.

It's very natural for them to do that.

Instinctual.

Yeah.

So I do think that there is benefit to it.

I've found a lot of success with it.

Maybe not for every horse, but I also think I don't really, I don't punish my horses for being scared.

I know, I mean, I definitely, I have my moments where I revert back to this old traditional way of how I was raised and I have- No, we all do that.

I have to check myself.

With my youngest mare, it's been difficult this year and I've been stressed and it's my fault.

Anyways, so I have to remind myself of these things.

But having my own anxieties and panic disorder, whole life struggling, I have never been made to feel safe or comfortable with someone who belittled me for feeling afraid or who punished me for being afraid.

I actually, I will distance myself from that person.

They're immediately an unsafe person.

You're immediately unsafe to me.

If I can't, not to say lean on you, but I can't co-regulate with you in my vulnerability, in my vulnerable moment, you're not safe to me.

Yeah.

I started to see the worst is that way.

Especially with Rowan when I know she was in pain, and I do think she's not fully comfortable at this point, but I knew she was in pain.

— Rowan in Pain: Constant Hypervigilance & Chronic Tension

She was already in this constant heightened sense of, or state of sympathetic drive.

Aroused.

She was definitely primed in her nervous system.

She was ready to jump at anything, a leaf falling.

The worst thing I think I could have done was to be like, hey, knock it off.

You're being- Shut up.

Shut up.

I don't care.

I care about what I want.

You both are dead.

I think it actually would have made her dangerous.

ECVM horses get a lot of bad reputation for being difficult or dangerous, and I do think that a lot of them struggle with their own self-regulation because of their own internal pain or discomfort or inherent knowing that they are not structurally sound because they're not stupid.

They do know that they're struggling.

They're trying to protect themselves.

Yeah.

I do think that if we approached some of them differently, I'm not saying all of them, but I do think that if we moved away from punishing fear and anxiety and moving more towards being supportive and trying to break the behaviors down, I think we could avoid a lot of these explosions and crazy behaviors and all that.

I think you can see a lot of things coming, not all of them, especially with neuropathic pain.

Sure.

That can be like that.

But a lot of these forces that are just- That's not unpredictable.

Yeah, that are just in this heightened state of just chronic stress from either their management or just their body issues or both.

It's just, I don't think it's helpful.

Yeah.

So I can't help but answer that question.

No, absolutely.

Absolutely.

That's genius.

Beautiful.

We love it.

I think- I don't know that we covered how we found the ECBM for her.

Okay.

So she was diagnosed in 2023 or 24.

So it was actually right around the time- Oh, it was 2024.

Because it was right around the time I was going to put my four-year-old in work.

And my four-year-old has a lot of thoroughbred in her.

And Rowan is obviously a warm-blood.

And so demographically, they are very high likelihood for having ECBM.

So I x-rayed both of them before I put them both into work.

I just wanted to know.

And it was 50-50 shot, you know, one of them having it, sure enough, you know, one of them has it.

So that's how I discovered.

I mean, I had my suspicions.

Sure.

But after the shoes and all the other management, yeah, I could have been, yeah.

How much is this actually playing a part?

Yeah, considering how she was when she came to me, you know, and she was still not fully at the point, like, especially with her feet, like she hadn't, like, fully, we hadn't fully figured them out or figured her out and got her fully comfortable.

I do think that, you know, her anxieties and stuff, they could have just been explained by pain in her feet.

So I wasn't totally expecting her to be positive for it, but she is, and she is a bilateral C6 and C7.

We don't know the state of her first ribs.

But I, you know, I was talking to Pamela about it and she was telling me that the horses that are bilateral tend to be, have a more, likely to have a normal life because they are symmetrically wrong as opposed to the unilateral lines that are only like one side is missing.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

I, you know, I don't know how true that is, but I mean, that's what I was told about that.

So how old is she?

She just turned nine.

Just turned nine.

You got her, how old was she when she came to you?

Five and a half and she was diagnosed at seven also.

So that's like prime time when it starts to really show up.

Yeah, for a long time.

So for hers, does it seem like her main thing was more the spookiness or were there other symptoms that she was throwing at you?

I think for her, it really was just the spookiness and the explosiveness.

I'm trying to think, I don't, I don't think there was anything else that was really eluding me to anything.

Like again, when I went to x-ray or I was like, I guess she could have it, I guess she couldn't.

I don't, there wasn't anything really outlandish.

She does have a Grade 1 club in her right front.

There it is.

She is a tad toed in.

On the club?

Was that one?

On the club?

Both, just slightly, very, very slightly.

Terrific.

So funny.

But aside from that, there wasn't really anything making me suspicious.

I just really just x-rayed for my own peace of mind before I started riding.

Well, you've already been through it.

So now you're looking at it with that lens of Maliki.

Yeah.

It's like, might as well.

I would never not x-ray any horse at this point.

Yeah.

In the neck.

Like seriously, I would not.

Yeah.

Well, and then that comes back to like, Declune Workman, their article just released recently.

Yeah.

Did you listen to their podcast, their review of it?

No, I didn't.

I did see the kind of synopsis of it was Sharon and Audrey.

They actually finally made like a protocol for the x-ray.

I didn't read more than that just because my brain is melting at this point.

So you're saturated.

You're at saturation.

I get my point.

No, but it just was kind of because there was some literature that came out a while ago and this is kind of what all the townspeople we just pretty much tried to burn the village down after it where they were saying that even if there are radiographic changes, that doesn't mean that there's going to be any clinical presentations and that it's just happenstance or individual findings.

But it's like, well, no, because now we're seeing all these other horses come up with these extreme clinical presentations that do have these changes in the radiograph.

— Radiographic Changes Are Real: The Evidence Is Catching Up

So no, homie, it is real.

It's getting out of nowhere.

I have asked every time I see a vet, I ask all of them what they think about it and I get mixed reviews.

I have had vets that are like, it's not clinically relevant.

I'm like, how can you not because not for nothing, we consider navicular changes clinically relevant.

Even if I was meaningful, Jess, say that.

I think it's fine.

Yeah, kissing is fine.

Why can those conclusions be drawn from those two things, whether or not there's any changes, but then it's just a little higher up on the horse.

Why are we finding that insignificant that doesn't make sense?

It's really alarming because the lower neck is such an important transitional place in the horse's body, and how C6 and C7 are very intimately related to the brachial plexus, which is your horse's entire front limb innervation.

You have your vagal nerve running on either side of the neck to go into the abdominal cavity, your phrenic nerve going into your abdominal cavity to innervate your diaphragm and whatnot, and your peritoneal tissue.

So, there's just so much going on neurologically through here.

How can it be?

And not even looking at the vascular side of it, you know?

And it's a very important junction for movement.

And we already have, there's already, with the nuchal ligament being, you know, disappearing, you know, Sharon is...

Or the lamella.

Researching the lamella.

Yeah.

You know, there's already a breakdown in integrity of that space, you know?

So, now we have a further insult to it, and we have all these incidents of osteoarthritis in this area specifically.

I just...

I don't know why it's not being paid attention to more.

And again, every ECVM horse I know that is diagnosed is clinically presenting.

I mean, they are not...

They're not easy horses.

And I...

There's some I even think of that I, like, suspect.

And I...

I don't know if we'll get x-rays, but...

It's a bigger problem, I think, than...

Than we know about.

We were realizing.

Yeah.

I mean, I think some people think it's just, like, the next hot thing, like, kissing spine was in the 2000s or, you know.

Yeah.

Well, it's easier to say it's not relevant than to say we don't know.

GBD.

Yeah.

I think we like to have an answer for stuff.

I agree with that.

So it's...

It is challenging.

I have had people, like, put out, tell me it's not relevant.

And I just don't agree.

But I'm not researching any of this stuff, but...

Oh, no, totally.

But a lot of times, too, horses will be okay.

Like, they are masters of compensation.

Yeah.

I mean, they will figure out...

Their whole thing.

Yeah.

They will figure it out.

So they have figured out a compensatory pattern that's keeping them going.

They might be fine.

I mean, I'll get to a couple horses where, you know, I might get to a new client and they are a fucking train wreck.

And it's like, well, they're 22.

I'm going to leave them where they are.

And I'm just going to make the pattern that they have created because this is where they thrive.

This is how they survive.

But then the challenge is if you have, for example, an ECVM horse that figured out they have cracked the code on how to keep themselves going, and then God forbid they sustain an injury, you know, they blow a suspenser or whatever.

And now it's like, well, fuck.

Now you just, you broke the levy.

Yeah.

Oh, I did want to ask on that same note, do your horses appreciate bodywork?

Can they handle bodywork?

Do you do any adjunct therapies with them that do or don't break the bank with their pain?

That's a good question.

So Maliki really loves bodywork.

She loves anything you can throw at her.

There was a point where MagnaWave was a little bit much for her, but she has learned to, I guess, like it now.

I haven't done it for her in a while, but she really likes any kind of bodywork.

Rowan?

Too much.

It's very overstimulating for her.

We can do little bits at a time and then move on.

I don't know if it's just too destabilizing for her.

So I don't work on too much at once.

I haven't done really much osteopathic work on her at this point.

I would really like to.

She may appreciate it more.

I haven't tried it.

Yeah.

TBD.

Yeah.

But that seems like, that seems, I don't know what I feel like I do now.

That feels on brand for each of your mayors.

Yeah.

So.

Any issues with like, I'm just kind of going through, because I know a couple, we put out some feelers to see if anyone had specific questions.

Did any of them ever bite at their heels or anything like that?

At the heel?

Yeah.

Like a nerve pain kind of thing.

Oh, interesting.

I've never noticed them biting your heels.

I've also never noticed any kind of self-mutilation in any regard to like, like they don't bite their sides or like their shoulders.

I've never seen any of that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, it sounds like their presentation.

I don't want to say it's like, I don't want to take anything away from them, but it sounds like, I don't want to say you got lucky, but- They're managing.

Yeah.

I think, I really do think that with the wrong management, they would be dangerous.

Yeah.

I do think.

I mean, maybe not Maliki.

I think she could probably kind of tough something out because she's just a big burly lady and she's just like, okay, I'll do it through gritted teeth.

— Maliki vs. Rowan: Two Very Different Personalities & Thresholds

I think Rowan would- Kill someone.

I think she would hurt someone.

I think if someone pushed her far enough, she would absolutely- How tall are you?

She just is that kind of horse.

I think that's where a lot of these horses find themselves in, is they keep kind of getting pushed and pushed and pushed.

And then they're the problem.

Listening.

Yeah.

And then they're the problem.

And then, but at the same time, their emotional pup is empty.

All of their needs are not being met.

It's, blame them.

No, of course.

Of course.

But that's with a lot of behavior, extreme behavioral, extreme behaviors.

That's usually the case.

I mean, horses typically aren't capable of malice.

Like they don't have that.

They don't have, they don't have that right now.

No, they don't.

They don't have that.

I'm very fortunate that I have, my girls are just so sweet.

They're so good.

But I do think like specifically Rowan, she could become bad if given the opportunity.

So she's got to stay with you.

Yes.

Yeah.

My family and friends have very explicit instructions if I were ever to die.

So yeah, they're never exchanging hands.

Bless.

Wow.

That's a lot.

You've learned so much through them.

I'm so glad that, it's so cool.

Every single one of our listeners or guests, this seems to be the case is like, you were a professional before them, but it's like everything that we learn, everything that we do is for them.

Everything that we explore or broaden our knowledge of horses and anatomy and behavioral science, and our own spiritual understanding of ourselves is for them.

That just never gets old.

It never gets old.

No, it doesn't.

It really doesn't.

It's crazy.

When I got, Maliki was, she's easier just overall, but Rowan, she was a really challenging horse, and she's a challenging horse.

When I got her a few years ago, I was like, man, I don't know if I'll ever even be able to ride this horse.

I mean, she's insane.

I couldn't seem to crack her a little bit.

I couldn't get under her skin and be like, hey, I'm- We're friends.

We're friends.

I'll listen to you, I promise.

Now, she's really unflappable.

I mean, I just took her- We trail ride.

This is not a horse where- She told me a few years ago, like, hey, you're going to trail ride this horse someday.

I'd be like, huh, you're insane.

Yeah.

I want to live.

Thank you.

But she's doing it and she's happy.

I mean, she's content.

She's not feeling like she's going to blow up.

When I first met her, that was not the case.

And I didn't think that we'd ever get to this point, but it took a while, but she's coming along really nicely.

So I'm really happy with her.

That's great.

Yeah.

I'm just so glad that they are manageable.

I mean, because I feel like I've seen so many where they can keep going until they can't.

And I'm sure that you've seen it too, especially in your line of work.

You just keep them together and then all of a sudden, it's just cognitively, like there's a cognitive shift.

Yeah.

I do think that a lot of them really, a lot of them struggle with more than we realize.

And I think that, I mean, not even ECBM horses, like the dissections have been very eye-opening for me as a professional and as just a personal horse owner, because I've been to maybe almost a dozen dissections at this point and- Have you really?

Damn, girl.

Maybe.

I have four this year alone.

Oh, shit.

That's awesome.

I'm very excited about it.

But every single one I go to, I'm like, well, that's not really in line with the anatomy of a horse.

There's always something a little bit different.

They're not, I just feel like you can look into a anatomy book and be like, yeah, that's how it's supposed to be.

That's how it should look.

You go up and open up a horse and they are completely different.

Yeah, there's things that are just mind-blowing.

It just goes to show, there's some things that we would never be able to diagnose.

I think what bothers me so much because how many horses do you know that are struggling with some thing, some random thing and no one can get to the bottom of it?

Then finally, the owner is like, oh, it's not pain.

We looked, we didn't find anything.

It's like, well, there's so much going on in the body.

How do you know that?

How can you say that?

Yeah.

You'd never be able to know until post-mortem.

I mean, it's so sad for some of these horses just because you never truly know what they're dealing with.

They never get a chance.

They don't really truly get a chance to express themselves and get their needs met.

Yeah.

I mean, some of it's at the hand of the industry.

We've normalized them being in stalls all day every day.

Well, not all day every day, but some show horses are in all day every day.

Yeah.

But we're even just stalled for 12 hours a day and then going out into isolated paddock with no friends and getting three flakes of hay in the morning and at night.

I still see that.

That was something I saw 15 years ago when I first got into horses.

People are still doing that.

But the thing is, the horses are meeting their.

It's draining when that's all you see.

It's exhausting.

I mean, I've seen and heard some things that I'm like, you love your horse, and you're going to say that to me, and you're going to do that.

There's just some things you just can't unhear and unsee, and it's sad, and it's normalized.

And I think so many horses without UCBM even just suffer just due to outdated management practices and species inappropriate management.

— Outdated Management: Species-Inappropriate Care & ECVM Horses

That's really what it comes down to, because it's species inappropriate.

And we haven't, I mean, I think it's getting better, but we haven't fully caught up as an industry as a whole.

For sure.

We actually need physiologically to thrive, not just survive and meet our needs, but to meet their needs.

Exactly.

Yes, exactly.

So it's, I mean, again, some people are at the hands of the industry.

If you're boarding, there's not, you know, not every place offers 24-7 turnout or, you know, whatever.

It's not possible everywhere.

But, so they're not really at fault, but it's just, I'd love to see that start.

It's hard.

It is.

Yeah.

I think it is.

I mean, like with people like us, we're doing the work, we're spreading the word, and you're obviously doing a lot.

So like, this is typically what I do during wrap-up.

So if you, Taylor, did you have any questions?

No, I think we covered a lot of it.

I mean, fortunately, your girls are doing awesome.

So all the more intricate questions don't apply.

I was a little nervous that this wasn't going to be a totally happy ending or this was going to be, you know, like, you're extremely well spoken and obviously very intelligent.

And it's been really nice to listen to the way that you understand them.

Yeah, thank you.

I appreciate it.

I mean, I feel like my brain is rotting out of my head, but I appreciate it.

So girl, we, it's called soup.

It's called brains.

It is soup.

Yeah.

But it's worth it.

It's worth it for the kids.

I'm glad I was go here enough for you.

That's going to be- Oh my gosh.

Are you kidding?

Awesome.

So I typically at the end of our episodes, as long as nobody else has anything else, I like to roll out the red carpet for our guests, especially our professionals.

Is there anywhere that we can find you?

What are you currently working on?

And when are you currently taking clients?

And how can we support you as a professional?

I appreciate that.

I mean, I'm not taking new clients right now just because life is chaotic.

Life.

I'm hoping after I graduate, I can start opening that up a little bit.

But I mean, I have a Facebook page.

It's Magic Hands Equine.

And that's all I have at this time.

I should have made a website by now.

It's been like almost 10 years, but you know.

If you're doing good without it, it's all right.

It's just fun work to manage.

I have enough on my plate.

So I'm pretty happy with it.

I got some good people.

Well, we'll link your website or your Facebook below and in all of our notes and all of our and everywhere that this will be posted, we'll link your resources.

So hopefully you'll get some good referrals from that and you can keep helping horses.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Yeah.

Yeah, of course.

All right, Jess, you take it easy.

We'll talk soon.

Have a good one.

You too.

Bye.

If you or a friend have a topic, story or case study you want us to cover in an episode, visit our website at theredmareproject.com to leave your submission or email us at redmareproject.gmail.com.

And if you have it, please include a cute picture of the horse we will be discussing so we can make it our Facebook page profile picture.

As a reminder for listeners, this content is for educational purposes only and is not meant to diagnose or treat.

We encourage everyone to do their own research and speak with your veterinarian and care team to make sound decisions for your horse's management.

If you like the podcast, please tell a friend, like, subscribe and follow on all the platforms.

Peace.

Equine Complex Vertebral Malformation (ECVM) is a congenital malformation affecting C6 to T2. ECVM is becoming more common and problematic in today’s equine landscape. In this episode, Kahlan and Taylor sit down with equine osteopath in training, Jessica Rein. Jess currently works as a bodyworker at her practice, Magic Hands Equine, and is the proud owner of two ECVM mares. While her girls have two very different ECVM presentations and associated symptoms, Jess has cracked the code on how to manage these two mares specifically. Join us as we learn how Jess has custom built their management protocol to keep her mares happy and well. For more information on ECVM, read anything from Sharon May Davis, and the ladies at Equus-soma, Pamela Eckelbarger and Diane Dzingle. https://www.equus-soma.com Jessica Rein’s practice: https://www.facebook.com/NHETOfficial1 Check out our website updates! https://www.theredmareproject.com/ Email us with your interesting stories. Your horse may be able to help another. redmareproject@gmail.com Taylor CL Schouten, MS, APF-I Hoofcare Practitioner Wild Hoof Equine LLC www.wildhoofequine.com Kahlan Ettere Equine management Wise Choice Equine Wellness LLC Check out our website: www.theredmareproject.com Follow along on social media Facebook: The Red Mare Project Instagram: Wild_Hoof_Equine TikTok: redmareproject

E17: Girl Gang! Kelly’s red mare menagerie: Managing Kissing Spine, Navicular, and Lyme, Oh My!

Tue, 05 May 2026 03:50:30 GMT

Summer is here and so are new friends! Kelly Brann reached out to us via email with not one, but TWO red mare stories to tell. These beautiful ladies have given Kelly a crash course in managing Navicular disease, Lyme, Kissing Spine, metabolic concerns, and some mystery seasonal behavior changes. Join the girls as we hear about Kelly's journey through sight unseen horse purchases, and how she navigated diagnostics and healing her beautiful girls. Learn more about our showcased foundation, Teddy’s Legacy at https://www.teddyslegacy.org/ Email us with your interesting stories. Your horse may be able to help another. redmareproject@gmail.com Taylor CL Schouten, MS, APF-I Hoofcare Practitioner Wild Hoof Equine LLC www.wildhoofequine.com Kahlan Ettere Equine management Wise Choice Equine Wellness LLC Check out our website: www.theredmareproject.com Follow along on Facebook: The Red Mare Project Instagram: Wild_Hoof_Equine

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

— Welcome Back & Introducing Kelly and Her Two Red Mares

I was going to say rump.

Welcome back to another episode of The Red Mare Project.

Coming at us live from Rolex, our new friend Kelly Brann.

Kelly is a Renaissance horsewoman who reached out to us via email.

After taking a 20-year hiatus from the horse world, two Red Mares found their way to her, each with their own set of diagnostic mysteries and healing journeys.

Join us as we discuss how Kelly manages Annabelle's navicular disease and Lyme, while also doing the detective work on the mystery that is Wicked Reese.

Welcome Kelly, Annabelle and Reese.

Welcome to The Red Mare Project.

Okay, now we're recording.

Okay.

So this girl came to us out of the blue.

She says that she was recommended our podcast from her trainer, right?

Hell yeah.

Okay.

Number one, shout out her trainer.

I don't know who her trainer is, so we have to make sure we ask that.

We will do that very soon.

Yes.

Thank you.

You're next.

But she sent us kind of a crazy summary.

She sent us, what is it, four pages in the email?

It's a lot.

Like when you printed it out?

Yeah.

But I will say, reading it, even though the content was really sad because Homegirl is going through it, I love how she wrote.

Dude, right?

I feel like she's our friend already.

Yeah.

She's so eloquent, but also not boring.

I just love the way that she structured the email, just super profesh, but also really approachable.

I'm excited to hear the way she talks.

She seems like she's going to be really cool.

Yeah.

There's, I think, for sure some stuff we need to go over first, because she's got a big one.

She's got two big ones actually.

And they're both red mares, which so on brand, I swear we're not looking for them, but it just seems that the universe is like, no, no, no, we understand the assignment, we got you.

We will send them.

Hey, I love that.

I absolutely love that.

If the only thing that I would change is I would wish we could actually have the horses on so they could tell us what they're feeling and what they have.

All right, so yeah, so Kelly, she sent us two mares, and her story is really cool.

We'll let her tell the backstory of how she got back into horses and stuff, because it's super cute, and how she got them is actually, she is all of us.

Yeah, so relatable.

So yes, all right, so there's two mares here.

We have Annabelle, who is described as a perfect seven-year-old quarter horse, and then there's Reese, who is a sweet, loving kind, almost six-year-old, off the track, they're bred.

So Reese seems to be a little bit more complex.

There's more questions than there are answers with her.

So maybe we should unpack what's going on with Annabelle first, just to give a little bit of context, and then we can pave the way a bit for Reese.

Click VOTE CAST.

Yeah.

Cool.

Okay.

So yeah, why don't you go ahead and go through what Annabelle has, and then we can unpack as we go.

I'm just going to read her synopsis because this lovely email is all for us and it's very long.

Cool.

So she is seven.

She's perfect apparently, and we are dealing with navicular, does not say syndrome or disease, Lyme, maybe IR, and has a history of laminitic episodes.

So all stuff that's really tied pretty closely together.

Interested in hearing how the navicular came up and what came first, ill pain or lamellar pain?

I don't know if she specifically says anywhere, maybe you saw it because you're the details girl.

If we have bony changes or if there was a soft tissue event that caused the navicular, the caudal hoof pain?

I looked at her rads and I didn't see too much that stands out to me with her navicular bone.

But usually, I sent all my, I mean, of course, I'll speak to the vet about it, but I usually send all my navicular views to Sarah.

Sarah Hathaway is our senior navicular correspondent.

Yeah, truly, truly.

But dude, I got to tell you, this is so funny.

I was looking at her solar views and a couple of the obliques, and I was trying to figure out, I was like, what the fuck is on the shoe package?

I was like, I've never seen a setup like this before.

Dude, they were snow pads.

They were rim pads.

I'm from Florida.

I couldn't, so like, I don't know what...

What's a snow pad?

It's just like a little rim pad that goes in there so they don't get snowballs in their feet, so they're not like running around on ball bearings.

Oh, oh, oh, oh.

Yeah, but I've never seen them in a radiograph before.

Why would you?

Why would I?

So, that was a fun little learning for me.

Like, oh, that's what that's...

Hilarious.

Duh, because I was like, this is a really weird border.

Like, I've never seen anything.

No, dumbass.

I'm from the South.

Sorry, guys.

She's a sunshine girl, which is hilarious, because the sun and Taylor do not get along.

Oh, it just burns me.

Yeah.

All right.

So, I didn't see too many really crazy things.

I did see a good bit of thrush, though.

Womp, womp.

Interesting.

Womp, womp.

Could be the calling card, could be the catalyst event.

So, if you do want more information about Navicular, we'll give you guys just like a little, you know, Cliff's Notes version, but we have two and a half really awesome episodes on it.

So...

Yeah, we see them.

Yeah, mm-hmm.

No, sorry.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

Loki's is one that's, you know, obviously a work in progress.

It's my personal story, my personal horse.

But as we said before, our senior Navicular correspondent does have her own episode and she speaks much more intelligently than I can on the subject.

And she has a rehab farm.

So please go listen to King's Heel First Landing because it's an excellent episode about the cutest horse and his determined, badass, intelligent mother.

— Annabelle's Navicular Diagnosis & Lyme Connection

So that's a good reference point.

We've got a couple of different episodes here and there.

So just about horses that have X thing and Navicular.

So, you know, pretty common pathology that horses have, unfortunately.

So, or they're all just finding us because that's what we talk about.

That's true.

But I will say Loki's episode, we did go into a lot of detail on Loki's episode.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

So there's some really good stuff in there.

And what I think, one thing that did kind of pop out about, now has some laminitic episodes.

I may be kind of jumping the gun on this, but this mare is seven.

Like homegirls should, and like don't do this, but technically homegirls should be able to live off of like gas station food and talk about.

And be good.

Yeah, literally.

Right.

So, and the reason I'm like, that's curious is because I remember Dr.

Kellyn, who is our ECIR, like fairy godmother.

She's the queen.

Oftentimes, like if you have a horse who is laminitic or just has some type of itis going on, that could be misdiagnosed as navicular and vice versa.

Oh, true.

That's a good thing to mention.

Right.

So I would, yeah, I would like to know.

But she says maybe IR.

So not that they're mutually exclusive, but that could give us a hint into what we're looking at.

Totally.

Like a truer picture of what we're looking at.

And I'm wondering if the lime causing systemic inflammation has any bearing on either of those two things.

We're in the hoof hurts because of the lime inflammation.

Totally, yeah.

I would think unless it's like a acute soft tissue like my situation, I would think that the like laminitis, the laminitic episodes would be linked.

I would agree with that.

Right?

Because of like angry capillaries?

I would think so.

I could be speaking dumb, but that sounds like the more likely thing to be triggered by that.

I would think so too.

Because I mean, especially like, y'all go back to Loki's episode because we did go into so much detail about it.

But the short of it, so the navicular apparatus, there's a lot of soft tissue in there.

And usually, if we have a horse who's diagnosed with navicular disease, which means that there's already bony changes to the navicular bone, their soft tissue in that apparatus is already pissed off.

Which means that if you have pain in the back of the foot, just logic would reckon that...

Is that the word, how you say that?

Logic, what's the phrase?

Logic would have it?

Logic would...

What the is it saying?

It's fine, we're smart, right?

Logic would have it.

That's what it is.

Look at us go.

I don't know.

But if we...

I don't know, it don't matter.

But if we...

I reckon.

But if we already have changes, if we already have changes to the navicular bone, that means that there already is soft tissue damage or inflammation or irritation.

So the soft tissue is already involved.

Which, if you just kind of follow that line of thinking, Lyme is going to kind of infiltrate that and be an irritant.

And if you have soft tissue damage in the foot that's already really, really sensitive, which means there's not a lot of margin for itis, that's just going to be fire under that whole shit show.

But the same thing could be said of laminitis.

Exactly.

So, that's a tricky, another sticky wicket.

This time on The Red Mare Project, another sticky wicket.

Because also, I mean, I know that you can have stress-induced laminitis.

So, really, as per use, I'm really excited, not excited, I always say that, I'm interested, super pumped, to hear about the timeline where all these things started.

I know she goes into greater detail in the email, but I want to hear it from the horse's mouth.

I want to hear what she was seeing and feeling first, and then what triggered what first.

So, I don't know, it's very interesting.

And this is the straightforward case.

Yeah, this is got another horse way more complicated.

Yeah, all right.

So, let's just kind of like wrap this up into a little bow.

So, navicular, we already kind of went over that.

And again, I didn't really see a lot of changes.

So, I feel like this may be more soft tissue induced.

And I did see some thrush in there, and we don't know what her frogs look like.

She could just be really crazy prolapsed, because I've seen that too.

Yeah, they're going to be land first if they have nothing to land on in the back.

What was that beep?

Was there a beep?

I heard a beep.

Oh, I don't know.

So, check out those episodes for navicular.

And then for Lyme, we just went over Lyme in pretty, not extreme detail, because Lyme is actually kind of a tricky one.

It's above our heads.

Yeah, Lyme's tough.

But Lyme is really characterized, like some of the main hallmark features, it's going to be, they usually tend to get really, really spooky.

There's severe body stiffness that's in there.

But the spooky stuff is really big and really big body sensitivity.

Yeah.

And that's skin to muscle to hearing to everything.

The whole world is just too much for a Lyme horse.

When they're in a flare like that, there's so much inflammation and bullshit going on in their body that everything feels like too much.

Some of them, you can't brush them, you can't touch them, wind scares them.

Like it's just a lot.

But I was also, and this is, I'm looking through your eyes.

I read this with your eyes, unfortunately.

Now I'm hearing, okay, I'm hearing some other for...

I'm skipping ahead.

Okay.

I'm hearing some other stuff go on with the other horse that I'm suspicious of.

— Wicked Reese: Suspecting MFM & Kissing Spine

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, then let's jump into Reese.

So Annabelle, just to wrap it up, navicular, Lyme, maybe some metabolic concerns, but I'm really iffy of that.

I mean, granted, she's a quarter horse, but sister is seven.

And that really kind of...

I've seen it before.

I have a five-year-old mini mule who her insulin is just through the, like, off the charts.

Right.

But that's a mini mule.

True.

They are starting at a deficit in that area anyway.

This is a full-size quarter horse.

True.

And then we have some laminitic episodes, which I don't know if she's actually rotated or if she's just had some itis.

So that's all very curious.

She went on the barefoot route.

We'll let her tell that story, but...

Yeah.

Okay.

Reese.

All right.

Her name is actually Wicked Reese, which is hysterical.

Sick as hell.

So she's a six-year-old off-the-track Thoroughbred, so she comes to us with a confirmed diagnosis of kissing spine, which...

I have feelings.

Big what?

Big feelings.

So, and I looked at her radiographs, and honestly, these are...

There's some bony changes on the DSPs, the dorsal spinous processes, but it's not insane.

If you do want some more information about kissing spine, we do have a really extremely detailed one.

I think it was My Mare's episode, and I think that was the second episode, Kissing Spine Goodbye.

Yeah.

So episode two.

So check that one out.

That one goes into pretty extreme detail.

But one thing that kind of stands out to me, and I actually just learned this this past weekend.

So I did my third whole horse dissection this past weekend with Bex and Aaron, and I'm pretty sure I'm obsessed with dissections.

I think you are too, you little weirdo.

I'm doing another one in the fall.

But I will say the reason why I love them so much dissections is because they are the most insightful and impactful educational experience you can have.

Hands down.

But one little snippet of info that I got from this one.

So Bex has done, she works on a lot of race horses, and she said that she's been noticing that the DSPs or the dorsal spinous processes on thoroughbreds are larger.

Which means if they're bigger, there is less room, which means that there's more.

They're more likely to touch.

Yeah.

Because they got no room.

But that would make sense because if this mare is only six, she likely is in that pool of having congenitally larger DSPs.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

These are young horses.

What a tough situation.

Yeah.

These are both kids.

Yeah.

So yeah, the kissing spine front, and I feel like all of a sudden now, kissing spine is like coming back on scene again.

I feel like it got quiet.

I think so too.

Right.

I don't know if that's because we're in an echo chamber of kissing spine and MSM, and MSM, MFM and navicular.

I feel like those are the three things I hear about all the time, that I wonder if we've created that for ourselves, like we've created that bubble of info.

True.

I mean, it's very possible because it is like, I do feel like I get so much navicular, I get so much MFM, and I get so much kissing spine.

And I feel like it's the same for you.

Yeah.

But, yeah, it just, it's, I don't know if it's coming back again, but I do, I am seeing a decrease in the amount or frequency of the surgery.

I was just going to say, I wonder if, because people are realizing the surgery isn't the only answer, and it's oftentimes not the appropriate answer, so I wonder if there's been a renaissance in education because of that, because I know it's not a super old thing.

We haven't known about it for that long, and the surgery hasn't been done for that long.

Initially, when a problem is discovered, that's the natural way of it happening.

Problem is discovered, there's a medical response to it.

Everyone goes directly to that one clear medical response, because that's the only answer that we have, which is the surgery, and then we learn more and we figure out other modalities and other ways to fix the pathology.

So I think maybe we're just in that part of the journey of it.

I think so too, and that's really well said, because I think we are kind of starting to sway away from it and realize like, no, there's a more conservative route to do this.

And actually, two, I don't know if anecdotes is the right word, but two stories that kind of like support that.

So even yesterday, this is crazy, even yesterday, I was working on a client horse, and this mare has fused dorsal spinous perviasis.

Her back, it's just one shark fin.

It's- God, how many?

I think eight.

Holy shit.

But her back isn't painful.

Like if you palpate- Well, I guess.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I guess.

I don't know.

It's like her back is not painful, which is very curious.

Even her owner and I were like, well, that doesn't make any sense.

And then there was another person in the barn and I'm going to start working on this person's horse.

And she was saying that this horse was diagnosed with kissing spine.

And it was so funny.

We started chatting and we exchanged numbers.

And this is totally de-identified.

So it's fine that I share this story because I feel like this happens to a lot of people.

We exchanged numbers and I went to text her my number.

And she actually, we chatted about me working on this horse.

I think it was like six months ago.

It happened to me literally like two weeks ago.

I was like, oh, hey, yeah, hey, we're back.

I told her, the story was, and there's a reason for this whole work around, is when we chatted originally, she was like, we're going to do the surgery.

— The Surgery Decision: Kelly Pushed Back & Was Right

And I said, listen, girl, I cannot participate in this rehab if you're going to go ahead and do the surgery.

I just, for personal reasons, I'm going to excuse myself.

If you decide to go to the conservative route and not do the surgery, I'm your girl.

Let's do it.

And when I saw her yesterday, I guess she had changed her tune over that time period and she was very anti-surgery and she never did it.

So we're working together now.

Let's go.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Making friends.

So I do think that there's been like a shift away from it.

Yeah.

And that's natural.

Like we see that in the human medicine world all the time, you know, like, you know, statin's work, statin, statin, statin, statin, statin, statin, and then after they've been around for so long and we realized there's a better way.

Okay.

How about lifestyle?

How about this peptide?

How about changing your diet?

You know, like, it's just the natural way of things, which that is not to disparage any vets who have done or prescribed the surgery.

Totally understand.

And it's, they have helped a lot of forces.

We just know better now.

We know that that may not be the thing that we have to do.

So, I think that's well covered.

Do you want to move on to her next pathology?

Can I tell one other really cool story?

Yes, of course.

So, the last story I want to mention, I'll make this one quick, but this is just to kind of drive home the power of training a horse correctly and how you can use that with conservative treatments.

So, my trainer, and I am going to name drop her because we're going to have her on shortly.

So, Sarah Scroth of Unlimited Dressage, she is the prodigy of Paul Belasic, who I've also ridden with him too, and he's terrific.

So, one of Sarah's clients, who's a good friend of mine, her horse has, I believe, like three contact points for kissing spine, and they take him every, I think like six or eight months or something like that, just to get him worked on and checked out, blessed, and they oftentimes inject all three DSP points, all the contact points.

And this horse is Ben and Sarah's program.

I couldn't tell you how long, but she's consistent.

She's consistent.

And when they went back this time to Radiograph, they're originally, when they first got this horse, three points.

They are down to one point.

Shut up.

One point.

Yeah.

So, what we learn from this, kids, if you train your horse correctly, and don't let them kind of dump on the forehand, I'm not gonna get into all that, but if you ride your horse correctly, you can develop correct musculature, and you can open up the back.

Mic drop.

Yeah.

And also trigger for a shame spiral for a lot of people.

So, we learn better, we do better.

You are always the sunshine.

I think we take turns.

Oh my God.

Thank you for doing that.

Okay.

I say it that way because I know that I up.

That was for me.

Do what?

That was for me.

It's for all of us.

I'm looking at myself.

Yeah.

It's for all of us.

We've all been there.

Okay.

So, enough of me rambling.

So, okay.

The other stuff.

Tell us about the other stuff with Reese.

Oh God.

So much other stuff.

Okay.

Weird right front lameness ever so slightly.

Wild and psychotic in winter because of undiagnosed.

Insert pathology here.

She doesn't know it's undiagnosed.

Her red flags are, she's very sensitive.

So, she's really reactive to things like her.

Even flies are just really bothering her.

Her saddle pad, she specifically mentions, you have to quickly get your saddle on because if the pad sits there for too long, it's going to slide back because she's twitching so much, her fly response is just crazy.

She can be reluctant to go forward, says in the fall, which is a really helpful hint.

Wasn't sure if she was in pain, just thinking about pain, anticipating pain, ghost pain, whatever the situation is, but reluctant to go forward in the fall.

Winter, she's total psycho.

Super protective of her body, doesn't want to be touched.

She just wants to sit in her stall or in the paddock.

It just freaks out when anything is asked of her, including fucking, running wild, total freak out moment.

Specifically says in winter.

Interesting.

Really enjoys bodywork, gets a lot of bodywork and some serious anxiety, specifically being separated from her sister.

She is on an excellent diet here.

We'll let her go more into that and how she learned how to do that.

If she's got anything cool to mention there, but her diet looks great.

Really, the rest of her pathology is just question marks, but there are some hints there that I'm really excited to get into.

What are you thinking?

I have a thought in my head, but I want to know if it matches you, your thought.

Well, she's got some of the same stuff as Leah, right?

Sure.

Some of the same stuff as Stella.

She's got, this original, this initially sounds like ulcers to me.

Sure.

But I'm more interested in the, when she says she's freaking out, when she says she's wild, what does that mean?

Is that blind panic?

Because that's a huge hit.

If it's specifically in winter, she's cold, her muscles are tense, what's going on there?

Yeah, that's true.

And she did say that her trainer sent her, I think it was the, was it the MFM episode?

It may have been.

Hold on, hold on.

I don't think she said exactly which episode it was.

Oh, I think you're right.

I think you're right.

It's because that's like the first sentence.

Yeah.

She just said she has it, oh, okay, she was sent later in a paragraph, she said, yeah, I was sent your episode of MFM, which is something I'd never heard of because I had an issue with one of my girls that I can't seem to find the answer to.

— Finding The Red Mare Project: A Community Connection

So, what's interesting, and it makes sense, like she does, like, I think recognizing if it is blind panic or if there's more to it, but I went to a vitamin E myopathy or vitamin E deficiency because it happens in the fall.

That's true.

She said that she tested for it, so I want to know what test she did.

I think it was a serum test because shortly after- That's garbage.

Pardon?

That's garbage, then.

Yeah.

So we need a biopsy regardless.

Yeah.

We need some biopsies.

Yeah, she did not do one.

Yeah, and this is, I'm just quoting my vet on this one, so if anyone jumps down my throat with this.

So my vet says that the vitamin E serum testing is trash, and it makes sense because it's so transient throughout the day.

The only way you can truly assess for vitamin E is through muscle biopsy.

But I wonder, because she does, oh, okay, she doesn't say she's on it.

Yeah, and omniate, one serving omniate is only 1,000 I use, so that's barely enough to sustain life.

W3 oil is on, that's negligible amounts.

I don't, yeah, I don't see that, if she did a selenium test that it would have been on serum or red blood cells.

So I'm assuming that's what happened there.

Yeah, because I mean, she's, I can't remember exactly where in the planet she is, but if she has radiographs with snow pads, I'm assuming she does not have grass for the winter.

Yeah, yeah, and that fall, getting into the fall there, she probably, okay, well, no, we're getting ahead of ourselves.

We are, yeah, but we just get excited.

So she's at Rolex, which is so fucking cool.

And today is, right, like what a dope ass backdrop.

Oh, yeah, I'm wondering how she's gonna, I wonder if she's gonna be on her phone or did she bring a computer?

I have questions.

I don't know.

I don't know, but today is stadium and I would love for her to have stadium in the background.

In the background, yeah.

But, because actually that would be pretty dope if we're just like all chatting and then we get to watch Rolex in the background.

All right, well, I think she's here.

You ready?

Yes, let's go.

Cool.

Hey.

Our new friend is here.

Hello.

Hi, how are you?

Hey, Kelsey.

Hey, are you having so much fun?

I am having so much fun.

I am so tired though.

I am definitely running out of gas.

I didn't sleep very good last night.

Today's the last day where we're going to push through.

We're going to make it happen.

Oh my God.

Did you stay in a hotel or are there like camping?

What are you in?

We rented an Airbnb.

That's what we generally do.

Yeah.

Then we could cook and go home at night and stuff.

But let me show you guys where I'm at.

Oh my gosh.

How exciting.

I know.

If it gets too loud here, just let me know and I can move.

But I was like, oh, that'd be the perfect place to sit.

Yeah.

Hotelists, what have you been doing?

Okay.

So I tell you what, the thing that I've loved to see the most, I have a few favorites.

Of course, everybody loves Voight Martin.

Alyssa Wallace was fabulous.

She's cool.

She stopped.

She's great.

We volunteered for two days.

We were right there at the action, right down where you walk in and out of the Versace Gate.

You could see all of them.

I'm not touching their horses, but I was that close.

Alyssa Wallace was great.

Emma Clugman is fabulous.

I love seeing all the thoroughbreds competing.

Monica Spitzer on her Thoroughbred Artists was doing fabulous yesterday in the cross country, and I think she won the dressage.

That was pretty cool.

Just watch some of the clinics, the shopping.

Oh, the shopping.

Yeah, the shopping.

I know.

I was like, I'm not buying anything, and then like, but it's on sale.

Oh, you have to buy something.

I'm not buying anything.

Come on.

Famous last words.

I bought a couple of things.

Yes, always.

Man, that's so cool that you're there.

I've only got to go once, and it was like, I felt so bad for my mare when I got home, because I was like, oh, well, now we're Avengers, and now we're going to do all this shit.

Oh, Annabelle has no idea what's in store for her.

I've watched this clinic with Don, double Dan, no, Dan, Dan James.

I think his name is Double Dan Horsemanship.

He does like filming for the movies, like training the horses for movies and whatnot, and he was doing all these tricks and having them rear up and run away and go land on a spot.

I was like, okay, this is what we're going to be doing now.

As soon as I get home, we are going to start trick training.

That stuff is so fun.

I'll take that over riding.

If I never get to ride my horse again, as long as I can do that stuff, it's so fun.

It's such a good bonding time with your horse, and you get to really see them and hear them.

It's very different than riding.

It's fabulous.

Annabelle loves to play anyway.

She's like a giant lab, and I think she would love it.

We already do some playing, but this is definitely next level, and I am down.

That's awesome.

You'll have to keep us updated.

Send us videos of the stuff you're doing.

Of course, we'll do.

Awesome.

Kahlan, do you want to go ahead and lay down the groundwork in the game plan for today?

Rules and Regulations.

You can say whatever you want.

If you can freely curse to your heart's content or not, whatever you want.

If there's something that you say and you want to cut out, let us know even on the spot.

If you're like, oh, I shouldn't have said that, just say, Taylor, cut that out.

She's a genius wizard.

She's our disc jockey.

Also, because we've had, this week has been a huge week for growth for us with our other project that we have going on with our retail, and then also with the podcast, we've had a lot of communication from strangers, so we want to be really careful moving forward to not make people paranoid, because a lot of what we highlight is weird stuff, and we don't want anybody to be like, oh, shit, my horse has this and this and this and this and this and this and this.

— Podcast Growth, Retail & A Big Week for the Show

So I think how we want the game plan to go is to really focus on Annabelle.

And then obviously, you'll naturally go into Reese's story.

Obviously, that's your second child.

But I want, when we get there, let's be clear about like, we don't actually have a diagnosis for this.

This is the mystery.

And then I was thinking maybe if when things kind of piece themselves back together, we could even do update episode or we could do update post about your horses to highlight like, yes, she's a badass owner, she's not paranoid, she took the steps and she's doing the detective work.

Because we don't want to come off as like true crime, but horses, we don't want to be like, something's wrong with my horse and they're all dying.

Because people tend to contact us and they're little.

People can be, yeah, because they care so much.

They're like reactive.

Yeah, exactly.

Yes.

Exactly.

And we want them to be responsive and like, listen to the good that you're doing listening to your horses and that's for everybody, not just the doom and gloom of it.

Yeah.

No, absolutely.

I totally get what you're saying.

Cool.

I can't think of a good clue anyway.

Yeah.

I'm really, really, really impressed with my girls.

I love them to death.

I have had my moments, but yeah, I'm not doom and gloom.

This is our life and we're making it work.

Yes.

Awesome.

That's the whole point.

I love that.

Okay.

So do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to get your, I love the story that you sent us.

You are always.

Truly.

Yeah.

So I do have two girls.

I'm normally an air traffic controller.

That's my full-time job, but I guess I used to be in horses.

I went to college for horses way back in the day.

Then just life got in the way and I quit riding, quit horse, quit all of it for 20 years.

Then one day, my husband said his friend moved nearby and had horses.

Do I want to go visit them?

I was like, nope, absolutely not.

Then he was like, but I told him that you like horses.

I was like, okay, listen, we'll go visit, but don't go saying she loves to ride or something like that.

Because if they're like, let's tack them up, I'm going to panic and run out of there.

So we did, we went over and it took one second.

It was the smell, the feel, like I was instantly.

Like head first, diving, don't care where I'm going.

So then I called the local bar.

I said, I'm going to sign up for lessons like yesterday.

And they were like, absolutely, that's great.

We don't have adult classes.

I'm like, I don't care.

Let me with the kids.

We'll do that.

And I was like, you can do it, it's fine.

I won't bother the kids, I promise.

And she did, she put, I think I pestered them enough.

She put me in a kids class.

In the first class, it was like walk, trot, and then it was, and I'm fine with that.

And then it went through, everybody lined up in the middle, we're going to take turns cantering.

And I was like, oh my God, I have to canter by myself in front of all these kids and they're looking at me.

I was terrified.

Kids are ruthless too.

Kids are ruthless.

I could hear the judgment.

It was, so yeah.

But they were great kids, honestly.

They were, they were, and it was my go.

And I took off to canter and it was like I never left it.

So I was like, okay, I need more.

I need more of this.

And that led into leasing a horse and this little feisty halflinger.

And that was kind of, I thought I'll get you back into it.

It did.

And her owners were fabulous.

They offered for me to buy a share of her and I was like all in.

And then I was like, what am I thinking?

I am a quarter worst girl to my core.

So I started shopping around.

I was like, I can't buy a horse.

I can't afford a horse.

I don't know what to do with one.

I can't buy one.

Let me make some calls.

Yes.

I called some friends and I said, do you have anybody?

Do you know anybody?

And they were like, oh yeah, we have this one red mare next door.

She's fabulous.

Everybody loves her.

Only catches.

She's on auction right now and ends in six hours.

And I'm like, oh boy, what am I going to do?

But the more I looked at her pictures, the more I watched her videos, I was just fear goggles.

I was in heaven.

I had to have her.

Fear goggles all over.

So here I am.

I'm like, I'm so distracted.

I don't know how I'm making it through life.

I'm laying in bed with my husband watching a movie.

I've got my phone on to the side of me, and I signed up for a bidding number just in case, and drinking some wine.

You know how that goes.

Dude, the phone's like tucked behind, so he can't see the screen.

It's like to, like, I can't see it.

It's to the side.

Oh my God.

Trying to pay attention to the movie, trying to pay attention to this bid.

I couldn't tell him.

And it's not, it's not because he would be upset.

I don't know what it was.

I just couldn't tell him.

You felt like you were doing some of the noddies.

I was, and I didn't want him to talk me out of it, right?

Yeah, you're there.

What's the worst thing that could happen?

I buy this horse, it doesn't work out, I sell her, whatever, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Of course, that's not how it works out, but.

— Kelly's Origin Story: The Auction, the Bidding War & Annabelle

So, yeah, I'm like, I'm bidding, I'm bidding on her, and then I'm in a bidding war, and then I'm like, absolutely not.

I am not losing this horse.

So, then I'm starting to strategically bid way higher, so my auto bids win, and then it ended, and I won, y'all.

And then I turned around, my husband's like, I'm going to go to bed, and I'm like, we're not really that tired right now.

I'm just going to go downstairs, hang out.

I go downstairs, they're like, oh my God, I just bought a horse, I'm texting all my friends, I just bought a horse, I just bought a horse.

It was, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't sleep, and then I was like, wait a minute.

Holy fuck, I just bought a horse.

I don't have a brush, I don't have a hoof pick, I don't know where to board her, I don't even know how to get her here from North Carolina, what the hell am I going to do?

Then it was like panic mode.

Yeah.

But whatever, I just went into machine mode, I was like, I'm going to make it happen.

Could not wait for my husband to wake up the next morning.

I was down in bed, I'm like, I'm doing my fingers together, and as soon as he cracked an eye, I was like, I got something to tell you.

I did something last night, and I'm like, oh my God, he's probably thinking I'm running out on him.

I don't know.

He has something crazy.

But he was like, did you buy a horse?

I'm like, oh my God, yes, I did.

He was like, I was like, do you want to see her?

He was like, no, I don't.

I was like, what?

I don't know how he just guessed it.

I think because I started to talk horse 24-7.

But yeah, he did finally come around.

But he wasn't down like I was.

Girl, you are all of us.

Yeah.

God.

There is a switch that turns on deep inside a horse girl.

When you see a horse that you want, there is nothing that you would not do to get to that animal.

It's like primal.

Yeah.

I fully believe you would have run there and grabbed her and run home.

Totally.

That's so awesome.

Yeah.

I think everything happens for a reason in my brain.

I think I was meant to have her.

I was meant to have Reese.

It just happened.

Anyway, I get all the stuff, details done, she's getting shipped up.

She's in the middle of an ice storm, like in Southern New Hampshire.

Where on the planet are you?

Where in the states are you?

I am in Southern New Hampshire.

I live in Southern New Hampshire.

Got it.

Not to get my house address, but yeah.

No, you're good.

New England.

You're in New England.

Got it.

I'm in New England.

It's cold.

We have an ice storm.

Girlfriend's getting shipped up.

She's just turned three-year-old, no hair, animal.

But I'm excited to have my like rainbows and butterflies moment, you know, with her coming off the trailer.

Oh yeah.

But they get there.

They realize they can't get up our driveway.

They park in the road.

They can't get her off the trailer, by the way.

She refuses to back off.

So they're like, do you want to come get your horse?

Now I'm terrified, but I'm like, yeah, sure.

Let me go get her.

I go get her and I'm like, all right, nice to meet you.

Can you back off?

I get her off the trailer in the middle of the road, cars are angry, beeping the horn and now I'm walking this brand new horse with these little aluminum shoes on her feet, which you can't have in ice.

Yeah.

Up this icy path, I'm trying to find any little patch of snow I can find.

I'm like, this is great.

Nice to meet you.

Now you're going to die because you're going to, sorry about that, break a leg, putting you down.

This is what's going through my head.

Of course.

So anyway, we make it safely to the barn.

And then I have my like, whoo, nice to meet you for real moment.

But it wasn't, it wasn't the rainbows and butterflies that I wanted.

But it was exciting nonetheless.

But yeah, that's how I got her.

That was a long story.

But I love that story.

That's hilarious and amazing.

I know she, it was just meant to be.

Everything was great.

So yeah, I had her.

She was great.

She was feisty.

She was way above my pay grade.

She was just really green.

So I was like, I can't do this.

I had to get a trainer.

I had a trainer come in and she started.

We basically started her again from the ground up, which was amazing, super great because it was good learning for me.

For sure.

To literally start from base.

So that whole year, that whole first year I had her, she was really great.

I started writing her pretty quickly a few months in, and then we went to our first show in June of that year.

I got her in January, went to her show in June.

It was just a baby show.

Wow, that's awesome.

Waters.

Yes, that's the Waters.

What year is this?

It was in 2022.

Got it.

Okay.

All right, cool.

Keep going.

Took her to the show.

She was fabulous.

We did all the trail stuff and the Western classes and everything was great.

Except, we got to the last class of the day, started in the showmanship class, went up to Colnay and I was so excited.

And Judge says, go ahead and go to back her up because that was the first obstacle.

And girlfriend stood straight up in the air.

I literally like looked at her with my arms out and I was like, what are you doing?

Like everybody's like standing around us going, oh, you know the gas.

I know the gas.

She stood, she got back down, we finished our test.

I apologized to the judge and we still actually placed in the class.

Hell yeah.

I was so proud of her.

But that was the first moment that like something started to be like a thing.

Yeah.

My friend at the show was like, you should test her for Lyme.

And I'm like, what?

Okay, sure.

I kind of shrugged it off.

— First Red Flags: Shrugging Off the Early Clues

Directly to that?

Yeah.

To the rare up.

That's what she said.

She's a fabulous horse woman.

A lot of experience.

And I was like, okay, whatever.

So then I took her home and no sense in being home a week or two.

Bad symptoms.

Well, I'm not bad, but weird symptoms started happening.

She started to be very like body angry, don't touch me, and this girl loves, now she's like scratch me here, now scratch me there.

Now under here, she was very light sensitive.

If we were riding and the light changed, she couldn't handle it.

She was spooking and she was head tilting.

That was one of the odd things that I hadn't heard from a lot of people before, but head tilting.

And so I did call the vet out and she was very live positive.

And yeah, so we started our own doxy then.

And she got pretty much better pretty quickly.

It started rolling again.

But these are all the things that I wish I could, I know myself now could go back and watch again because I would have caught things so much earlier.

Of course.

Yeah.

So that was it.

You know, one thing I kind of forgot to mention when she did come to me, my girlfriend had size triple au-t shoes on.

That's how tiny her feet were.

Oh.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh my God, aren't they so cute?

And you know, looking back now, I'm like, what's wrong with you?

Yeah.

I think it's like when you want to fit in a size zero, you're like, oh, I want it.

No.

This is not why she was not cute at three years old, not cute at all.

Wow.

What's going on with her feet now?

Tell us that journey because that's not an overnight thing.

No, that's not an overnight thing.

And again, this is where I like love to get the story out because if I only knew then what I know now, that I think maybe some of these things would have maybe not necessarily been completely prevented, but definitely would have been not maybe as bad as it got.

And I would have been way on more top of things.

So I did get original threads from the farrier when she first got there, just to kind of have a baseline.

And I don't know that they've necessarily changed a ton with like the way things are aligned in there, but girlfriend had some feet.

And the little tiny feet was the first of it.

I had a farrier, we tried barefoot at the time.

She was a little out, she says, she said, put shoes on her.

I said, okay, I literally listened to everybody blindly.

Yeah, I didn't try to learn about feet.

You know, now I'm deep diving into everything I can.

But yeah, I just listened to everybody.

It's a journey.

Yep, had shoes on her.

And then I ended up switching to another farrier.

And he was just sure the way he wanted to.

Now, mind you, one of the huge signs that I was having as well is she was not good for the farrier.

With back feet, her back feet were naked.

She would stand there and fall asleep.

When you got to the front feet, you were wrestling her.

Yep.

Had to stand her up against a wall or move her to the another wall.

And then we started doing her in her stall.

Like she, the anxiety was pouring out of this girl.

And I was just not, it's not that I wasn't seeing it.

I saw it and I was just like, I didn't know what to do with that information.

I kind of just sat it back in the back burner.

Yeah.

My horse is not good for the farrier.

I know she, something's going on, but I was just like, I don't know what to do with it.

So let me just not talk about it.

Well, it's easier to treat it like its behavior if you have no idea.

Like, yeah, because at that point you're trying to keep yourself and your farrier safe.

Yeah.

And then you just do the learning on the back end and then do better with new information.

Like it's so much, it's such a journey.

Like you're already doing a great job, obviously.

But it's, it's, it's hard.

Yeah.

So that was all in the first year or two.

And she was great.

We were doing things.

We were going to clinics, we were going to the beach, going to do mountain trail courses.

Like she loves to go places.

She is an explorer.

And, and again, looking back, I bet, I bet there was a lot more sides.

Like I remember her being really tired at the end of this, some of these clinics and getting very, very irritable.

And I, I just kind of shrugged it off that she just couldn't hang through the day, but very well muscled.

She, we, I did a lot of stuff with her.

Like I think she should have been able to hang.

I think her feet were probably hurting her.

And she was like, you need to get off of me and get off my feet because this is not feeling good.

So those, like, I won't stand in the lineup to get a ribbon kind of thing.

Or, you know, at the end of a clinic, they're trying to explain final day things.

And my horse is, you know, she's done, baited and just pinning ears and just you can tell, like she's just screaming it out.

Not happy.

You know, it wasn't that she was, I think her feet hurt.

Yeah.

And I mean, like for hoof care too, like even at appointments, I have this conversation with clients like all the time too.

It's that's where like the real, like that's the magic trick is being able to parse out, okay, is this like, are they communicating something?

Like, are they actually painful?

Or are they struggling to figure out how to balance?

Or is it an education thing?

And that's the magic trick to be able to piece out all of this.

And sometimes it's all three, sometimes it's two out of the three.

So that's, that can be really hard to kind of tease apart.

Well, you didn't even have her along, you know, like you didn't know it's normal.

It did kind of get progressively worse, the front knee problem.

— Progressive Lameness: Front Knee & Deeper Hoof Issues

Sure.

So it was definitely more of a clue that there was some sort of something going on in there.

Yeah.

The two parts that she really struggled with were, she can't put her left front up on a stand, like when you stretch it out.

Yeah.

She can't do that with the left front specifically.

And when you're banging nails into her feet, she's just like, no way.

Like the farrier is constantly dropping and it wasn't his fault.

It was her, like she's strong, you know?

And he was very, very patient with her.

Sure.

But I think these things should have been a lot more of a bigger red flag into our faces.

You know what I mean?

Like, why is she doing this?

You know?

So yeah, that was just kind of like another sign that I was just like pushing aside that I have regret over.

You know, I just listened a little bit more and just hopped on the infamous Facebook.

You know, I guess that's our necessary evil for information.

Right.

And I don't know.

But her toes were really, really long.

I didn't know anything about it.

I literally was just wrangling her.

He was shooing her and I was like, oh, thank you.

Here's your payment.

Yeah.

I didn't ask questions.

You know, I didn't do anything.

So there that that was happening.

Let's see.

Then she honestly started to get some of her Lyme symptoms back again in November.

This was November 23.

Okay.

So we did go without Lyme for quite a while.

Well, it stays there.

I know it stays there.

But we did go without Lyme symptoms for quite a while.

Then all of a sudden she kind of got symptomatic again, and was just angry body again, the head tilting, the same things.

So I just called the vet.

She did another Lyme test.

Tom, it was up to 16,000, the OSDF is pretty high.

So, yeah, we did another round of DOCSY, and she started to feel better again.

And then she wasn't feeling better again.

That was starting to go into winter for that year, and she was starting to have issues again.

She started to look a little lame.

And so, I had my vet come out, and my normal vet, she would just basically do our vaccines and stuff.

She wasn't a huge lameness vet, and she would tell you that.

So, she was just like, this is not my wheelhouse.

So, she came out.

Yeah, she came out, she looked at her, she said physically, there's nothing really wrong with her.

You should take her to the Equine Hospital up here in New England.

So, I did.

I respect that.

The thing was, even though I didn't know what I didn't know, I was willing to do all the things.

No expert, here's my credit cards, take them.

They will get whatever they need.

They will want for nothing.

So, yeah, we took her right on up to the hospital, dropped her off for three days, and that's when they did all the testing and stuff, and declared her navicular.

Okay.

I don't know if you got a chance to look at those x-rays.

We did do a nuclear body scan on her.

Yet, I also asked them to scope her for ulcers while they were there.

They did.

Since she had some mild stomach ulcers as well.

Yeah.

But- Which is pretty, I mean, that's to be expected with pain and travel.

The doxy, I'm sure, destroyed her gut.

Yeah.

I was on earlier.

I don't know if you've ever taken it, but it will make you feel like dog shit.

Destructive.

I didn't know.

I did give her probiotics.

I don't think they did much, but now I honestly probably wouldn't do that again.

Most of the ones on the market are just expensive snacks.

Yeah.

Yep.

I do want to go back to the lime real quick though, so just because I feel like the head tilting, is that common?

Is that?

It's strange.

I have read that in the Internet, that head tilting is a thing.

I think it's one of those things you might overlook, but I would put her on the lunge line.

Obviously, if you're riding them, you can keep them where you want them sometimes, but you put her on the lunge line, she would cock her head to the side and just go right around.

Okay.

I was like, huh?

That also makes you go to the side and go, huh?

Was it always in the same direction, or did it change based off of direction of travel?

I believe she always tilts it to the left.

Okay.

Interesting.

I just remember it being head tilting, and I was like, wait, what's that?

That's weird.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Then just really protective of her body, and then the light thing.

Was it more like shadows, like her eyes couldn't adjust to shadows, or was it she couldn't handle brightness?

It couldn't handle the brightness.

Really?

Okay.

Yeah.

We have an indoor up there, obviously, because I'm in the Northeast, and where the windows are and the light shines through, as soon as we hit any of those spots, it was just instant change in her, and it would make her almost do spook-like symptoms, but it was just because the light was the problem.

Wow.

So does she go in goggles?

Does she wear goggles now?

No, she's fine now.

It's just when she's symptomatic.

I'd like to add, I did start researching more holistic Lyme treatments.

I got the book Healing Lyme off of Amazon by Stephen Bunner.

You know what I love about that book is he's so practical.

He's like, if you're here just for the treatment, skip all this other crap, go to page 212, and there you go.

That's awesome.

If you want to deep dive into Lyme, here you go.

I did end up treating her with that as well.

That was after the second dose of Doxy, but I gave her like Fetum and Japanese Knotwood, Cat's Claw, Lyme, Nozo drops that we had at our local holistic pharmacy, and then I used the first response in the aftercare from Hilton Herbs as well.

I love that company.

— Gut Health Protocol: The Product That Made the Difference

Yeah.

That made the most difference of all of it, and it wasn't destructive to her stomach.

Yeah, for sure.

Well, that's probably part of why it makes a difference too.

So much of the immune system is in the gut microbiome and in the way that your gut interacts with the rest of your system.

So it's such a scorched earth approach, which in a lot of situations is really necessary.

But if you can avoid it now that you know, that helps her in every way.

Like, you're going to have more longevity out of the horse.

You're going to have more, like the relief of symptoms is going to look different.

You're not going to have to have the rebuilding process the same.

Like that's, it's just the way to do it.

Yeah.

The gut is so, so important to your entire body.

I have that issue with myself and it's just changed my own world.

So now I apply it to my horses.

I mean, I protect their gut a lot now.

Yes.

Good.

Yeah.

Their guts, like my number, very high.

I don't know if it's my number one, but it's very high up there in the priority list.

Yeah.

Feet and tummies.

Feet and tummy.

Yeah.

Tell us more.

You said that she had started to look lame which is what triggered you to ask your vet, and then she told you to go to the hospital, you had a workup and she was diagnosed with vicular.

Tell us more about that lameness.

Where are we in that now?

Where are we in that part of the journey?

Where we are now in that part of the journey is that, I wrote her last week for the second time since August.

Now she's on a barefoot journey, but she does not look lame on a lunge line.

If I have her in the arena, you wouldn't think there was anything wrong with her.

She's still toe-first landing without her boots on.

But we're working.

I told her she's looking like a broodmare, and we got to get back to work.

We got to get this body back together.

Your summer bottom.

I want to dig.

I know.

I was like, this is happening, so let's go.

I guess when I wrote her the other day, I wrote her literally for less than 10 minutes at a walk.

That's where we are right now.

But we're getting there.

And my baby steps, I mean baby steps.

We're baby steps.

A hundred million thousand shillion percent understand.

Yes.

But she's good.

She's going okay in boots.

She wears Cavalos.

Great.

Cavalos and I use wool pads in them.

You like them?

Great.

Okay.

She loves the Cavalos.

They last forever.

I'm in the same pair I originally are.

I know they do.

I wish they worked out better for my horse, but just his general shape, they're so perfectly round.

Yeah.

They don't work for all Hoof shapes, but they're killer if they work for your horse.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

I have the slim version and they fit better.

But yeah, my thoroughbred can't wear them.

They won't work for her for sure.

Yeah.

But Annabelle, they're great.

Yeah.

I'm looking at her.

Go ahead, Kahlan.

Sorry.

No.

I was just going to ask, do you turn her out in boots?

Where are you in that?

Yeah.

She's in M-237 basically.

I originally was trying to keep them off of her night to give her feet a break.

But I'm at a boarding barn and sometimes they don't get put on quite like I would like to have put on because I'm super credibly picky now.

No.

Mommy has to do it.

Trust me.

You have to do it.

Yeah.

I've taught a couple people how to do it, but otherwise she's 23.

I go see them pretty much every day.

I give her feet breaks and stuff.

If we have in the snow, when it was snowing a lot over the winter, I would let her go out naked feet because they would just pack with snow anyway, and it was soft.

So she did get some time out the winter with nothing on.

Yeah.

Totally.

No, that's a good question about turnout, if she's going booted or not.

I'm looking at her radiographs.

I saw her 2018 ones.

Yeah.

She's just tiny, tiny, tiny.

Tiny.

Yeah.

So awesome work on that.

I had another thing.

I was looking back through, hold on.

We have a lot of radiographs here.

Where are her most recent ones?

Yeah. 22.

Okay.

The most recent ones were done just a few months ago.

So I think that sent you a link almost.

Yeah.

Here we go.

Okay.

I got them here.

Also, when you go back and listen to this, it was so funny.

There was such a moment.

I was looking at her radiographs when she was in shoes, and I was like, what is this package?

She had a snow rim pad on.

Yeah.

She's from Florida.

I'm from Florida.

I was like, what is this?

And then it finally clicked.

Oh, okay.

Ha, ha, ha.

Now we just don't know what it looks like.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's so funny.

There's a couple snow pad options.

Yeah, that was a funny blonde moment for me.

No, she's looking pretty good.

She's a little thin-soled, which I guess that makes sense.

Yeah.

Yeah, she got a little corium compression in here.

But yeah, whoever's working on her, hats off to her.

Very good.

Yeah, she's doing a good job.

All right, so we're still toe-first without, and we're doing some of our walks, our hot girl walks.

What else is going on in that journey?

So what else is going on with her is, well, she has gotten injections a couple of times.

ProStride is what I've been using.

I never did steroids or anything.

I have an amazing sports medicine vet.

And the very first time she came back from the Equine Hospital, they had put her at four-degree wedges.

And right out the gate, and I didn't know any better, honestly, but it was a lot.

Yeah, from nothing to just bumping her up to these two.

So I was like, let me just message my sports med vet.

I hadn't been a client of him yet, but I had met him at our barn.

And I was like, you know what, fuck it.

— Two AM Vet Call & Finding the Sports Medicine Vet

It's two o'clock in the morning.

I was at work.

I said, I said, I'm gonna email him.

You know what?

Because sometimes the vets feel like they're unreachable, right?

Yeah.

I said, fuck it, I'm gonna email him.

I emailed him and I said, listen, this is what's happening with my horse.

This is what they said.

Here's all her records.

Can you see me?

Send.

What can happen?

By 5.55 in the morning, he had emailed me back.

He had marked up all of my x-rays to tell me what was wrong with them.

He had told me that I need to get her out of the wedges.

That was completely inappropriate for her.

He was like, I can come see you today.

I was like, what?

Yes.

Yeah, shout out.

Does he have a partner in Texas?

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

How does he won the lottery?

I know.

He actually does go to Texas A&M a lot and teaches and stuff.

Yeah.

He's fabulous.

He's all up and down the East Coast.

It's hard to get him.

It really is hard to get him.

I couldn't believe I got him.

Well, not for you.

He says it's awesome.

I know.

I couldn't believe it.

We call him the all-day vet because he will spend five or six hours with your horse.

He only does one horse a day.

Maybe he will do two at the same barn, but he will do it with you all day.

He will evaluate every square inch of her.

I was like, let me tell you what she's doing.

He's like, no, don't bother.

He was like, I already know what she's doing.

I'll tell you what she's doing after I evaluate her.

And we go in like, yep, told you.

And I was like, oh my God, you're so right.

Oh my gosh, I'm so jealous of you right now.

The great thing about him is he loves to teach.

So he will draw in the sand.

He will pull out his laptop.

He will go through everything with you.

That's great.

Yeah, that's probably why he's all set five to six hours with you, because he talks nonstop.

Yeah, and you're like soaking it up every word.

You know what else he's great about?

He was like, I'm a podiatrist.

I'm not a farrier.

He was like, we need to meet with your farrier and make a plan.

Love him.

I love him.

I know, I know.

That is fantastic.

You're very lucky.

So what was the plan?

I was very lucky.

What did y'all come up with?

So we did pro stride in her coffin joints, and we did the him and the farrier met, and they took her out of the wedges completely.

I also switched farriers by now, by the way, the long toe farrier gone, new farrier in.

They put her in a shoe with a lot better break over, aluminum set back because he wanted to change the position of the shoe on her foot further back, and put leather pads and dim.

Okay.

And she was going pretty well for a long time in that set up.

Cool.

Yeah.

She liked the dim.

All right.

That really speaks to, like, it's so specific with each horse.

I have, I know, actually, now I know one horse who enjoys sole pressure or some degree of, like, frog pressure that has navicular changes.

So usually they don't like that, but that really speaks to, like, it's so unique.

You can't, there's not, like, a textbook protocol on what to do for navicular changes.

It's whatever they want.

You just have to let them go shopping.

You totally do.

That's what I've been learning too.

You just have to feel it out.

I mean, I think this girl likes some pressure on the bottom of her feet for sure.

Good for her.

So even with the pads, like, she can't, doesn't go without pads in her boots.

She likes that support in there.

She likes the wool.

Did she, did you try other pads before the wool, or how did you land on wool?

My present farrier now, who's a barefoot farrier, she, we took the boots and we tried, like, four or five different pads and filmed her walking in all of them, and the wool was the top pad.

And so that's what we went with.

Yeah.

So are you buying, like, big sheets of it and cutting it, or are you buying?

Okay, good.

I'm buying a saddle.

It's like a saddle pad liner is what it is.

Oh, perfect.

Yeah.

Love that.

Yeah, perfect.

And I just cut them out all the time.

And then I washed them and I'll dry them and.

Okay.

Yeah.

A navicular horse will make you the most creative person in the barn.

It is.

I know.

You're so, I cannot tell you the crazy shit that I have put inside his boots, or tried to do with a shoe package just to see, like, what do you like, man?

What do you like?

Tell me and we will make it happen.

Our friend Sarah, I don't know if you've listened to that episode, another navicular focused episode with our excellent farrier friend, Sarah.

She has a navicular horse and a rehab farm, and a really successful health care practice, and she's just amazing.

She took mouse pads and just stacked mouse pads inside because she worked in the corporate world.

She was like, I'm just going to take some of these and we're just going to put these in here.

She's given me the play mats for kids, the giant puzzle piece play mats.

Those are great.

Just get very creative.

Yeah, anything.

I feel like an engineer at this point.

I mean, I was coming up with all kinds of crazy stuff.

People at the bar are like, what are you doing to that poor horse now?

I'm like, just mind your business.

Mind your business.

I got it.

I totally can relate.

Yeah.

So yeah, I got a new team now.

So yeah, I don't know.

That's where we're at now.

We're really looking up, but honestly, I love this horse so much.

I know her so well now with everything I've had to go through with her.

If she is just a Liberty Horse or my big giant dog out there, I'm okay with that.

Like I love her so, so, so, so much.

I can't even tell you.

She's just the best girl in the world.

But yeah, she's like a big dog.

— Annabelle the Big Dog: Scratches, Personality & Trust

She wants, she literally will position her body where she wants her scratches.

Oh, I love when they do that.

It's so funny.

Me too.

She'll lift her back high leg up so you can really get up in there.

I'm like, what are you doing?

And every time I scratch her, she grooms me back as well, every single time.

Oh, I love that.

That's an honor.

That's like you won the lottery.

It hurts, but you just got to stay in there and take it.

Just deal with it.

Yeah.

You got to take it.

It's so worth it.

I know.

I'm just like, thank you so much.

You're so much.

I bruises on my shoulders, but I love you.

I know.

She likes to play.

So that's another thing I do with her, like just for exercise because I think it's important to keep them moving with navicular.

She's got to keep going.

So, I don't want to just throw her.

I'm not a circle lunge line kind of girl.

She probably isn't either.

She, who would be?

It's like, I don't want to do it.

I want to go on an adventure.

Yes.

The couple of things that I do with her, that I think are really cool is one of the things is, because like I said, she's like a dog, so she likes to explore.

So I just will walk the farm and let her lead me and we're not stopping for grass.

No, that's not allowed, but you can go wherever you want to go.

She has taken me to some really weird and cool places.

I'm just like, I can't believe you want to go back here, but let's go.

That's really fun to see things through her perspective just to see where she wants to do.

The other thing that I do with her, she loves to play with a yoga ball.

He loves it.

So I'll shut that indoor arena up and we will just play and she kicks it and kicks it and kicks it and runs and she'll rare up and jump on it and hasn't busted yet.

She's got to bite it and just loves it.

She is like a dog.

She's a dog.

I love her.

She's so cute.

Puppy horse.

That's great.

I love, those are like my favorite personality types because they're so fun and like, they're usually really good communicators in what they need or when something's wrong, you go from having like this big playful boisterous personality to usually they're quieter or they're a little irritable.

But like you said, when her feet were hurting, she would become like unpleasant, irritable because she was uncomfortable.

Like that just makes it so much easier.

Some of these quiet stoic horses that start.

In stoic, it makes it really hard to read when something's wrong.

Yeah.

So it sounds like you're doing a lot of cool stuff with her, and I guess hopeful is the right word, but just like encouraged that you have such a good attitude about this.

Because this is a really hard thing that I can relate to, and a lot of our listeners and a lot of our guests can relate to.

I think you're doing so much good for her and for your own mental health by having this attitude.

Yeah.

I mean, you know what?

You got to figure out what works for them.

Not small horses or major size horses.

They got to find their thing.

If she ends up being a Liberty Horse or just a walker on the farm horse, it is what it is.

I just love her.

She's like my big giant lab baby, but you got to keep them moving.

I think that's really important.

I can't just set her and forget her.

Yeah.

All this groundwork stuff we've done have just built such a relationship.

I've learned, but now I'm oversensitive.

I'm like, wait a minute, did you flick your ear to the left a little too much?

Is that pain?

Oh, is that a fly or are you switching your tail because you're angry?

Welcome to the club, sister.

Welcome.

I know.

I'm like, step back hot and step a half an inch too far back.

I think something's going on.

It's definitely something going on.

You are all of us.

Yeah, it's definitely over.

But you know what the hard part about it is when you get deep diving into your own horse like this, get such a relationship, really learn how to read them and listen to them.

When you see other people's horses and you're like, oh, that horse is screaming at you.

There's a reason when you're tacking her up, she's trying to bite you and she's arched her back and she's swishing her tail.

It's not because she just doesn't want to be ridden, I promise you.

It's like, just listen and there's been times where I've tacked Annabelle up and she is like nasty.

And I'm like, okay, I get it.

Take it back off.

We don't have to play that.

Yeah, I get it.

I hear you.

You know, it doesn't cost you anything to make her happy.

Like it should be fun for both of you.

And if she's having a miserable time, what kind of, that takes the fun out of the whole sport, right?

Like it, I don't want to be working with a teammate who is like thinking that they want to cut my head off, right?

Like I want us both to be having a good time.

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

For sure.

So I did want to ask, you made a note on here that there's a bit of a concern about her being insulin-resistant.

Do you want...

Yes.

Yeah, what's up with that?

What's going on there?

She's seven.

Okay.

Homegirl's seven.

Yeah, she just turned seven this year.

And so anyway, I wrote her...

So she's been barefoot now since August of 2025.

That's when I pulled the shoes.

And that entire time, up until a month ago, I started tacking her up and working in our tack.

We play in her tack and then I finally got on her.

I was like, today's the day.

I'm going to get off the air and ride you.

And it was great.

I walked down the path and then she did not want to go back to the barn.

And I'm like, no, no, no, no, we're going back.

Like she was like, no, let's go.

But I'm like, I can't hurt you.

— Farrier Work & Reading the White Line Changes

OK, so we did that.

Couple of days later, the farrier came to trim her up.

And she was like red all the way around the white line area of her foot.

Front row.

And she was really foot-ouchy.

So like a couple days before she started to get foot-ouchy.

And in my head, y'all, this is where you have to listen to yourself.

I saw that spring grass coming in.

And I was like, I know that's not good for her.

And I was like, really should pull her off, really should pull her off.

And I didn't.

And I should have.

And I didn't.

So she kind of got a little laminatic episode going on.

Yeah.

She, so I did pull her off immediately.

Yeah.

And I bought her a muzzle.

I had a girl.

Okay.

She's not happy at all.

I need everyone to listen.

And I'm, listeners, focus.

Muzzles are not bad.

Kelly, thank you for saying that.

Yeah.

Keep, keep going.

It is what it is.

And I told her, I'm like, you know, it's, and people at the barn kind of give me side-eye a little bit, but I'm like, I have a limb force.

It's founder and I've got to put her to sleep or she's got to wear a muzzle.

It is what it is.

I don't care.

Well, and it's likely not all year, you know, you're going on your walks, she's got lots of enrichment.

It sucks a little bit, but it is the least harmful option.

Like she's naficular, she can't sit in a stall for months at a time when there's grass.

She's going to be lame from that.

She's going to be body sore from that.

So she's either lame and foundered in a stall and lame and miserable and having no mental simulation, or she has to wear a little muzzle and she's fine, like it's fine.

Yeah.

I got her a pink one.

It's with her vibe, so I think she's going to be fine.

Which one did you find that she can tolerate?

The Gigi Equine is the one that I went with.

I got the halter, I actually just went to their booth the other day, got the stickers for it just in case I broke her chin.

Yeah, so I put it on her right before I left, and she was fine in her stall.

I went to go graze grass, but I didn't introduce it to her properly.

I just wanted to try it real quick.

That's one of those things, you're in a hurry, and you're like, let me try it.

No, that's not a good idea.

We're going to try it when I get back.

But they gave me a lot of tips on introducing it, like putting grass through there, putting some treats in there.

I think she's going to be totally fine.

I really don't have any worries about it at all.

I just left her off grass while I was out of town.

But yeah, the muscle is happening and I'm happy about it.

She's already on a forage-based diet anyway.

She's been on that for over a year, probably a year and a half.

So we've already had a good start on that anyway.

So cool.

It's amazing how much like, and a lot of people don't realize, with horses that have navicular changes, and we talked about this so much in Loki's episode too, if they have bony changes, they have soft tissue changes.

And they're so much more vulnerable to the inflammatory factors that come with the sugars and the grasses and just like high sugar diets.

And even just a little bit of grass can be enough to piss them off.

And just doing a muzzle can completely change the game for how they tolerate a season.

It's huge.

No, you're so totally right.

And in the midst of all this, we did move to a different barn for a short period of time.

And so they forced, I don't want to say forced, because that sounds aggressive, but they only feed their grain and you have to feed their grain or you have to pay to feed your own grain for storage.

Right.

So I was like, all right, we'll try it.

Within two weeks, she was so out.

She, her whole body hurt.

I was like, nope, not doing this.

We're done with that.

Not doing this.

Shouldn't have done it to start with and knew better.

We're going back to, I don't care.

You can charge me $80,000.

She's going back to her forage-based diet.

Sure.

That's how I am.

Like I don't care.

I don't care.

Yeah.

Nope.

And I get it.

Like a lot of farms have to do that for the sake of convenience.

Like it's fine.

Like we get it.

We understand.

But it's wild how even just like a hay change or just those little things with these horses, they're so vulnerable to those little changes that it can be game changers.

Yeah.

And that's tough at a boarding morn too with the hay.

So like I can't really test the hay.

By the time I get the test, we're on another load.

Yeah.

You know?

But I do try to really be vigilant about is, you know, trying to at least look at the hay.

Is it soft and steamy and green?

I mean, green hay for her, like that soft green hay will definitely give her a little bit of a flare.

She needs something a little more like dry, coarsy, steamy type stuff like.

So yeah, I built her hay box in her stall and made a whole hay, like cover thing.

It's kind of like the one Snyder has, the corner hay feeder with the topper, that slow feeder on top.

Push down thing.

Yes.

I made like a slow feeder of stuff, so she has to eat out of that now.

She's very controlled.

She's very micromanaged.

Love that for you.

Awesome.

I mean, that makes sense though, because going back to the possibility of that being IR, it's kind of hard to delineate that because she really, I mean, this is all vet world, but she's seven.

She should be able to live off of like Mountain Dew and gas station food.

But Dr.

Kahlan herself even said, oftentimes navicular pain can also be misdiagnosed as laminitic pain and vice versa.

So it's kind of hard to, but then also like the bruising in the white line suggests more systemic inflammation.

— Bruising, Systemic Inflammation & Parsing the Clues

So, but it could also have just been there.

I'm not sure what the weather system was beforehand, but that grass, whatever it went through, it could have been like in hyperdrive, which could have been the type that could send most healthy horses, metabolically well horses to have something like that.

Or she could have just had her vaccines recently too, vaccines.

I've seen those cause.

I've actually seen a lot of weird stuff with vaccine reactions just in the feet themselves.

I'm not anti-vaccine, do what your vet says.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you know.

As a healthcare professional, they're your notes.

I just, my restriction is under the hairline, but you can sometimes see because it's a systemic reaction to things.

You know?

Yeah, yeah.

So many things affect.

That's why I feel like I have to micromanage all the things, especially things that go in her mouth or body.

But yeah, everything.

It's like, I'm always looking for a next sign or symptom, almost to a fail because I'm like, this is like obsessive at some points where I'm like, I gotta, okay, she's a horse.

I gotta back it up a little bit and be a little more practical.

Everything doesn't have to be a sign, you know?

I'm not trying to look at the bad things.

I'm looking for the good things.

And the good things are my wins.

And I do think, back to your point though, with the soft tissue damage, I do think like when I talk about rehabbing her navicular, it's not just about her feet for me.

I do think there was probably a lot of soft tissue damage in that deep digital flexor tendon and just up the lower portion of her leg that also needed to be rehabbed.

So that's something that you really have to keep in consideration too.

And that's why I do think so slowly with her.

I mean, when I was working back to trot previously, it would be like one minute of trot done, two minutes of trot done, like I time it.

Like I'm not, I get anxious.

Yeah, I'd love to canter around the paddock.

That sounds fun, but I can't, I can't do that yet.

Yet, but we will.

Exactly.

But you still have a horse.

Yeah.

And it's all PT.

And that's why like, even though it does, when you say it out loud, it probably feels crazy to say that like you're timing it, but what do they do in PT?

They time the amount of like how long you're doing these movements and these exercises.

And if we ask soft tissue to do or exceed its wellness capacity, that's where we just kind of start pissing in the wind on rehab, because if you ask it to do more than it can do, then you're gonna just damage.

So that's why like, especially in our world of rehab, and again, I'm not a vet by saying this, this is just our world of rehab, but in the way that we do things in the barefoot world, we really kind of lean on things like giagulin more than we do NSAIDs, because if they can do, if they are comfortable, quote unquote comfortable enough to do more than what they can or should be doing, then you're either gonna like, stop it.

Step back.

Yeah, you'll stop the progress in its tracks, or you're gonna start rolling backwards, because you're doing more than what it can.

So everything is so slow, and like the walk is the green of the gate.

So by just staying in the walk and really cruising in that, I mean, that's where it all happens.

So throw your ball in there.

Hell yeah, girl.

Yeah, I love the walk.

I'm like, let's go.

We're marching.

Let's go.

We're not leaving.

We're just doing some power walking.

I used to juggle in as well.

I mean, when she was five years old, she was on Equiox every day for her life.

I'm like, what am I doing?

What am I doing here?

Yeah.

I was in this circle of doom.

It was like soundness, kanda, lameness, injections.

Soundness, kanda, lameness, injections.

I'm pouring money.

My last set of injections were like $2,400.

I'm pouring money out.

Yeah.

That was pro stride.

Yeah.

It must have been.

That's crazy.

A lot of spots.

I was like, what?

Adequan, which I do like Adequan, but all these things, I'm like- But you shouldn't need to be doing this for a seven-year-old.

I'm like, what is it going to be like when she's 16?

What is it even going to last to 26?

Something is wrong here.

I've got to get off this crazy train.

I'm in this circle of doom.

I got to leave it.

Yes.

Girl, you are telling my story.

You're telling the story.

So many nivicular horse owners, you're doing everything right.

This is exactly why when we read your email, we were like, okay, we want to have her on.

She's doing everything right.

She gets it.

After not being in horses for 20 years, I mean, you got to give yourself some massive credit there.

Because it is so easy to fall into just like, okay, well, this person has letters behind their name, and this person, I'm paying them money, so I should just do what they're doing.

Or this girl at my barn, it works for her horse.

You got to just do what works for your mare.

Absolutely.

I mean, that's one of the things I've learned too through this whole process is like, when your vet's there, write it all down, do your own research.

I trust my vets, that's why I have them, but still you need to do your own research and ask questions.

Yes, trust but verify.

Well, that's why when we've had professionals on, we always, I don't know if you've heard our episode, our dentition episode, it's very cool.

But one of the things that I wanted to ask our friend Susie was like, if I'm looking for this kind of professional, what are the questions that I should ask that should maybe give me an insight into whether or not I should trust this person?

— Building the Care Team: Questions to Ask a Professional

Because if you come to a vet and you tell them the story and blah, blah, blah, and they're like, oh yeah, are they on Equiox or oh yeah, I don't need to talk to your fairy or we're just put them in this package.

If they're not willing to be flexible to understand your individual animal, that's you write them off, you know, like, okay, next.

Exactly.

It sounds like you have a really good team.

I do have a good team.

Honestly, we have a good body worker.

It's really funny.

I heard your story with Vanessa and Harry.

Yeah.

I listened to that one.

When she was talking about her trainer describing her, I was like, oh my God, my trainer is the exact same way.

Then she started talking about her body worker.

I'm like, you know what?

I have a fabulous body worker too.

When I posted on the Facebook about something, my body worker replied and said, you should talk to one of my clients.

She has a horse like yours.

She sent me her link and it said, Vanessa and Harry.

I was like, it's the same people.

Her trainer and her body worker are also my trainer, my body worker.

That's awesome.

I know.

I was like, that's so crazy.

Because my trainer actually messaged me too and was like, hey, I have a client.

I was like, I know already.

Yeah, I know.

That's so funny.

How cool.

I swear, there's only like 12 of us and we all just keep running into each other.

The horse world is so sad.

We all just keep bumping into each other.

I know.

But yeah, listen to your horse.

Everything doesn't work for every.

I just try all the things.

I literally just try all the things and I try to keep it as holistic as possible.

I mean, I do believe God made these feet somewhat functional, right?

Yeah.

Mustangs seem to live fine.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Facebook is that necessary evil.

You can get bad information there, but you also...

Sometimes you only need that one person, that one person to comment something intelligent and you try it.

You're like, yep, this is it.

This was it.

Thank you.

Yeah.

But I think going back to the comment about working with our vets, I think it's what you said about educating ourselves.

I think that's so critical so we can more so participate in the conversations.

Yeah.

That I think is that delineating factor because if we just say, okay, that's fantastic, that's great.

We do need to follow protocol, but I think being able to participate and say, okay, well, I hear what's going on with this.

This horse does X, Y, and Z, just knowing this horse personally.

If they're a Houdini with muzzles, for example, the vet might need to be able to participate or give more customizable feedback for a horse that has these limitations, or whatever's going on at home, if there's certain barriers to care, how we can customize to fit that.

You know what I'm saying?

It's more of a participatory need.

And also too, lest we forget, personalities.

You're not going to get along with every single human being that you meet.

Vets are human beings.

There's an ask for every seat.

If it don't vibe, it don't vibe.

So, absolutely.

You know?

Yes, definitely.

But yeah, I know you definitely need to educate yourself.

Like I'm learning so much about anatomy these days and muscles and nerves.

And I bought the Hoof book and, you know, just, my life is work, research, force, and a little family mixed in there.

Work, research, force, family, you know?

You can't ever learn at all.

It's not, you can't ever get enough of it.

So, yeah, that's what makes it exciting.

That's what makes it worth doing.

Hi, I'm Bree, and a year ago, I bought my dream horse, Teddy.

But just eight short months later, he was diagnosed with wobblers and rapidly declined until I had to make the choice to let him go.

The only way I was able to get a diagnosis was by getting a CT scan.

Out of state, expensive, and honestly, not accessible for most people.

But it gave me an answer, even though it wasn't the answer I wanted.

That's why I founded Teddy's Legacy, a non-profit dedicated to helping horse owners get advanced diagnostics to make informed, compassionate decisions for their horses.

We also support research, education, and welfare.

I know what it feels like to love a horse and not have the information you need to wonder if you're doing the right thing.

I have a CT scan candidate who applied for a grant through Teddy's Legacy.

Someone who's in the shoes I was in not long ago.

Someone who loves her horse and is desperate for answers she can't afford to get.

If you want to learn more or support our mission, you can visit our website at teddieslegacy.org.

Do you want to, should we switch gears a little bit?

Do you want to tell us a little bit about Ms.

Reese?

Yeah, I will.

I can tell you about Ms.

Reese.

The barn that I was at, the original barn I was at when Annabelle was doing, she was off and doing rehab stuff and on the ground.

We had some hudger jumpers at our barn that was like renting a space and I was watching them, and I was just like enamored.

I was like, this is so cool.

I'm so impressed by these girls.

This looks so fun.

I was like, I want to jump.

I want to do this stuff.

I want to play.

I don't want to go show.

I'm over that now.

I totally don't even care.

That is not in my will house, but I'm to think about going to play on some fun little cross country course or, you know, I don't know, the dreams, right?

Yes, entering through the fields and jumping logs.

I'm like, I want to, I'm going to do this.

I'm like, Annabelle will never be able to do that.

I wouldn't ask her to do that.

— Rehab Decisions & What Kelly Won't Ask of Annabelle

She's not going.

I don't want her to do.

I don't want to hurt her, not risking it.

So I was like, let me just, let me just peek around, see if I can find that big gilding that I always dreamed of.

Then I'm like, I can't afford a horse.

I cannot afford another horse.

Can't happen.

But I'm just going to- I'm just going to look.

I'm just going to look in the Facebook and then once you start looking at ads, Facebook tailors it to you.

Now, all the OTTBs on the planet are now coming up on my feed.

And then my old fairy had recommended a thoroughbred seller up in Maryland Delaware area.

So then I started to look in at her stuff and looking at her rider stuff.

And here it goes.

I come across this post of this glamour shot of this red, bright beaming, powerful thing with these bold black eyes.

And was just stunning.

Her forelock was just, bam.

And it was just, it was just, I was just like, oh my God.

Like she is stunning.

So I'm watching all her videos over and over again.

And like, I can't do this.

Shut my computer.

No, no.

Fight it, Kelly.

Fight it.

I know.

I'm like, I can't.

I saw, I can think about.

I was like, you know what?

I'm just going to send her a message.

I'm going to be the tire kicker that she says she doesn't want.

Right?

I'm going to send her a message and I'm going to say, hey, can you tell me about this horse?

She's going to tell me all the bad things.

And I'm going to say, okay, it wasn't for me.

Oh, no.

She's fabulous.

She's great.

I go, but I'm an amateur, like for real an amateur.

I'm not.

And she's like, no, she's great.

She's calm.

She's sweet.

She's loving.

And I'm like, okay, all right.

And then I was like, you know, maybe I'll call her.

Maybe I'll call her because thoroughbreds have bad feet.

And I already have a- I'm not doing this again.

Yeah.

I'm not doing this again.

So I call her and I can't wait for her to tell me how terrible her feet are.

And I'll be like, that's it.

Not getting her.

Yeah.

And she, yep, I call her and she's like, I go, so tell me about her feet.

She goes, they're fabulous.

And I'm like- I'm looking at her rads right now.

These are, these are pretty, these are pretty good.

Girlfriend has awesome feet for a thoroughbreddit.

Nonetheless, then like, okay.

I was like, I just, I was just in love with her.

So now girlfriend, Racy is getting, her name is Wicked Reese.

She's very, very, very red.

Y'all can look her up.

She's, I love her so much.

She's amazing.

Her little YouTube videos are still out there.

Oh, and for when I, her little sale videos and stuff, they're on YouTube.

But she's getting shipped up.

She's on the way.

The shipper calls me like 30 minutes out and he's like, listen, we had a problem.

Last time I dropped a horse off, she lost her mind.

She was freaking out in the trailer.

She was kicking the trailer.

I had to take her off, put her back on.

Her cocks are bleeding and busted to shit.

She's only got one shoe on.

I was like, Oh my God.

They get there and I walk over to the trailer and with my little bright pink lead rope that I just bought for her, it's so cute.

And he goes, Do you have a chain actually?

And I was like, Oh boy.

Here we go.

I was like, I don't really have any.

And I was like, Oh, my showmanship lead has a chain.

Let me go get that little flimsy thing.

I go get it and come back.

He puts it all on her, walks her off the trailer and hands her to me.

And I was just like, Oh boy.

He's like, Have a nice life.

Hi.

Oh my God.

I'm like, what, what the hell?

What am I doing here?

Like this girl is out.

She is no, she doesn't care that I exist at all.

Yeah.

She's wild, head up, bleeding.

And I'm panicked.

I'm like, this is, this is scary.

But luckily I had some good friends at the barn at the time.

They all swooped in to help me.

We took her into the wash rack.

We started rinsing off her legs and I didn't know if she'd kick me.

So I was trying to just talk to her as easily as I could.

Get in and get out.

She was just, she was a nut job, y'all.

She was a nut.

So I went and put her in her paddock and just like said, be free, like good luck to me.

She ran back and forth and raced and raced around.

I was like, oh my God, she's again.

I'm dead.

Yeah.

I just, I had to walk away.

I walked away, went to the barn, did some things, gave myself some chores, went back out.

She had calmed down a bunch more.

And by the next day, she was totally fine.

The next day she was fine.

She was, she was awesome.

Sweet.

Very, very sweet.

She's like a cat though.

She's like you sit down, the cat jumps in your lap and wants to snuggle with you and purr, but don't pet it because it's going to bite you or, you know, claw you.

She wants to be with you.

She's so, so sweet.

So anyway, she was great.

I mean, perfect.

I started riding her like a week later.

I'm like, I got to suck this up.

I got to go ride her, packed her up, took her to the round pen and walked truck canner right out the gate and she was great.

She was so good.

I felt so happy with her.

She, I was instantly just riding her outside and she was perfect.

She had no issues and then all of a sudden there, I was buying a new saddle for her in October and so I got her.

She came in July all the way to October.

She was perfect.

Like we were really bonding.

Everything was lovely.

I'm starting to really get to know her.

Got her new saddle for her in October.

It was on trial.

Went to go put it on her and out of nowhere, she just exploded.

Like I was like, okay, like crazy explode.

I jump off of her.

I can barely get her into the barn from the arena.

I ended up taking her into the barn, throwing her in some random stall that was nearby, ripped the bridle off her head so she didn't tangle herself, left the saddle on.

— Chaos at the Show: Reese's Explosive Behavior Erupts

She was so out of control.

I was not there anymore in her mind.

She just needed to give her some time to figure it out.

I just left her in there, let her figure it out.

I ended up giving her some alfalfa pellets just to give her brain thinking on something else.

Of course, people are like, you're rewarding her bad behavior.

I'm like, no, I'm not.

That's not how horses work.

No, I'm not.

No, I'm changing her thought process here.

I'm just trying to get her to think about something else, and she brought it back down.

Took her out, took the saddle off, tried again the next day.

She was just kind of weird.

I told my trainer, I said, listen, something's going on.

I don't know what's going on with her.

Of course, again, I'm an amateur.

She's a professional, and she's so kind to y'all.

She listens to horses.

She does not say, push them through.

That's not her.

She's like, something's going on, slow it down.

That's how she is.

Love that.

So she's like, let me take a check.

So we took her to the round pin, and she just went crazy.

She was racing around it.

Her brain was clearly outside of the round pin.

Her veins were all popping out.

You could like jump in front of her to get her to change direction.

So she wasn't running you over.

She kind of knew you were there, but she wasn't having anything.

I was like, it's Lyme.

She has Lyme.

That's what's going on here.

Call the vet.

She came out that day, full vial of blood, Lyme negative, like way, way negative.

Totally fine.

I'm like, what the hell?

I'm like, okay, she needs a friend because she was alone.

She lived out 24-7.

I got her a mini.

I put the mini in there with her.

Yeah.

You're amazing.

Yeah.

I put cameras on them so I can watch them obsessively.

Yeah.

I love you so much.

She still have an episode.

So then my trader said, why don't you put her on a forage-based diet?

Let's change her diet.

Put her on a forage-based diet.

She had all the finest fixings, probiotics.

I put her on Mericaire, some sort of mushroom, something from BioStar.

Nothing changed.

I added magnesium because that's supposed to help, right?

Yeah.

Now it's just getting colder and colder and she's getting worse and worse.

Of course, yes.

I'm like, you know what?

Maybe it's me.

Maybe she needs to be in a full-time training program.

I researched some barns nearby, found one, moved her there, and January 1st is when she got there.

It was a dressage barn.

She got in five-day-a-week full training right out the gate, like that very Monday.

Of course, Annabelle had to come to with her, so I had now two courses there.

I literally just gave him the reins.

I was like, your horse, I can't do this.

Yes.

Help me.

I totally disconnected from her emotionally.

She was a hot mess.

She was starting to get underweight.

She was just looking great.

She wasn't looking great.

She was feisty.

She was uncontrollable.

I was really starting to feel really intimidated by her.

I didn't know what this horse was.

She was scary, you know?

They changed her diet.

This is the barn that fed their own feed.

They took her off the forage-based diet and put her own grain.

They were just working her, but she never looked great.

You know what I mean?

She was always fighting something.

It was always...

They did a lot of lunging there too, by the way.

They were the...

I don't want to say anything bad about them.

It is what it is, and this is their thing, and it works for them, but they did all the lunging to get them to calm down stuff before you ride them kind of thing.

Like, I'll lodge a horse, but if I do, I kind of do it because I kind of want to just get a glimmer of an evaluation of their brain.

Let's see where you're at today.

How you feel, you know what I mean?

Yeah, how you're moving.

Yeah, it's just like a quick evaluation.

That's not our work.

Again, I just turned a blind eye.

I didn't like it, but I just like, you know what, you're the professionals, right?

You do it.

But every time I watched her ride, it was just itchy.

It was like head up, down, up, down, up, down, arched back, angry, back sore, body sore, everything, swishy tail, just angry girl.

But she was like trying her little heart out.

She wasn't having the crazy explosions in the five day a week work, but she was definitely not happy, like you can see.

She was getting chiropractic work every month as well.

I don't really know that that was making much of a difference either.

But so yeah, that was what's happening there.

Then finally, I was like, you know what, I got to suck this up and start writing her, you know?

And I told the trainer, I said, you know, I need to write her again and see.

So I did.

I came for every day for an entire week, wrote her.

Absolutely awful.

It was unbelievably bad.

Bucking.

I felt like I didn't know this works under me.

I was sitting on a stranger.

I didn't trust her.

She didn't trust me.

There was no relationship there at all.

Oh, that's so hard.

It was just terrible.

Until I kind of turned a blind eye and just walked away from it.

Yeah.

Then she came up lame, right front foot lame.

I was like, this is weird.

I'm like, she's got great feet.

What happens at the tiny circles?

Is it her shoulder?

I'm starting to think through, is it a stone bruise?

So I magic cushioned her foot for a whole week and wrapped it and did all that stuff, no change.

Finally, I just called the vet to come out.

So that's some of the x-rays that you probably have too.

Yeah.

That's also when we x-rayed her back.

— Kissing Spine Confirmed: X-Rays & the Shockwave Protocol

They said she's got some kissing spine.

As soon as they said that, I was like, of course, she does because I didn't do it.

You do your pre-purchase.

I pre-purchased it on her.

It was just, so I'm like, of course, here we go.

This is not the vet with the surgery thing.

This was my lack of knowledge at the time.

You can do shockwave, mesotherapy, back injections, or you can do surgery.

I'm like, why would we do all these treatment things when we can just get right to it with the surgery?

Let's do surgery.

Let's get it over with.

I messaged the girl that I bought her from.

I told her, she's got a kissing spine.

You have a lot of thoroughbred experience.

You know, what you're not.

She's like, don't do the surgery.

Amen.

Whoo, got plenty of horses that function well with kissing spine.

So then I was like, okay.

Then I messaged my sports med vet that I was talking about earlier that came out with the one day.

Don't do the surgery.

He goes, call me.

So I called him.

He kept me on the phone for an hour.

He was like, absolutely not.

He was like, do not do this surgery.

He was like, how could someone recommend surgery?

Have you ultrasound her back?

I was like, no.

He was like, yeah, you have to check for osteoarthritis.

I go, you could do the surgery.

He said you could do the surgery and then she could still be not comfortable afterward and you put her through all of this for nothing.

He was like, I'll come out and evaluate her.

What year was this?

This was in 2025.

Oh, okay.

I have it written down.

It's 2020.

Let's see because I bought her more term training program.

Yeah, this was 2025. 2025.

Okay.

Last summer.

Okay.

Because we were just chatting about this a little bit ago.

When the surgery became more mainstream, like right when COVID came on, I feel like everyone just ran straight to the surgical suite because they were like, it's an easy fix.

And just like what you said, that's how it's oftentimes presented is like, just do the surgery and you never have to think about it again.

And it's like, no, no, no, no, no.

Half-alt.

That's not how it works.

So that was, I don't want to say you're fortunate, but you are fortunate that when you came on and you thought to call the woman to get her advice, fucking genius, and then the vet also was like, no, no, no, no, do not cut that back.

I think it's becoming more mainstream to do more conservative routes as opposed to just go in there and snip snap and go about your business.

Because I mean, her DSPs, they're tight and there's a little bit of bony changes, but these are not, I mean, I- Way worse out there.

Yeah, and I've seen, you know, fused DSPs with bone spurs and stuff, and their back is just, dare I say, okay, so.

Yeah, I know when I started researching it, I saw some pretty nasty x-rays out there.

Yeah.

And I'm like, Reese's x-rays aren't that bad, honestly.

Yeah.

And so I think that's important too for people.

You don't know, ask somebody else who does.

Yeah.

Oh, reach out to somebody that does, you know, rides 15 thoroughbreds a month in their sale program or, you know, ask different vets.

Always get a second opinion.

You know, always, why not, why not?

For sure.

So, I'm so glad I did, because I was ready.

I would have put her on the trailer right then and just drove her off to the hospital and dropped her off.

Yeah, of course.

If you thought that was going to be the magic, magic procedure, then you'd get your neck and you'd have a sane animal.

So then, okay, so you didn't do that.

What therapeutic approaches did you try?

And then where are we now?

Okay.

So my vet came out and he thought that her back was fabulous.

Her muscling was fabulous.

Her flexion was fabulous.

She said it would be criminal to cut this back open.

So at that point, I was like, you know what?

Both my girls are not doing well here.

I need a fresh start.

I need to go back where we were.

I need to start all over again from scratch.

So that's what I did.

I moved them back, got my trainer back.

Thank goodness.

And that's when I just kind of let her have some time off.

My vet came and did shockwave and mesotherapy.

Now, the mesotherapy for me was one of those things that really had a light bulb moment.

Because when we were doing that, he drugged her, had her head down, the whole drug stance, did the shockwave.

She'll do shockwave without any kind of medication actually.

But I didn't know much about it then.

But when he went to go to do the mesotherapy, she tried to leave, y'all.

She woke right up and tried to leave.

So he was like, okay, let's give her a little bit more.

And when he did, got her back down again, he started to do it again, the same thing.

She was, that adrenaline was running through.

And when he was doing it, her fly response on her back was going crazy.

Like it was crazy.

You could just go to touch her back and her fly response was going crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy.

And that's when it clicked to me, I need, maybe her fashion is messed up.

Maybe there's something going on, like that I need a body worker for.

Yeah.

So I need to start addressing some of these soft tissues, the muscles, the skin.

Again, the fascia in there, something else is going on in there.

That, that, and the vet agreed, he was like, absolutely, you need to get a body worker to come in and look at this and see if we can help get this straightened out a little bit.

So that's also where I love him.

He's like, all the people come help.

Yeah, we did that and she was better in a week, but you have to do the shark wave a few times.

— Shockwave Results, Saddle Fit & the EQ Saddle Science

We ended up doing it three different times.

Also, another key thing is I had her saddle fitted twice before, and she was still angry and I said, you know what, even though the saddle fitter is saying it fits, she's clearly not liking it, ditched it.

Good girl.

Done with it.

And I loved it, y'all.

I loved it.

It felt like a couch.

It hugged me.

But I ended up going with EQ Saddle Science.

That's what I went to.

I'm so bad.

I signed up for the 90-day test trial, which is amazing.

I mean, who does 90-day rehabs a lot?

Yeah.

I know.

I sent my back measurements to them.

They made it for her, sent it to me, and it was great.

I knew right away this was the saddle for her.

She was happy with it, so I ended up having to, I found one used that was her same measurements.

Oh, hell yeah.

That's lucky.

Crazy lucky, actually.

Those measures are expensive.

The girl was lucky, and the girl just happened to be one of my trainer students.

Ta-da.

Because I have to trial it or I'm not taking it.

She was like, fine, I'll let you take it because I almost said her name, because it was my trainer.

Wow.

I will say, not to interrupt, actually to interrupt.

I do want to make a note though, the EQ saddles for those who are listening, check them out.

It's EQ, and they go on these little disks.

The woman who owns the company and created it, her name is Carmi, and she is the most helpful, kindest woman on the planet.

Kelly, did you do a fitting with Carmi?

Did you speak with her?

I didn't do one with Carmi, but I did one with someone else there, and she was also just equally as fabulous.

Okay.

Yeah, these saddles are designed specifically for horses with back problems, and they are so backed by science.

They work really closely with Hillary Clayton, so all these saddles are really heavily, a bunch of nerds are behind this.

But I want one so bad.

They're so cool, and it feels like glorified bareback, right?

It does because you don't have the- I love it though.

I love it.

So it has detachable panels if you want to show in it, but I don't use the panels on it, and I basically got my leg right on the horse.

Yeah.

You feel like you're so much closer to them and not just sitting on top of them.

Yeah.

I love that saddle so much.

I'm so glad that I ran across that.

We're one of those Facebook feeds.

Oh, you found it on a Facebook feed.

Okay.

Yep.

It's one of those things.

Yeah.

Not a lot of folks go in them.

I do think the reactor panels are becoming more common, but it was weird.

When I first found mine, I think three or four years ago, I can't remember, the only people I knew who wrote in them were farriers which I thought was very telling.

Because it was only us who were like, yeah.

It's interesting because my trainer has one as well.

She was teaching a lesson on a friend's horse.

I came into the barn that day and saw that saddle that looks like a shell.

It was very minimal.

I saw that on that horse and I was like, wow, that's interesting.

Okay.

I didn't think anything of it, walked away, thought gone out of my mind until all this came up.

Then I was like, hey, wait a minute.

I just ordered that saddle, but didn't you have one?

She was like, yes, I have one.

I ride in it all the time.

That's her horse's saddle as well.

That was fabulous.

Yeah, that's awesome.

I really want one.

They're expensive.

Yeah.

All right.

You know the interesting thing too about these saddles is that the saddle pad is connected to the panel.

But this is another clue in that I've had an issue with race.

You can get the saddle pad that has the Maddie's pad, the padding underneath, the wool padding.

Yeah, that's what I have.

But instead of on top, it's underneath and it touches the skin.

Reese can't handle that.

She can't stand it touching her skin, cannot stand it.

Really?

Yes.

I actually use a regular saddle pad with her and then I have the fleece half pad on top of that, the wool half pad, is it wool fleece, whatever.

But if that inches up at all and touches her skin, that fly response of hers starts going crazy.

She can't stand it.

She can't stand the feeling of it.

Yeah.

So that was another moment for me.

Okay.

I think I tried to explain this to my trainer and at the time it was another one of those things.

She likes to verify and I appreciate that about her.

She's like, let me see and I'm like, see and she's like, oh yeah, okay.

I believe you.

Yeah.

I can't stand it.

But for other horses, it's great.

But anyway, that was another like little flag that I had for her.

Yeah.

Now we have the MISO problem where she couldn't stand things touching her back and now that she can't even stand the pad touching her.

But her back is not sore.

You could palpate it.

It's fine.

She just can't stand that material feeling in her back.

It's very weird.

We started again.

We had done the treatments.

I was doing the back exercises.

I got that Core Conditioning Bodywork book.

I was working through some of those.

Walking over poles and straddling poles and just lots and lots and lots of ground driving, ground driving, ground driving, ground driving.

She's becoming a pro at ground driving.

Everything was good again.

I was starting to appreciate her again.

My relationship was going with her well again.

I started to feel more confident on her again and trusting her again.

That was when things started to go back downhill again because winter was coming.

In November, I think of 2025 is when I stopped riding her again.

The weird thing about her is even in her episodes of Mystery, you can walk her to and from the paddock.

— Reese in Winter: Mystery Episodes & Old Maid Behavior

She's like an old maid.

You can be in your stall with her.

She's fine.

But as soon as you take her inside and ask her to do anything, and I mean anything, it could be move your front foot to the left.

It's crazy.

And then this past winter, she got worse again.

And this winter was way worse than the winter before.

Scary.

Extraordinarily explosive.

Tense.

Her whole body.

You could, the muscles in her neck were rock.

And she was very protective of those muscles.

Like you couldn't even touch them.

Like when she was having an episode and we were trying to work with her, if you lifted your hand up, like you were going to touch her neck, she would stand straight up in the air.

Like she was just like, very, it was very strange how she was just like, this is all of my protection, or whatever is happening in my body, you're not allowed to touch that.

But her eye lights are out, she acts terrified.

I feel like I can feel the electricity out of her body coming into my body.

Like I can feel this.

I know exactly what you mean.

Yeah.

Yep.

And she's just downright dangerous.

And by her explosiveness, I mean like Houston rodeo coming out of the gate, riding explosive, like once herself about.

And there, it just was no coming down from it.

You need to race around you.

Yeah.

So I would go in the indoor with her with a plan.

And four minutes later, I was walking back in the barn.

I mean, and I still, you know, my trainer still came every week and we still try to work through things.

And it was just near impossible.

So where are all the things?

Where are you now?

What's the...

Um, well, all of a sudden one day in March, she was normal again.

Boom.

Like that.

Literally.

Like somebody flipped the switch.

The snow melted, her brain came back, her body felt better, and we flipped the switch.

I have a question.

And this is purely just going off of vibes.

I'm not a vet.

I don't know this shit.

But was there grass on the ground?

No.

Well, not really.

Does she get a vitamin E?

Supplementing vitamin E?

Supplementing vitamin E.

I treated her for ulcers.

I started giving her Chasti Berry and Raspberry Tea Leaves.

Calmer.

I bought a MagnaWave.

I was using MagnaWave on her, Red Light Therapy on her, Hine Gut Support.

Okay.

Back on track cheat.

Okay.

Also, when I die, I'm coming back as your horse.

I just want to put that...

Yeah, literally.

Just so everyone knows that.

Okay.

Two questions.

What kind of E?

And how much?

And how much, yeah.

The E that she gets is the E that's in the W3 oil.

Not enough.

I can tell you with great confidence that she is not getting enough.

Okay.

And those things can be very related.

Okay.

So, it's worth doing...

They need a thousand IUs a day just to sustain life.

That's not to have to account for her movement, the lack of grass on the ground, stressors, other forms of oxidative stress that you may not even know about.

Like, maybe it makes her nervous when a plane flies overhead and you don't know that, or she's got a relationship with the mini that they just had a fight or whatever.

Like, all the things in her life that can contribute to her needing to use her antioxidants at a higher level.

So...

Okay.

So, I guess with her supplement and her tooth, she probably gets about four a day or so.

Is she just getting it through the WW3 oil?

She gets it in the Omniety pellets as well.

Omniety only has a thousand, so that's only enough to sustain life.

Unfortunately, with the vitamin E, that matters a lot.

Yeah.

Okay.

Like the quality, you know, to do something like nano-E.

But if this is happening in...

The reason we ask is because fresh grass has a lot of vitamin E in it, right?

So, if this is happening specifically in the winter when it's cold, when her muscles are going to be more susceptible to this discomfort, and there's no fresh grass on the ground, that's a huge clue.

You know, the other thing that I'm thinking now, too, is that when she first came to us, the paddock that she lived in really didn't have any grass.

And she was fine from July until November, October, November.

I mean, it could be that the cold weather can irritate them.

I mean, like, even if you are dealing with the muscle thing, the cold weather can tax their system more, they burn through their resources quicker, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

The other one other item that I kind of forgot to mention to you guys too, which also leads me to believe too, I have maybe a nerve issue.

It's like, she does this thing, she's not doing it as much this winter with me, because I think she wasn't as stressed as she was last winter at the training warrant, but she was starting to, this might sound silly, but it's weird to me.

That's what she rubs her face, she'll put on her leg and rub her face on her leg over and over and over again.

It's almost like she needs a release.

You know what I mean?

Like originally I was like, well, maybe her, maybe her leg is sweaty.

No, maybe, maybe she didn't like her braddle.

No, it wasn't that.

Maybe some, all these other little silly, it wasn't any of that stuff, but she does it.

It was like an anxiety-related thing or a nerve-related thing, but she's, and then it didn't.

I don't know if some of this is connected to what we're having to do within the winter, you know.

Do you have a good dentist?

Oh, what?

Do you have a good dentist?

I do have a good dentist.

Who's your dentist?

I think she's a good dentist.

Who is she?

Call your dentist.

Yeah.

Well, last winter, I actually used that because my dentist didn't go over there.

— Dental Care Gaps & What the Dentist Found

So, but I'm back to my dentist now.

Okay.

But I did listen to your dentist episode.

Yes.

I listened to your dentist episode, and it did definitely bring some things to light for me.

I was like, oh, wow.

Okay.

They're the coolest women on the planet.

So yeah, that was selfishly, that was one of my favorite episodes because I was like, yes, teach me everything.

Yes.

Does she do it during pollen season, or do you guys get pollen?

We do get pollen.

Nope, she doesn't.

She doesn't do it when you're just walking her around.

It was like when she was riding or working on a lunge line, it's when she would do it.

She would be mid canter, full stop, rub her face on her leg.

Was it indirect sunlight?

Nope.

Inside.

Was it around vaccines?

No.

Oh, shit.

All right.

Well, I'm out of ideas.

Yeah.

No, they were trying to say this to an eight-year-old.

I know.

I'm out of ideas too.

I'm out of ideas.

I just listen.

It's not even that it's that big of a huge deal to me.

It's just noticeable for sure.

It's a puzzle to me that because I had thought, which I'll definitely do the vitamin E thing more, and I'll definitely look at the other test perhaps to see where she really is.

Maybe also even in the fall, but I was definitely considering muscle problem, nerve problem, or maybe even a hormone problem that I'm having with her.

But the one common denominator is definitely winter.

Yeah, for sure.

Grass, no grass in the winter makes sense.

Then her muscles are already going to be like, when you're cold, you're stiff.

Yeah.

If she already isn't able to keep those muscles moving nicely and relaxed, and then it's cold on top of it, it makes sense.

Yeah.

The face thing is so interesting.

That is actually a big piece.

I wonder, is it always the same spot on her face?

It's always the left side of her face on her left leg.

Yeah.

Did you mention it to the vet?

Uh, no.

Did you mention it to your body worker?

I mentioned it to my people.

Yeah, my body worker, my trainer knows about it.

And at the last barn, they were very annoyed by it.

I think they thought she was trying to get out of work, which I don't think that's- Oh my God.

Their brains don't work that way.

That's not how a horse is, but they don't, they physically don't have that part.

She's not sitting around in the paddock all day plotting and planning how to get out of a 40-minute long ride.

Like it's not- Humans are so selfish.

We think everything's about us.

I know.

They don't think about us that much.

Like I promise, they straight up don't.

They don't think that that's so funny.

They- Listen, if a Red Mare had a plan to get out of work, it would not be scratching her face.

It would be far more elaborate and destructive than that.

Oh, I know.

There would be casualties.

Yeah.

Well, actually, I have to tell you guys, this thing that she did the other day, this is how expressive your horse can be.

If you don't know, you should know.

Because now she's transitioning barefoot as well, so she has great feet.

Great.

My barrier is transitioning her to barefoot as too.

We started her with scoot boots.

One of them rubbed her foot raw though.

I'm having a scoot boot problem right now.

Anyway, I'm taking the boot off.

I thought it was something that it wasn't.

I healed her.

I didn't heal it.

Her body heals her own foot, but I helped with cleaning it and stuff.

Her foot got healed.

I put some more gaiters on and duct tape and things Facebook told me to try and this and that.

I'll send you some smalls.

Okay.

I'll put the book back on her for like, she wore it for maybe 15 hours.

My trainer came out for my lesson.

She was being feisty and we're like, what in the world is wrong with her?

Like her tail's swishing and stuff.

I was like, take her saddle off.

We're going to try.

My trainer was like, go get another saddle.

Let's see if it's a saddle.

I was going to get on the saddle.

I was like, you know what?

Just take the boots off of her.

Let's just see.

As soon as I took that boot off of her, that foot was raw on her heel bulbs.

That horse started licking my hand obsessively.

Oh, thank God.

Thank you.

She doesn't do that.

She was just like, oh my God, thank you so much for taking this boot off my foot.

Then she put her little foot out and was licking her heel bulbs.

It was heart breaking.

That whole time, she was being so respectful and telling us, like, listen to me, something's not right.

Then it was so thankful after.

I don't know.

They're just so kind to us.

We don't deserve them.

We really don't deserve them.

So true.

Yeah.

I do want to figure out what's going on with the winter because I don't want her to be in pain.

Her body is hurting.

Yeah.

She's screaming something.

We'll have to figure it out.

But it's just like everything else that you've accomplished so far.

You'll figure it out.

Yeah.

All I need is the one person to be like, my horse does that too and this was the problem.

But maybe we'll try the E thing and that'll be the winner, I hope.

I hope so too.

We can safely say this recommendation too.

I had mine on 5,000 IU daily of Nano E and it was fine.

Then I spoke with someone in the MFM group, I'll leave her anonymous because I don't want her to blow up with questions.

But she and I chatted privately and she said, put her on 10,000.

I was like, dude, that's so much money.

Which is such a shitty barrier, but I'll circle back to that.

But I said, you know what, it, let's do it.

Because right now, she's still having her blind moments where she's just gone, just gone and she couldn't think.

— Reese's Emotional Moments: Gone, Just Gone

There was so much emotionality where she couldn't think through things, that blind panic that you're explaining.

And I bumped her to 10.

She has been reasonable as all get out since then.

That has been it.

And she lived on Robaxan all during the winter for maybe two months, and we were still having all those blind things.

Breakthrough episodes.

Yeah, and then I bumped her to 10.

And she doesn't have grass.

Her paddock is, there's grass in there, but it's not grass.

It's green shit that grows out of the ground.

Yeah, it's snuffly stuff.

We call it snuffly stuff.

Yeah, it's snuffly.

It's not, you know, it's nothing.

But since we bumped her to 10, that has been like it.

And what I did was, Kahlan, I'm so glad that you even asked this on Vanessa's episode about the Elevate Maintenance versus the Concentrate.

Dude, I've been telling everyone I know who feeds Elevate or vitamin E, like, just don't even don't even mess with the maintenance.

Go straight to the Elevate Concentrate because it's half the price.

If you feed one scoop daily and one scoop is 5,000 IU, one scoop daily of the Elevate Concentrate, I think you can get it for like 65 or 70 bucks monthly, which is...

And it's 66 bucks for the maintenance, which is 1,000.

Yeah.

So it's like, it's a no-brainer.

That's open.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay.

I'll get that.

Yeah.

So that was like the easiest thing for me.

And I will keep going.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

Oh, no.

I was going to say the MagnaWave...

Well, actually, this might be a big question, but does she like it or is it too much for her?

No, she likes it.

I can't have it quite as high on her as I do Annabelle, but with Annabelle, I can boom those muscles.

But yeah, she does like it.

She'll stand there and just hang out.

I don't tie her or anything.

I just do it in her stall and she just stands there and I do it all over her body.

Great.

Okay.

We've been playing with kinesiology tape on her back and her gluteals and stuff, and her neck and stuff.

It's been great.

That's been another little thing that we've been experimenting with lately too.

How many tools in your toolbox?

A bazillion.

I want more.

Right.

Yeah, they're endless.

Get a Pro 6.

Oh, I ordered one, and it was delivered since I've been here, and as soon as I get back, going on them.

Let's go.

I'm telling you guys, if my horses need anything, they get it.

For real.

I think Annabelle will really appreciate it.

She is, oh my gosh, it is going to be amazing for her.

I cannot wait to get this thing on her.

It's so funny.

I put it on and I gave him 20 minutes of integration time.

And he was just kind of like, he never really like was fully in his body until we started walking.

And which is not what the girls told, the ladies told us to do, Linda and Jill.

So I was like, we're doing what Linda and Jill are saying.

Like we're following the rules because they invented this thing and they know everything about it, like whatever.

And he always is so funny.

Like he just is so clear with me.

He was like, yeah, I get it.

Like it's on, can we just like go do something?

And so we started walking and about 20 minutes in, he was like, oh, there's my body.

Yeah.

It's so weird.

And like not a lot changed in the way he was moving or what he was doing, but it was like, you know, as a woman, you have 47,000 things going through your head at all times.

Yep.

He has that.

And all of a sudden it was like, shh.

And his body was quiet and his brain was quiet.

And he was like, cool.

Awesome.

This is a nice walk.

Anyway, it was so cool.

It was so cool because I haven't had that from him in so long, because he's either dealing with pain or something, or there's always some kind of stressor like going on.

And I'm always asking to him, I'm always doing the most and he likes the least.

So it was really cool.

You should videotape her.

I do.

I want to videotape both of them and I actually think that Reese also will get some real reaction out of that, like a breath of air back from her with, but I think for Annabelle's body, it's going to be like, oh, this is good.

And you guys already got your walks.

So that's perfect.

Yeah.

The looks you're going to start getting, you thought you were getting looks before?

Just rural.

They come.

You're just like, it's so funny.

Because I'm at the bar.

You're doing all this stuff with your boots, and you're putting felt in here, you're duct taping this, and you're taping your horse.

You got your mat, and now you've got this Velcro contraption on them.

I'm telling you, it will make you friends because people are going to ask questions.

It's so funny.

I hope they do because everybody needs one.

Exactly.

I'm like, listen, it's not cheap, but it is worth it.

I want to tell everybody, it's so cool.

It's so funny because I'm sure your girls will be the same way.

They're so tolerant of like, all right, mom, what are we doing now?

What kind of weird shit are you putting me in now?

Because they trust that it's to make them feel better.

They trust us when we're always doing these different modalities, these adjunct therapies that we do with them.

It's almost like I see him go, okay, lady, put the thing on.

It's so funny.

I'm so excited for you.

It's so funny.

Yeah, I know.

I'm so excited too.

I can't wait to get it on.

That's the first thing I'm going to do tomorrow afternoon when I get back, so.

Yeah, send us videos.

Yes, we'll do definitely.

Cool.

Kelly, this has been awesome.

You're so fun.

Even though this was some heavy stuff that we were talking about, you're cool.

— Kelly Fits Right In: You're in the Tribe

You're in the tribe, girl.

We're going to do this.

These girls are with me forever.

I had a lot of tears this winter.

This winter, I had tears.

I'm not going to lie.

I didn't mean to ugly cry.

I was driving away and crying.

I was like, you know what?

I can't do this anymore.

Then you're thinking about a horse like Reese, if she has undiagnosed issues or something, they go from home to home to home to auction.

The thought of seeing her in that state, just creating it in my mind, no couldn't handle it.

These girls are with me forever.

It is what it is.

We're going to make the best of it.

You got to just put your mommy pants on and just get to it.

They were brought to me for a reason, and maybe because I would spoil the heck out of them or whatever, but I got them.

This is my life.

We're going to do all the good things.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much for sharing.

It's been so nice.

I feel like the three of us have so much in common, and it's been really nice talking to you.

I hope you have fun the rest of the day.

Me too.

I know.

Just show jumping is left.

So it's all stadium today.

So my sister and her niece are up there already.

We're going to get up there.

Then get to the airport, get home.

I miss my girls so much.

I can't stay.

They're in for lots of activity when you get home.

I'm sure.

I want to get one for my dogs, a Pro 6 for my dogs as well, because I saw they didn't have any available.

Yeah.

They're redoing them, I think.

Yeah.

That's why they didn't have the dog one.

They're redoing them because I think they used to be made one-off, like custom.

Is that right, Taylor?

Yes.

So they're coming back.

Yeah.

I can't wait because I have one of those labs that has all those problems in his future.

You know what I mean?

He doesn't have them yet.

But he's already on a point supplement, you know it's coming, he's a big boy, and I want to get him in one ASAP as well.

For sure.

Very good advice.

I appreciate everything you guys do because there's a lot of people out there that just need to hear one of your podcasts, and it wakes them up just to ask questions.

You know what I mean?

That's all you need, is somebody to tell you, just question things and listen to your horse.

This behavior is expression.

It's not normal.

They can't talk to us.

This is their way of talking to us, and we have to advocate for them.

We have to listen, and that's just so important to me.

It makes me cry seeing some of these other horses out there.

That's the other thing too, you guys have a platform, right?

You really have a platform to get this out, to help people and listen to people.

I can't run around my barn saying, excuse me, I saw your horse.

Yeah, your horse was telling me he didn't like this.

Yeah.

You remember when he switched his tail in the corner back there, and he lost half a stride, and then he pinned his ear a little bit, like he was talking, I can't do that.

— Closing: Gratitude, Resources & What's Next for Kelly

You guys have the ability to do that, and people like me need you.

So I really appreciate everything that you guys are doing.

Thank you so much.

We need people like you to help share.

So thank you so much for everything, and I'm so glad we have a new friend, and send us your Pro 6 videos, have a good rest of the show, and I don't know if they've already like turned down all the booths for the weekend, but hopefully you get another chance to go shopping.

I'm getting free stuff.

That's what I'm getting.

Free stuff, yes.

That's my favorite phrase.

Yeah.

All right, thank you so much, ladies.

I appreciate you.

I'll definitely keep you updated.

Thanks so much, Kelly.

You have a good rest of your day.

Thank you, too.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Bro, I love her.

I love her.

Oh, my God.

I love her.

I was like, oh, my God, we're the same person.

We're having, like, I love her so much.

She's so, like, we have a new friend.

She's so insightful.

Like, she just fucking gets it.

So lucky, lucky ponies she has.

Lucky ponies.

If you or a friend have a topic, story or case study you want us to cover in an episode, visit our website at theredmareproject.com to leave your submission or email us at redmareproject.gmail.com.

And if you have it, please include a cute picture of the horse we will be discussing so we can make it our Facebook page profile picture.

As a reminder for listeners, this content is for educational purposes only and is not meant to diagnose or treat.

We encourage everyone to do their own research and speak with your veterinarian and care team to make sound decisions for your horse's management.

If you like the podcast, please tell a friend, like, subscribe and follow on all the platforms.

Peace.

About This Episode

E16: Proprioception with the Pros: Lynda Reese & Jill McDermott on the Eagle ProSix

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 03:35:55 GMT

Join your favorite red mares, Taylor and Kahlan, for another double feature episode! Today’s story isn’t just the story of one horse, but the many horses that are helped by Prosix Equine. Founders, Jill McDermott and Lynda Reese walk us through their inspiration for this product and all its different uses. Prosix is a whole body proprioceptive tool that can help support horses struggling with ataxia due to disease, kissing spine, body lameness from compensation patterns and so much more. They even have dog sizes! This incredible tool helps creatures big and small from training time to rehab to hospice care. Grab some snacks and settle in to hear the inspiring stories Jill and Lynda have to share., as well as some solid science. To learn more about the Prosix and purchase one for your horse, visit their website at: https://www.eagleprosix.com/ Link for the research study discussed: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12892970/ Learn more about our showcased foundation, Teddy’s Legacy at https://www.teddyslegacy.org/ ��Email us with your interesting stories. Your horse may be able to help another. redmareproject@gmail.com Taylor CL Schouten, MS, APF-I Hoofcare Practitioner Wild Hoof Equine LLC www.wildhoofequine.com Kahlan Ettere Equine management Wise Choice Equine Wellness LLC Check out our website: www.theredmareproject.com Follow along on Facebook: The Red Mare Project Instagram: Wild_Hoof_Equine

About this episode

— Welcome: Introducing Jill McDermott & Lynda Reese of ProSix Equine

Action.

Welcome back to another episode.

Today we are joined by the exceptional ladies at Prosix Equine.

The Prosix product is a whole body resistance band that has helped horses with everything from relaxation to rehabilitation.

We are so excited to hear about their journey in the development and use of this product.

Welcome, Jill and Lynda.

Welcome to The Red Mare Project.

Hello.

Hey ladies.

Hi.

Good to see you.

Good to see you both too.

Welcome.

It's so dark here.

That's because of our lovely weather.

Yeah.

I have a plant light on me or I'd be in the pitch black.

Okay.

Yeah.

Totally fine.

You look great.

All right, ladies.

Well, let's go ahead and get started.

So, Jill and Lynda, maybe do you guys want to tell us a little bit about y'all's lives in the horse world and how y'all came to create ProSix?

Like, what's the origin story?

Oh, well, it was actually through a huge county rescue going on here in our area.

Lynda, it was a long-term person who was never called to account for his neglect of his horses, and Lynda moved into the area and pretty much started a little momentum on resolving the situation.

So the county wouldn't prosecute unless they had a place to put all the rescuers.

So, Lynda's the one man made the call to me, because I had a large facility at the time, 30-stall barn in the property.

So, I agreed to help her out on the condition that she had to help me with any of the rescues that came in.

And that's how she met, because we ended up rescuing like 17 of those horses in one year.

And then the following year, it was like 16 more.

Woof!

Lynda would come out.

Yep, Lynda would come out.

They were all feral, like brood mares.

Nobody's gunhandled.

Yeah.

No halter training, needing anything.

Well, there are a lot of some of the issues, because, you know, you have feral horses, and you can, they range from young to old, and you can see the dysfunction in a lot of the horses.

And Lynda is a nurse, and I have a massage background.

And so we would talk about the issues some of these horses presented.

And in the meantime, you know, I have horses, and I'm not going to say I go out and buy premium horses.

I always get the ones I feel sorry for.

And meantime, Lynda bought a horse, and those horses came with the issues.

So in the world community we live, that's a few and far between.

And the resources are limited because they not only do horses, but they do cattle, and the cattle are far outweigh.

And so we have to be kind of self-sufficient.

Self-sufficient, right.

And with her background and my background, we were able to resolve a lot of these issues moving forward.

Make it quick.

We ended up having annual events.

We had a trainer's challenge where these horses were given a hundred days of training from volunteer trainers.

— The Trainer's Challenge: Wild Horses & Rescue Beginnings

And we had an event where they competed with prizes for first and third.

And at the end of the event, we auctioned off those horses to pre-approved buyers.

So cool.

We made it through it.

It was great.

And we made it through it.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

All of those horses.

Yeah.

So 33 in total.

But wow.

And, but that's how we became acquainted.

And ever since that time, we were friends ever since.

But the ProSix came about by all these problems we were talking about, solving with our horses.

And, you know, it was a barn invention.

Instead of a garage invention, it was a bus invention.

And then, you know, we started with, with, like you said, all these little tiny issues that we, like how do we solve this one?

How do we solve this one?

And so I love that Jill calls us creative problem solvers because we still handle everything that way.

What, what my brain lacks, hers has.

We put words in each other's mouth.

We can look at each other.

She'll go, you know what?

And I'll go, that's brilliant.

This is not the right way to work.

You sound like us.

Kahlan, this is us.

This is us.

That's awesome.

Friends after all that.

Like that said, you know, Jill McDermott's got a large facility because, you know, in following this case and it had picked up more and more followers of people that, that knew and I think, I think I kind of instilled the guilt in them.

I belong to the County Animal Society and I'm a dog trainer.

So I was out on a call past this guy's farm and he couldn't believe what I was seeing.

And so at the meeting that night, I said, I have a question.

What's wrong with that huge arm?

And everybody looked at the floor and I thought, no, we're the Animal Society and you guys know about this?

No.

It's been going on for like 25, 30 years and people were giving him hay, giving him food, trying to help.

Obviously in a hoarding situation, you've got mental issues, right?

I mean, it just, he did not, he could not see.

But going back to the vet, the vet said, so call Jill, because she has this big facility and the prosecutor had said, we have to keep them together because these are kids' horses until they're not.

So we have to keep them all together and we want just, just normal care and don't do anything else.

Like initially, just feed them, you know, cane water, just like, you know, white good shit and of course, they started improving immediately.

Yeah.

You know, we had body scores of one and two.

It was, it was bad.

It was really bad.

So I called Jill and I said, and there's some presumed pregnant ones and Jill's like, well, I can definitely keep pregnant ones.

— Jill's Herd Grows: Pregnant Mares & the ProSix Origin Story

You know, there's a handful and then her voice died quiet.

And she said, how many are there?

Yeah, yeah, we can do that.

Bring them over and picking them up and bringing them to a place and the whole thing.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

That's such a frustrating process.

I've been through that exact process and it is so frustrating and it's so like disheartening.

Like you said, the people were aware of it, you don't know how to help, specifically with hoarded animals.

It's like, it's so hard because there's so many variables and the animals are the ones that end up paying.

So thank you for doing that.

That's incredible.

And that's so cool.

You did your own like Mustang makeover, but it was like Michigan makeover.

That's so cool.

What an amazing use of resources too to think that like we have all of these animals that need a degree of training.

Let's turn this into a competition.

Yeah, but like we get fun, create some incentive for folks.

Yeah, it was, you know, being an amber person, I knew these horses had no chance to be a successful adoption unless they had skills. 100%.

So I know I had to have them at a point where people can handle them in the back yard.

Yeah, and believe me, I called all of the stakes around me, everybody to in order to come up with enough trainers to do it.

And then the second year was a little easier because I had some of my trainers come back.

Wow, that's so cool.

What a cool group of people.

Yes.

Amazing.

Jill's criteria for this was amazing though too.

And the events were better than Christmas.

They were so much fun to go watch.

Oh, I'm sure.

Trainers would show up with these horses and walk these animals calmly out of a trailer and they were wearing vultures.

And then they tapped them up standing by the trailers and they were doing a meet and greet where you could go around.

Ask which horse this was and ask the questions.

And we hadn't seen them for, what, almost three months because it was 90 days with the trainer.

So for three months we hadn't seen these horses.

And to see them all, all bloomed and glossy and tapped up and that is so cool.

So what was the, what was the formal name of the event?

If folks want to look it up and see like videos and stuff like that.

Back then I don't know if I was into social media because that has been a pain for Lynda and I.

Relatable.

Through this whole process creating a company, social media has been our enemy.

Girl.

And so we too, we called it Food for Horses.

It was our horses.

Food for our horses.

It was creating fundamentals, opportunity, options, opportunity, fundamentals.

And I forgot what the D word wasn't even my last name.

Sure.

I washed that T-shirt.

— Food for Horses: The Rescue Foundation That Sparked It All

It had all that on there and that had the names of all the trainers in Atlanta.

And it was called Food for Horses.

That's so cool.

You guys are so cool.

I know.

This is us.

It was finding options, opportunities.

Yeah.

That's okay.

Email us when you think of it, because I want to know.

Yeah.

And what year was this in?

What year was this? 2012 were the events.

Okay.

Oh, cool.

Excellent.

Then how did that segue into where we are now?

What was the next step for you guys?

You can see these horses came in feral, so of course they were crazy.

We're like, how do you get a crazy horse to come down?

So then we went into the squeeze shoe, Temple Grandin, and we said, okay, we're going to get these guys to come down.

So we thought of tension.

We thought of Thunder Shirt.

Wait, we just started.

You know how you bring it?

Yeah.

You know, right?

We thought of that.

You found a jelly suit thing.

Yeah.

When Russians, when Russian cosmonauts went into space, they, when they came back with zero gravity issues, zero proprioception, they had made this, what's called an Adelie suit.

You have to look that up.

A-D-E-L-I.

Yeah.

So it went away.

It was in our minds.

And then in my, you know, like I said, we equated this back to our personal horses.

And I had a horse that would go around the arena a hundred times and be the perfect horse.

And then all of a sudden, none of the blue, you'd end up in the middle of the arena.

And you're like, how did I get here to the end?

What the heck just happened?

Yeah.

And this is dangerous.

And how am I going to fix this?

And my trainer used to say riding is like going down a hallway.

And your hands and your legs are used to open doors in the hallway.

Oh, I like that.

So you keep contact, you know, keep all the doors closed and only you open them.

So I said, how am I going to close that door?

So he can jump in the middle of the arena when I'm riding, you know, because I'm just going off one of these days.

Yeah, you're going to get hurt.

And I thought, well, that, you know, making the wolf around not only calm sources, but that's going to create my boundary for him to stay.

The doors are closed.

We're staying in here.

Yes.

Yeah.

So can I ask a question?

Have you ever experienced a horse who reacted negatively to it seemingly out of like claustrophobia almost?

Really?

Wow.

No.

Wow.

We hear from a lot of people.

We form relationships with our customers because a lot of them call on me saying, my trainer said, my vet said, can you tell me more?

One vote from my horse is the most common question.

Ask about shimpers and wild noose and string halt and EPM and all these things.

Hello.

Our answer is try it.

That's why we always had a return policy on it of some kind to let them know that, hey, try it.

— The Return Policy Philosophy: Let the Horse Tell You

See what your horse says.

Because at the very least, we knew they enjoyed wearing it.

It was calming, it was supportive.

The changes that we had seen were so immediate and not that it's a miracle thing, but the calming is immediate.

Then after that, you have their attention.

They're curious and you see them shift and lose minutes and things and they really enjoy wearing it.

Can it cure something like shivers?

No, but what a lovely management protocol.

If you can give them a little bit of support and they can feel that.

Of course.

You know, sometimes we see, sometimes with the rowdier ones and the people that choose the turnout, you know, is a place to process and everything.

After they get through that initial process and use a really good rule, which Jill and I love, and it's right, it's I-row adjustment, you know, and then they stand up and they shake and you watch this shake go through.

Jill taught me about that one.

So you're getting all this information.

And sometimes after that, they start experimenting and they might do a hot lap or two.

And I think they're just testing to know about, yeah, is this holding me or can I move with it?

Yeah.

I think the more you're apt to get a buck or reaction off of them is if you put it on them and move up, you don't let it cross us.

You have to, and that's why we're so encouraging, please put it on them and please leave them stand there, at least 15 minutes.

Let them make it personal.

Let them decide what they're going to do because there's a heck of a lot of information coming in at that time because this is hitting on mechanoreceptors and maybe ones that haven't fired before are going to start firing.

We know they do because we start seeing the stamp stomping of their feet of muscle quivering when they first put it on, but it's leaving them alone.

When we first started because this thing came off, a spin-off of rescue, I used to go to the rescues because I wanted rescues to have this product.

And many times you go there and say, you know, like one of the horses I remember most is this horse didn't want anybody near her.

She was used to her handler and only the handler was familiar to her and she was calm with the handler.

But she didn't want people near her.

She didn't want noise, anything.

And they used her, of course, for me to use as a demo with people gathered around.

So there's people gathered around this horse.

So this horse is very nervous.

And what I noticed, and I still don't know why this happens because ProSix still has some mysteries out there for us, is I started taking the ProSix front loop and just squeezing it like this on top of her nose, you know, just backing forward.

— Front Loop Discovery: Unexpected Proprioceptive Responses

And then she started breathing better.

And then I started crawling up her head.

And what I noticed is you can go right over these horses' eyes with this product and they don't break it.

Something about that stretch, what are the ways this?

Pressure and release, pressure and release.

And I was able to get that on that horse.

And then we let her cross us.

They lunged her a little bit in it.

And she was calm.

Before that, she was flying out of the circle.

And at the end, we were just talking.

And as we were talking, people were creeping into the area and they were right next door.

And she was as calm as calm can be.

And that's what I do when I have an anxious and excited horse.

I'll creep that product up over there and have it very slowly like that.

And thing now called the Jill Challenge, where it's like, you're not going to get this on this horse.

And I was like, okay, we'll see.

We'll see.

Give me a couple of minutes.

So, that's all it takes in a couple of minutes, right?

Yeah.

And usually, if I can ask them questions about, oh, why and what are your concerns?

And by the time you get to my question, the horse is standing there, tears drooping, lip banging, processing.

Jill's had it on for a couple of minutes at that point.

Yeah.

It's like a magic show.

It is.

But you'll never get on that one.

You know.

No problem.

The only thing that I have ever told the customer, please take it off, is with the dog.

I think the owner had a very, very old dog.

And it was at the end of its time.

And she was desperately trying to get more out of him.

But he was so far gone in compensation.

But he didn't have the strength to rebuild and restructure.

And so we put it on him and saw that it was just too much for him.

Just too much.

He just sat down or lay down with it.

Yeah.

Probably pushing 15 or so.

Oh, wow.

That's our older boy.

He was getting along.

He could do the things he had to do.

Yeah.

That easily.

And so we just said, no, no.

Yeah.

And took it back with us.

We said, this just isn't fair to him because he's not at his age in his life where you want to rehabilitate.

Yeah.

Fair.

So is there, and you may not, may have thought of this, may not.

Is there a most common pathology that you see this used in?

EPM.

Yeah.

EPM because what we found is that you can rehab with the meds and the anti-inflammatories.

They throw a triton.

We'll often see improvement with that.

However, Jill had rehabbed several cases, and these were so bad.

These are the kind that you hear, or they called, a friend of a friend saying, we go out, assess the horse.

Horses that would go up rather than back up because they couldn't feel behind them.

— Ataxia & Danger: When Horses Can't Feel Behind Themselves

You know, and becoming dangerous to themselves and others, but when the infection was gone, they're circling to get places or they're sidewinding to get places.

I remember one in particular that was bad.

And when she heard APM, I'm sure she's thinking, marquee, that she's like, that's thousands of dollars.

I could do that.

And she's like, and I'm not interested in rehab.

I can afford to have one horse.

I want a horse that I can ride.

And Jill said, I'll pick him up.

But she went back and got him and brought him home.

And he had to lean on the side of the barn, lean on the stowa wall, he was dropping feed.

That must have been a scary drive.

He was really bad.

He was stroke-like.

Yeah, it was one of the worst ones we've seen.

But again, with meds and time, and then the ProSix on constantly, and on a horse that's so severely ataxic that it's a huge fall risk.

Yeah.

There's no time limit.

You put the ProSix on, and we used to tell him to do your skin checks and everything, a lot less really with the new ProSix.

Now, a lot of people come back, because it's better cabin and everything.

He came back, and he and several others, and we never knew rebound was a thing, a relapse, I'm sorry, was a thing.

We're following these EPM support sites, and people are talking about, well, then he relapsed two months later, and then he relapsed the following year, and we understand about stresses, weather changes, all these things that might, but it was like there was a piece missing.

I feel in our best guesses and educating guesses and thoughts, if you address the damage done to the neural system, because we know that an advanced case that, well, I don't even know how to advance, maybe we don't even need that word.

With BPM, you lose the myelin sheath on the nerves, right?

The destruction there.

So equate that to MS, people are more familiar, right?

And you can have, we're meeting relaxing, and yep, the anti-inflammatories work.

Somehow with Prosix, you avoid that.

I wouldn't say across the board, but I don't think we had a horse that was re-abusing the Prosix when we went through that process.

Well, we have people that use the Prosix, they give it results within a couple months, the horse is cured and they sell it, the Prosix.

Oh, that's true.

And then a year later, they're like, oh, my horse is relapsing.

I think once you have that kind of narrow destruction, you have to refresh your heart.

You want to refresh, keep refreshing, you want to activate those mechanoreceptors in the body.

And it just like, I think it's a, it's a full health well-being protocol for everybody, animals and people.

— Full-Body Wellness Protocol: Activating Mechanoreceptors

You should be activating those mechanoreceptors all the time.

And that's why we see itensia in aged people, aged animals.

You know, my dog can't get in the car anymore.

My, my, you know, this person can't maneuver in here.

I think if they would be wearing products like our Prosix, is a neural reset or a neural activation system.

Like a reminder Yeah, we would not be fading as the age.

Well, you can, the guys, I will.

It's always regularly rotates.

Like it's your day to wear it for a while.

In the winter, I am really bad because I hate winter.

And they have blankets on.

So they hardly wear it in the winter.

Yeah.

But starting in April, through probably December, they have to wear it at least once and make it twice a week.

And I have senior horses.

And my senior horses do not look like senior horses.

Beautiful top lines.

They still move an extension and they're whole movers.

I love that.

And when I ride them in the summer, I do work them.

And I need to be on the lens line and something with it on.

They get their reminders all the time.

Yeah.

And likewise, Lynda and I have products that we wear that remind us.

Yeah.

Because it's amazing the difference, right?

Yeah.

I mean, our body works in such a way that it shifts attention away from areas that aren't functioning very well.

And I suppose that's a self-preservation thing.

Of course.

And you shift into compensation patterns without being aware.

Well, a good example of what you can imagine your horse is feeling with the ProSix is, I recently started doing the treadmill again, and I was letting go of the handle, something, you know, I wanted to see, you know, the first couple of times I held on to the handrails when I was walking the treadmill.

Then I decided, I'm going to let go, and I'm going to start doing this and get more calorie burn.

And I can do it.

Yeah, I was falling to the side.

I was so, I got my light ProSix instantly.

Instantly, 80 percent better.

Wow.

There's a confidence with that.

We've seen it in the horses.

And it was really amazing to deal with what it feels like.

Taylor, did you have a question?

Yeah.

I wanted to go back to the Adelie suit because I feel like that's a really important piece.

And it kind of ties into the origin story.

So if any of our listeners do want to check it out, it's spelled A-D-E-L-I, the Adelie suit.

And it really sounds like this was kind of the, not the inspiration, but a lot of the premises came from this.

Yeah?

It was the Adelie suit and Temple Grandin's squeeze shirt.

Because like I said, we were dealing with a lot of, a lot of anxiety with those rescues.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I'm looking too at this and they use this for, for rehab for children, for the product that I'm looking at right here.

— Children's Rehab Parallel: Patient-Led Movement Therapy

But it's, it allows the patient to choose how to move if they have movement problems.

So it helps them be able to counteract gravity, which is why it works on, why it worked on the Russian cosmonauts when they came back.

Oh wow, this thing looks crazy.

Yeah.

That comes from disuse.

So now think about a horse on stall rest.

Yeah.

You have a horse and, and you know, whatever it is, you know, and the vet is saying stall rest, you know, that's it, you know, and boy, a few months in stall rest, you're not an athlete anymore, and you've lost a lot of perception and awareness, and you're unstable, and yeah, what that does to them mentally as well as physically.

Stall rest with a horse wearing ProSix is, now they're having a more or less a posture band reminding them, and they're doing isometric exercises in their stall, so they're working and they're getting better.

People don't believe that you can make great gains on stall rest, but you can.

Yeah.

Well, if you look up isometric exercises and start doing some of yourself as a person, they're not easy, they're hard.

Yeah.

And then also too, because anytime I mention it to someone, a lot of people will ask like, well, what's the difference between ProSix and the equi-band?

And recognizing that the equi-band really just works on the back half of the horse and still needs a handler, the ProSix is more independent use for the horse, because they're the ones who are running the show.

And actually, the research article that hopefully, we'll get to that in just a little bit, they do a really good job of teasing apart that the ProSix is a whole horse approach where the horse can actually be in charge of what they do, so they self-regulate within it without the need of a handler.

And then the equi-band only works on the belly and on the hind end.

So it's not a whole horse approach.

But maybe y'all could speak a little bit more about the difference, because a lot of folks do ask questions about like, well, what's the difference, because they both work on proprioception.

Well, I'll speak first on just as working a horse, and then Lynda can speak more on the specifics.

But as a handler of a horse and working a horse in bulk, in the equi-band, I saw my horses' hind ends being driven.

So their hind ends are getting along the stride.

And my horses were clipping the front of their feet because their front feet had no idea what to do.

The front end stride length even changed.

The back end was the only one that did.

That was what I was thinking was like, in the front is where they need, a lot of horses that I see and a lot of horses that I've had need more support than we think.

— Front-End Support: What Most Horses Actually Need

We, you know, you hear in training all the time, drive the back end, drive the back end, drive the back end.

But that doesn't really teach the rest of their body what to do.

You're just expecting a lot of the back half of the horse and you're not talking to the front half.

Right.

And they're only saying, oh, it's a 40, 60 situation.

You know, you went 60% on the height.

Well, they're finally starting to realize that that is not a thing, that there has to be equal load.

And that's why I said now, you know, as a horse owner, putting on the apparatus and watching it, that's what I saw.

But Lynda can speak more for the difference of what happens in.

And understanding how we approach all this, the horse tells us and then we run and look it up.

That's how it should be done.

You try something new, yet from the first time we put our first, you know, made of girdle material, the first time we put our ramp on and we look to the horse boat, what do you think?

You know, and so we're looking for things.

So when we hear people worry about the fact that it may be compression on shoulders and joints in the front and you got to get that thoracic sling free and unencumbered, you have to do this and that.

And I'm thinking, okay, but that's not what the horse is telling.

Yeah.

Well, with the thoracic sling, free and unencumbered is only good if they're not using that freedom to load in a compensation pattern because they're uncomfortable somewhere else.

Hell yeah.

Yeah.

Excellent point.

But what we actually saw was a lightness in the front, a lightness overall.

One of the tests that you can do, if you have a firm surface, you're looking at lameness and they ask you that, jog a little on a firm surface and it's listening as much as it is observing.

You're looking for weight load on each limb, and that sound, it changes with the ProSix and it gets lighter.

Because they are aware of that mode control, they were lighter in the front, and the front and back were talking to each other because the connection.

That band, we thought of all these different ways to describe it in the beginning.

When we talked about having a full signal, a lot of full signal with ProSix.

Stuff is turning on.

It wasn't just from behind or just from the front, and all these things.

People do a lot of work in the front with vibrance and tie downs, and just the bidding and the way that they hold them tight and all these things.

So the beauty of putting the ProSix on a horse like that was to see those releases, and to see them start to use even though their nuts were poorly muscled because they had been in control.

— Watching Releases: Poorly Muscled Horses Start to Move

Watch them get some of that back.

Which basically circle back to the difference in the apparatus is their product has to have a girth.

We had so many horses in our lives that have come to us with birth issues for obvious reasons.

We needed the abdominal lift to support the spine.

We knew that was a good thing.

That's why we went so wide on that band.

Again, the communication.

Where do you want to target the horses getting the full message from the brain, from the central pattern generators, and the spine, from everywhere?

Where does that information come all together?

You really need to hire the mechanoreceptors and the sensory apparatus all the way around, the whole body.

We have a video of a dog that had no- Oh, he's going to have luna.

Tell them about luna.

Oh, goodness.

We got contacted by this woman on the East Coast, and she did rescue, especially with pitties.

Love pitties because they were so maligned, and she had a lot of luck with taking in the sponsors and re-homing them.

She gets a call from the small rescue she worked with.

They had a dog in a cardboard box.

The dog was about a year old.

The dog couldn't walk or sit.

The dog was paralyzed from midway in the back.

Going back, they thought.

No x-rays had been done.

Nothing had been done.

The owner just surrendered this dog in the box because she's incontinent and they're tired of taking care of her.

And she says, and I saw your product, do you think it would help?

Yeah.

Oh, they did know about that, didn't they?

They did know about that.

They had done scans and this dog was born with cerebellar agenesis.

Dog did not have a cerebellum.

Really?

There was fluid where that should have been.

That's rare.

They gave a horrible prognosis and just put the dog down because.

Yeah.

And we were asking ourselves, well, wait a minute, if the cerebellum is responsible for taking all that input and creating movement and generating patterns and all those things, what is taking care of that?

And a lot of vets were like, well, we know when one part of the body fails, the other parts will pick it up in bits and pieces as best they can, but we really didn't know with this dog.

The best she can do is try, right?

And so we were making all of our dog wraps.

They've always been custom made based on the owner's measurements.

So she sends the measurements in.

She supplied us with the videos.

But the first video she sent, she was like, oh my god, oh my god, and she's calling it.

She's sending these videos.

She had been using the front half of the help mug harness.

So very little support and everything, but it gave you a handle.

— Dog ProSix: Helping Canine Rehab & Mobility

And it was amazing to watch.

This dog was so enthusiastic and so happy.

She had a t-shirt on, I think that is just for like having the front half of the help mug harness.

Is this still the dog with the cerebellar agenesis?

Or did you say that dog was euthanized?

Really, because they can't...

Not euthanized, no.

But she said, I need this dog to be moving because I can't just leave her in a crate or laying there.

She needs to build up muscle.

You know, she could be utilizing her limbs.

She put the ProSix on, you know, with...

So in the picture there's a help mug harness and a t-shirt and she's wearing the ProSix and the dog starts developing a gait pattern.

And it's sporadic at first.

The hind end is kind of bunny hopping, but the front end is walking.

And then the hind end starts to separate and it starts to walk.

And then the dog on the video squawks and urinates for the first time by herself.

First time she'd ever peed by herself upright and doing like we would do.

Lone mind thing was, okay, you don't need a cerebellum for patterns.

So we know the body is so much more than we.

Yeah, it's not just that one.

Because that pattern developed from somewhere.

So again, it's like you have to provide all the information for remapping.

And that's where it falls short because they're targeted areas.

Yeah.

You embrace the whole body.

If you're worried about Taylor.

Yeah.

I just wanted to give a little bit of context because a lot of our listeners might not know what a cerebellum is.

So I think it might be kind of helpful because we don't want to just kind of rush over a lot of stuff without giving some context.

But it is really rare that this dog even was born without one.

Because for human cases, there's only 10 cases of humans born without cerebellums.

So the cerebellum, it's yeah, that's why I was like, Jesus Christ, that's crazy.

But it is in charge of balance and coordination and motor control.

So a lot of things that we do, that we like don't think about like walking and thinking, or like riding a bike and chewing gum, or like being able to tie your shoes and not think about it.

A lot of that automaticity comes from our cerebellum.

So that's where the shock that this dog was able to actually just like go to the bathroom independently, that's all controlled by it.

Enormous.

Yeah.

And it sounds like what was happening is that the product was allowing this dog to really hone in on neuroplasticity, which do you actually know how old this dog was?

About 18 months, if I remember correctly.

So still young.

So I'm actually curious because neuroplasticity is at its peak during adolescent or child year.

So 18 months, that's a very rehabbable age for all species really.

— Age & Rehab Potential: Young vs. Older Horses with ProSix

But I'd be curious if there's more rehabilitation potential using the Prosix in younger versus older.

But I guess it all depends on what the pathology is.

And the situation.

Yeah.

Yeah, the decrymity in it.

But it's often enough that in studies of people, and we're talking about people with Alzheimer's, people with Parkinson's, people with other, even the Alzheimer's ones were probably the Lewy body with the dementia features.

Oh, sure.

Black.

Where I was going with that is they determine now that neuroplasticity does not end.

It doesn't end, it decreases.

It does not end, it decreases.

It does, but they used to think that older people, neuroplasticity was not available.

That was not going to happen.

They prove it to all kinds of different things that it does.

It's just how you reach all that.

What methods are using to reach it?

In Parkinson's, they were experimenting with amelading patients with a gait belt and everything, but having more headphones with music.

They could tap into because as the timers, and I believe in Parkinson's as well, there's a regression with the memory.

The music could hit them back, and actually they could dance before they could walk.

It was a little bit of a thing, but it went to the noreclasticity.

One of the things that we see as a mistake in rehab is when you approach physical therapy and in working with all of that, using repetition and using learning and using training, and that's walking the side down, and you're using the lip as an extension, and you're tapping and diving and training, why are we trying to teach something that the horse has always done without thinking about and our approach healing from the wrong pathway?

Yeah.

It's better if it's signals that they take in and they work with, and it goes to that nervous system pattern.

So you're not training, that's why we're advising, and no less, put it in the stall, put it in a small supervised tree.

Start with those things in the beginning, particularly if it's severe, and you need to be able to talk to the brain, and give them that sensory information, and in that vein, we describe what we've done with horse and dog products.

If you think of the ProSix as an external stimulus, you give them that feedback that they're not getting from their own body.

Because the premise behind the Adelie suit and these other suits is wrong.

That you can provide externally, but the connections they don't have internally.

Whether it's thorough damage, when you're having to totally be wider inside, or if you just need to wake up those pathways that aren't being utilized.

I guess off of that is a good time to ask, logistically speaking, like someone, mine will be here Tuesday.

— Taylor's ProSix Arrives Tuesday: Excitement & Logistics

Yay.

I'm so excited.

Oh my gosh.

I can't freaking wait.

I only have half days on Wednesday at work, so I will be flying to the barn as fast as possible.

I'm really excited.

My horse is a great communicator, and I'll send videos and all of that.

But say, a person who just got my Prosix, I don't have a horse with any severe neuropathologies or anything.

Where do I start?

Where is a safe place to start?

I think a lot of people, strap placement is a question, longevity of use.

I know that you had just said it was really important.

I think Jill said actually really important.

Fifteen minutes of processing time and then let them see where they want to go.

Those first couple of sessions, I like to go on walks with my horse.

I would probably, that would probably be where I start.

Just walks around the property.

It's an enormous property just to let him see how he feels.

And so I can hear, you know, like you said, hearing the difference on a hard surface.

That's enormous for me right now personally.

And I know a lot of our listeners can relate.

That definitely will be something that I plan on doing.

But is there a protocol for beginning safely so that you're not overwhelming them?

Smart.

I will not be turning my horse out in it because I will, that's a waste of money.

He will eat it.

I know, no matter how much he loves it and appreciates it, it will be confetti.

So that, I won't start there.

Okay.

We recommend that you start, because this is its sensory overload, you can see it in their eyes.

Their eyes kind of glaze over, there's an expression that they get.

They get that when you leave them alone.

We've seen that when we're working with a client and the horse is standing off to the side and nobody's throwing energy at the horse, and the horse is then free to process.

So letting them digest is the most important thing first.

So even though no attacks, no problems, nothing.

The other thing from a trained and behavioral standpoint that I really encourage is, their first question is, what am I going to do with this?

What are we doing?

Yeah.

Why?

Well, once the horse has been having issues, that can be anxiety producing.

Tiny attacking up and getting ready to go out.

Sometimes that look or the anxiety, they're starting to get revved up, but you can see those wheels turning and there's something about whatever they asked them in and can they do it.

That's anxiety producing.

So we don't want to tie this to anything.

So when I say, go ahead and put them on the cross ties, brush them all up, if they do all the things.

And now I want you to go back to the stall, if you can, if that's available to you or to a small turnout area, put t he ProSix on and just leave them be for a bit.

— Introduction Protocol: Start in the Stall, Let Them Be

So that that question doesn't come up, what do you want me to do with this?

No.

I mean, and you.

And use it like one dessert.

And it's very interesting to see those things that Jill talked about, you'll see.

And they'll practice picking up feet, they'll shift the latin behind, they might stamp.

There were a number of videos that came up initially where people were saying, we want you to help with the fitting.

We're happy to go with what's at whatever.

We're happy to go with you to the barn and help you adjust this on your force.

And they would say, oh goodness, the flies must be bad and go for the fly spray.

It was more of a, it was more of a girl thing.

Like they were sensory seeking.

It was a sensory seeking.

Or the nerves were itchy because they were turning back on.

That's a lot of thinking.

Like when you fall, it's a lot of thinking.

You get rid of that.

I think that accounts for some of the rolling that you see too.

Sure.

Oh.

And I will say from a hoof care side, because the ProSix came to me just from my hoof care community.

Molly Agar and Kelly Roach were kind of like the, they were the, what's the word?

Yeah, they were the ones who introduced me to it.

And Lynda, I remember you told me when, before I got mine, because there's a case in particular that I wanted to try it on.

And you said, just put it on him, let him sit for like 15, 20 minutes in a stall, just hang out, or no, 10 to 15 minutes, keep it quiet.

So we put it on him and I went and I trimmed the other horse.

And we just kind of kept an eye on him while he was wearing it.

And dude fell asleep.

Like we put it on him and he had, he had his hay in front of him and he just, he just knocked out and it was, it was kind of bizarre because he's a bit of a busy guy.

But his ability to stand for that trim was, I would say like if I had maybe 80 percent better.

And this horse, yeah, and this horse in particular, we don't have a formal diagnosis, but he flipped over and he crushed his withers at some point in his life.

And we're pretty sure he presents, he checks all the boxes of wobblers.

I'm pretty sure that there's some gastodontic process in there.

And he has some spinal cord compression.

And he's very challenging to trim, very challenging, because he's where his body is.

You know, he kind of uses me as a wall, which the only reason why I allow it is because he's a very strong.

Well, he's a clear communicator.

But trimming him with that on, I mean, that is going to increase his longevity.

I couldn't even tell you.

I couldn't tell you just exponentially.

— Balance & Safety: Keeping the Horse on Its Feet

Taylor, doesn't it seem safer too?

Keeping balance.

Yeah.

Taylor, my friend has kept safe.

Yes.

Bring it to Jackson.

I will.

There's so many horses on there that I was thinking about bringing it to.

One in particular was Shivers.

When he picks up the Shiver legs, he's so off balance on his stable leg because he just when he flies all the way up there.

Yeah.

Which actually makes sense because Shivers is more of a cerebellum disease than anything.

That kind of ties back in to what you were talking about with that doggo.

Right.

So please get them that information.

Yeah.

Then your next step is the walk.

The walk is a powerful rehab gait.

Yeah.

Feel the gait all four feet hit the ground.

It's the mother of gaits.

Yeah.

If you want to rehab, rehab at the walk, please.

Because a lot of people want to just zoom and go to those faster gaits, but those are the gaits that it's most easy to compensate it.

Oh, true.

Rehab at the walk, please.

Process, walk, go slow.

Increase time.

Then we can move to the trot.

Through all this process, we're saying, don't add poles, don't add hills.

Just walk.

Just let them go.

Go slowly.

It all improves the horse.

You're improving the horse along the way, so there's no hurry.

Then you can get to your poles and you can raise them, and you can do all the challenges.

You can do your trotts, and then you can go on your saddle.

But it's like, you know, be the piper.

Yeah.

We're all about teaching self-balancing, self-carriage.

That's what this is about.

Because there's no learn dependence with the Prosix.

We advise that if you get them on a regular schedule, have one or use Prosix for maybe three days and have a couple of days where you do exactly the same thing, but no horse steps.

Get the body a little challenge at that point, now that we've gotten used to it, and you'll see that they don't lose anything.

You brought up Shivers before.

We did have a horse in our program that somebody kept the journal.

When you mentioned the journal, I thought of her immediately.

Yeah.

She kept the journal.

Her horse was diagnosed with Shivers, and in fact, went through a program at Michigan State with Shivers.

Anyway, she started her horse on the ProSix and did the protocol very slowly, because he was dangerous to her.

Now, she uses him for jumping.

He was a thoroughbred rescue.

Wow.

Yeah.

She got him out of a thoroughbred rescue, and he is no jumping and competing.

Wow.

That's amazing.

Excellent.

I would like to talk about the research study though, because I feel like that's such a huge milestone for y'all.

How did- Yeah.

Yeah.

We don't need to do a full peer-reviewed analysis of it, because it is a peer-reviewed article, which is terrific, because that puts even more feathers in your cat.

— The Peer-Reviewed Study: What the Research Actually Shows

But what I really appreciated from it, it really drove home the value that it does decrease cortisol, which is tremendous.

We found increased range of motion, and then it actually helped to decrease muscle tension in the semitendinosus, which was huge, because that I see is so overdeveloped and so stressed, and sometimes they can actually become fibrotic because of that.

So it seems that it's kind of, it's, I don't want to say like turning back time, but kind of.

So you see the effects of compensation then, and the tightening of these.

Oh, yeah.

And we talk about that, in compensation, they often use muscles of movement to try to stabilize themselves.

So trying to get, using the correct muscles to stabilize themselves.

Yeah.

So the hand patterns is a huge thing.

Now, the study was a wonderful thing.

Yeah.

It gets validity that we needed to learn.

We know that you have lower cortisol.

So you're putting them in a place where they can learn, and they can learn to regulate their nervous system too.

So I've always felt like I personally struggle with anxiety, and my horse and I are extremely close.

We've been together his whole life.

I've been his only human, and that obviously transfers to him, right?

No matter how much I think I'm controlling myself, I can't lie to a horse.

You can't lie to a horse.

It's not possible.

So I'm really through training, through rehab, through his injuries, through just his lifetime, I've always felt like no matter how well we're doing, whether he's in a sound period of his life or not, there's a wall.

It's like I have half his brain for learning, but the other half is in that survival, like what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if.

And that's where I live.

I live in that place of like, okay, I'm focused and I'm doing what I need to do, but there's a wall.

And it's that anxiety, that excitatory state.

And so I'm really excited to see, because I've lately, he's been less busy.

He's very comfortable where he's, where he is right now, but his body is not comfortable.

So I'm really excited to see if that maybe helps with that wall that's there because it's like he wants to be present, but he's always got other stuff going on.

Yeah.

I'm thinking it's going to help.

Yeah.

It's going to quiet his brain and open it up to learning.

Like I said, when you have low cortisol, you know.

Yeah.

What I've noticed as a rider with Prosix on and going through the steps, the baby steps and getting up to riding, is that when I got on my horse, the first time with Prosix on, I felt 75% of that micromanaging going away.

— Riding with ProSix On: A Changed Experience in the Saddle

The micromanagement went away because he was doing it himself.

Yeah.

Well, they probably appreciate that so much from like a trust standpoint.

Exactly.

So their attitude towards me was, oh my God, she's not taking on me.

Get out of my way.

Constantly after me.

I will say our relationship got better.

That's to me like a horse's comfort and your relationship with them is like as paramount.

I don't care what I'm able to do.

I don't have any goals other than him being happy and comfortable and us having a good relationship.

I think that that's part of the reason that we do this podcast is to highlight that those are always the most important things.

If you have those things, you have everything.

When you're seven years old and you're a little horse girl and you want a horse so bad, you don't care about all the other crap that we put weight on.

We care about having a pony that we can brush and love and trust us and we can go on a walk with.

Like that's like a dream, right?

And then as we get older and we have these expectations put on them and then money comes into play, there's so much pressure and the horse has to carry it.

That's not fair.

So I'm just going to go on a walk.

I'm so excited to go on a freaking walk.

Just, yeah, Taylor, you had something?

I'm just kind of piecing it all together because it's kind of, I guess, I mean, it clicked and it's something that like, I guess I understood, but looking at the study and of course, I'm always going to go back to the study.

That's just kind of my nature.

He's a nerd.

I'm a big nerd.

But so the takeaways from the study, I'm just going to keep going back to it because I think it really just kind of like solidifies the ground that y'all are standing on.

So they found that there's going to be increased range of motion in the carpus or the knees and the tarsals, so the hocks and the shoulder.

So all three of those are going to have an increased range of motion, but then also the back angle increase.

So they're actually lifting their backs, which by doing that, that is going to take tension off of the semi-tendinosis because that was bearing most of the weight.

And I'm so curious now, there's two questions that pop into my mind as a hoof care provider.

If you have a horse that just wears the ProSix, what that would do to plant our angles?

And then if that could actually play a role in Hilo syndrome because it's going to balance out carriage.

And there's a million things that go into Hilo where one foot is higher than the other.

Often times you may have a front foot that isn't necessarily clubby, but they could be just high, just a high foot.

— High-Low Hooves & What ProSix Can Reveal About Balance

And then another foot that's usually is pretty squished.

And there's a million different theories about it.

You ask 10 people, you'll get 20 opinions kind of thing.

But I'm curious if just wearing the ProSix without any other interventions would have any type of impact on perhaps Hilo or low or negative plantar angles.

Because if they're overbearing, if they're overusing their semitendinosus, their hamstrings, they're likely going to be crushing their heels on their hinds.

So I wonder, I mean, I don't know, we haven't seen it in action, but if that might actually be a piece, if that makes sense.

You know, that's curious because I have a lady that's, that just started journaling the ProSix with her Crescent horse.

And she said her Crescent horse always sped in the prosthesis, like the sternum to one side.

And she noticed that the sternum was centering.

Hi, I'm Bree, and a year ago, I bought my dream horse, Teddy.

But just eight short months later, he was diagnosed with wobblers and rapidly declined until I had to make the choice to let him go.

The only way I was able to get a diagnosis was by getting a CT scan.

Out of state, expensive, and honestly not accessible for most people.

But it gave me an answer, even though it wasn't the answer I wanted.

That's why I founded Teddy's Legacy, a nonprofit dedicated to helping horse owners get advanced diagnostics to make informed, compassionate decisions for their horses.

We also support research, education, and welfare.

I know what it feels like to love a horse and not have the information you need to wonder if you're doing the right thing.

I have a CT scan candidate who applied for a grant through Teddy's Legacy.

Someone who's in the shoes I was in not long ago.

Someone who loves her horse and is desperate for answers she can't afford to get.

If you want to learn more or support our mission, you can visit our website at teddieslegacy.org.

Now that we had a study done and there was some evidence that now we have other schools that are going, hmm, shall we pick it up from here?

Hell yeah.

Oh, which we really like because when we initiated this study, am I going to say that what she studied was what we wanted?

No.

But they said we have to start at this level.

But yeah, I see what you mean though with the first study because you have to keep it very basic and look at really almost primitive questions.

Because otherwise, if you just go for really niche questions right out of the gate, then you don't have any ground to stand on.

So you have to ask questions like, will it cure a lameness, which sounds so basic like, well, no shit, it's not going to make them sound immediately.

— Realistic Expectations: What ProSix Will and Won't Fix

It's not going to do that.

But you have to have very clear boundaries of yes, it does this, it does not do this.

So then you can have clear questions for the next study.

So typically, the initial study, which is what you guys did here, the initial study has to walk so the other studies can run.

And that's exactly what you did here.

This is huge because it opens up a larger study.

Like having, in your study, it was mentioned, like in the study that they needed something like 40 horses to adequately measure certain things.

That's going to be the future.

Like because this one was so informative and clearly highlight how helpful the product is.

Now, not only can it help more horses, but we can get more horses, like not we, I'm over here, but like more horses can be part of this and be teachers for it so that it gets the word out.

Like that's enormous.

And me, I'm like, I want to see Nero, Nero.

And they're like, here's.

Whoa, whoa.

And Nero's way out here.

Well, of course you do because you already know, it's the capacity for good that it has.

You already know what you made, right?

Like you've already, you've been working with this product since before it was born.

So of course you have these like lofty goals, these expectations of it because you trust it.

Unfortunately, the nerds at school have to go through a little more scrutiny before they can make those claims.

But you're going to have them And it's super exciting that all that's going to come out.

So I think as we're approaching an hour and a half, this is typically where we try to get in our questions that we've had submitted from our listeners.

Like Taylor said, she's got a really badass group of farrier women that are just the coolest, smartest.

Oh my gosh, I'm upset.

I'm like a fan girl for these women.

And they had a couple just like logistical questions so that as they're using it on their clients, as they're recommending it to clients to buy their own, as they've got their own horses, they can answer these questions.

Taylor, do you want to go ahead?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so we actually already spoke about one of the questions was like the placement of the certain straps and like why they're there, but we kind of already went through that.

Like the belly band is to lift, the front and the back is to remind, hey, you have a whole body, use it, right?

One thing that did come up twice, and this is almost, this is kind of a silly one, but it's not.

So mayors who wear it long-term, how do we keep them from peeing on it?

Oh, we have a sleeve here that's made out of scuba material.

Oh, I'm listening.

It actually goes, it wraps around the rear bands, and goes across the whole thing with a velcro, and it's just there that you can put it on there and take it out and wash it easily.

— Fit & Design: Rear Bands, Velcro & Easy Care

Most of the urine goes off of it and beads off of it rather than soaking in?

Yeah, so you don't have to wash it too much.

Thank you, Raul.

But we do have a cover, more or less.

We call it a sleeve, but it's a cover.

Yeah, it's a protector.

Okay.

There's a couple of horses that it's been used for hospice care.

So it's been not a 24-7, but damn near 24-7 kind of thing.

But both of these horses who wore it as hospice care were gelding, so they didn't run into that issue.

But one of the first ones being Otis, who we spoke about on our last episode, he lived in that sweet boy.

And then another one, and this is a bit of an aside, one of our good friends had a border whose horse had a degenerative disc disease.

And as I share it, I don't have consent to say the name, but as this horse wore it or before he wore it, he kind of crab walked and he couldn't really get around.

And it was a very atypical, very irregular gait.

He was very off balance.

He really couldn't exist in the wild independently.

But when he wore it, it gave him six months of quality life as he wore it.

It extended his lifespan by six months.

Just because the proprioceptive awareness just turned on so loudly, he was able to overcome all of the disc degeneration and do his thing.

So, yeah.

That's when our hearts feel good.

That's why we're doing this.

We didn't look at each other and go, let's start a business.

We were both working full time.

We were both raising families.

We had all kinds of things going on.

Yes.

It was when we started seeing results that we said, we realized this is the responsibility now.

We said we can't keep this to ourselves.

No, there had to be some way.

Actually, real quick, going back to the quick questions, I'm assuming the answer is yes.

But for trailering, I'm assuming this would be very appropriate for a horse that gets stressed while trailering.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Because of that increased property section, we feel that they're going to shift a little bit more, move as they need to because they're going to feel it.

Their legs embrace against it, which is where you get the soreness.

When they come off the trailer so sore, sometimes with the deem, sometimes with all these other issues, we know that stressing a horse is hard on them.

Absent, they'll load better, they'll back off better if you have a little one.

All those things.

Anybody has any fit issues, they can text us with pictures, with video, and we'll make recommendations on how to adjust the straps.

Awesome.

And then you also said for the ability to wash it, I think you already said it, but can we actually put it in the washing machine and or the dryer or no?

— Care Instructions: Washer Yes, Dryer No

No dryer, but the washer on gentle.

Absolutely.

And use a mild detergent.

You don't want to use anything that's going to compromise the elastic, of course.

Got it.

Okay.

Ten years and ten years, but the elasticity stays.

Does it get soft?

Yes.

And here's another thing about it.

When it comes, it doesn't feel stiff, but it has a rigidity to it.

Yeah.

Sure.

We looked into that when we first got it.

That's from the manufacturer who used that particular elastic.

It's a heat set.

It's not a chemical set.

It's a heat set.

Oh, not bad.

It rolls it to roll smoothly onto the rolls smoothly and tightly.

The first time you wash it, you get rid of that and you'll notice that it feels softer.

You can crumple it and it bends better.

But it's not losing any stretch or anything.

Right.

Okay.

Awesome.

I will say mine just lives in the truck though, because there's so many horses on my books that struggle with the ability to stand and it's not a training issue.

I think that's really where the horsemanship comes in is recognizing when you need a trainer and then when you need physical support.

But that's the magic trick.

But mine lives in my truck and it has made a huge difference for a lot of horses that just need that little bit.

Just need that little bit.

Yeah.

Do we have any last wrap ups?

Because I am like, I want to go to the barn now and just like take videos of my horse without it so that I can compare.

I don't think so.

Yeah, ladies, we will put the ProSix link at the bottom.

But are there other ways that people can get in touch with you if they need to?

Or is the website best or Facebook?

Yeah, our mail, Info ads, the ProSix, we monitor that hourly.

And like I said, on our website, our phone numbers are there.

We don't have any text in us.

You know, I get texts from people through journeys.

And I love hearing, we love hearing these stories because if we hadn't heard these stories along the way, like the Otis story for one, we would not still be in business.

And I am earnest when I say that.

If we didn't have these stories to feed us, to keep going, we would not still be going.

Because like I said, business is hard, and especially for us, because Prosix is Jill and Lynda.

Yep.

That's her.

We can totally relate.

And we're inspired and appreciative of you, more than you know.

So thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for your open door policy with your clients.

We so appreciate that.

You're gonna, I'm sure, have a lot of people sent to you from us in the near, near future.

We're really excited about the updated product, really excited about my journal.

— Closing: Gratitude, Referrals & Taylor's ProSix Journal Plans

I gotta go buy a journal.

I'm gonna go to Office Max, I'm gonna get a journal, and I'm gonna go to the barn.

Enjoy.

Thank you so much.

Bye girls.

If you or a friend have a topic, story, or case study you want us to cover in an episode, visit our website at theredmareproject.com to leave your submission or email us at redmareproject.gmail.com.

If you have it, please include a cute picture of the horse we will be discussing so we can make it our Facebook page profile picture.

As a reminder for listeners, this content is for educational purposes only and is not meant to diagnose or treat.

We encourage everyone to do their own research and speak with your veterinarian and care team to make sound decisions for your horse's management.

If you like the podcast, please tell a friend, like, subscribe, and follow on all the platforms.

Peace.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

E:15 Our Angel, Otis: Turning Impossible Decisions into Education for All

Sun, 05 Apr 2026 04:38:46 GMT

Join Taylor and Kahlan for a very special, intense, and raw conversation with Brittany West about her late gelding, Otis. Otis sustained a fracture on his front left navicular month at 18 months. After years of swimming upstream with countless interventions to rehabilitate him and keep him comfortable, Brittany made the impossible decision to let him cross over the rainbow bridge. Otis's purpose expanded beyond his 6 year lifespan; he is a teacher. Brittany generously and bravely donated him to Trinity Equine LLC, where osteopath Lorre Mueller, conducted a three day whole horse dissection. Taylor was very fortunate to attend this event, where Otis told his story. Trigger warning: This is the most intense and surreal episode the girls have done to date. Brittany West, bodyworker and natural horsemanship Project Pegasus Equine Services https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100075859421372 Lorre Mueller and Trinitiy Equine Services: https://trinityequineservices.com/ Email us with your interesting stories. Your horse may be able to help another. redmareproject@gmail.com Taylor CL Schouten, MS, APF-I Hoofcare Practitioner Wild Hoof Equine LLC www.wildhoofequine.com Kahlan Ettere Equine management Wise Choice Equine Wellness LLC Check out our website: www.theredmareproject.com Follow along on Facebook: The Red Mare Project Instagram: Wild_Hoof_Equine

About this episode

— Welcome & Trigger Warning: A Heavy but Necessary Episode

Welcome back to another episode.

Today will be a bit of a heavier episode.

Otis' story has a very different type of ending than what we usually share, but the journey and learning that come out of it are tremendous.

Tragically, Otis fractured his navicular bone as an 18-month-old, and despite every possible intervention, achieving consistent and sustainable comfort became further from grasp.

His incredible owner, Brittany West, made the difficult decision to have him crossover and serve as a student for Trinity Equine's Whole Horse Dissection this past February.

His purpose was to teach, and teach he did.

Welcome, Brittany and Otis.

Welcome to The Red Mare Project.

I know you said we're like almost exactly a month out, right?

Yeah, it was Valentine's Day weekend.

Oh, that's rough.

Yeah.

But I would love to be able to go to one.

I know Sarah is having one, what, next month?

I just can't do more travel.

Like I can't.

No, it's okay.

Because we're going to be going to Georgia, and then I'm going to be going to Georgia in May, and it's like, you know, whatever.

One will come up.

But yeah.

For sure.

Should we start with a little trigger warning, and like another one as we go into it?

Yeah, yeah.

So if you've somehow made it through the intro and still are not totally settled, here's a trigger warning.

This may not be an easy episode.

We're going to be talking about euthanasia and dissection and some pretty gritty stuff.

So we want to honor anybody who can't handle that right now, and we love you.

Listen to another episode.

We're funny elsewhere.

Yeah, this was a pretty, the whole experience, the whole journey was pretty intense.

So of course, we're going to have Brittany on in just a few minutes, and she's going to unpack his entire story.

But the really concise version of it, Otis was, as a two-year-old, I believe it was, he fractured his navicular bone in his front left, and it just has been a few years of doing whatever she possibly could to keep him sound, and she eventually had to make the decision to let him cross over.

And Brittany was very brave in making this choice to donate him to Trinity Equine, which is with Lorre Mueller, and Lorre does whole horse disunctions all across the country.

So these disunctions are typically three days, I was really fortunate that I was able to attend.

This was actually my second dissection.

It was pretty fascinating.

And if any of our listeners, if you ever have the chance to go to a dissection, please go, even if you're not a professional, even if you're just an owner, and you just kind of like be bopping around with your horse, just 100% if you can go do it.

I'm going to go into my third one next month.

But his story was told on the table.

So everything comes out.

The body keeps the score.

Well, it's kind of like someone said when Loki first started going through his bullshit, someone, a one-eyed friend said to me, you know, no one gets out alive.

Like no one gets out perfect.

You don't ever, you don't go to your grave with no scratches, no arthritis, no pain, no nothing, you know.

So you just have to do the best you can with what you have.

And sometimes the best you can is to let them go and let them tell the story.

So I was super, super generous of her, not only to donate her horse for this, but then to donate her time to talk to us.

Yeah.

We gave it a month to give her some simmer time so she could sit with this and we wouldn't re-traumatize her.

But that was incredibly brave and incredibly generous.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

And she was so involved and she's actually in school to be an equine osteopath right now.

So she can like actually really appreciate a lot of the stuff on a very deep level, which I was so impressed with how well she was able to piece out like, owner, that's my child on the table, but then also wear the hat of being a student of ours.

Professional.

Yeah.

So impressive.

She had a fantastic support group too.

Her boyfriend was there, super great guy.

That was- That's so nice.

That was like the ultimate test right there.

Yeah, really.

But for shit like that, you just need your people.

Like you just need your people and then it makes you feel so much more brave.

Yeah.

And her mom was there who was just the sweetest person.

And we all- we had a big group there.

I think our crew made up like half of the class.

She had her own little support section.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

I think in total there were six, yeah, six of us.

Wow.

Yeah.

Now, how did you- did you know Brittany because you were working on Otis or, you know, attending with Otis?

Did you know her previously?

No, actually.

So that's a good thing for us to touch on.

So Brittany's trimmer is Kelly Roach, who is a very good friend.

And she has been taking care of Otis for the last year of his time with us.

And Kelly shared with our group, because we have, like, the best little trimmer group of all time.

There's about 10 of us.

And it's just this giant sisterhood.

And we talk all the time.

And it's the best thing.

And if you are a professional out there and you don't have your tribe, you got to find your tribe.

Makes all the difference.

So anyway, Kelly shared with us what was going to, what was happening.

And I was like, without a doubt, it was such an impulse by, I was just like, we're going, no question.

— Taylor Attends the Dissection: An Impulse Decision

So I met Brittany through Kelly, which was really great.

If you're up in the north, northwest Georgia area, check out, and you need some hoof care, check out Kelly Roach.

Yeah.

Not, not like the bug.

She's the fun Roach at the end of the night.

If you're a real one, you know what I mean.

Anyway, so, but yeah, so that's how, that's how we got connected to Brittany, was through Kelly.

Okay, cool.

I remember that she was Kelly's, but I wasn't sure if you knew her first.

So do you know, and we'll get into this obviously with her in just like a couple of minutes here.

Do you know how far along she is in school?

Oh, I don't know.

She's practicing as a body worker right now.

And I'm not sure how long she'll be in practice, but we're going to learn that right now.

But I do.

So Otis, his, his trimmer was there because Kelly was there.

His chiropractor was there, Dr.

Shelly Douglas.

She's fantastic.

So that was really great, too.

Yeah.

So overall, having the whole team there was really fantastic because we had, we had a chiropractor there.

We had two saddle fitters there.

Oh.

Which was very cool because they, what's really great about Lorre when she runs hers is that when the professionals are there, she's like, this is your world.

Please contribute and participate.

Like, let's, let's educate each other.

So cool.

So like, what are you seeing that I'm not seeing?

Or what, you know, from your eyes, how are you looking at this?

That's so cool.

So it was really beneficial that we were able to, you know, hear from the, hear from the saddle fitters about the role of different ways that just kind of, they just nerded out on it.

And it was so beneficial.

Amazing.

We had a nutritionist there, which was really cool because she gave us a very detailed tour of the GI tract.

So cool.

That was terrific.

And we had, I think, maybe like five body workers there.

And then our team of, I can't remember, four other tremors, three tremors.

Who was there?

That's a lot of people.

Yes, group of 20.

Wow.

So does she max out her classes or her sections at 20?

I would imagine so.

That's a lot.

I think if you get more than that, it gets a little cluttered.

There's not a lot of room for everybody.

And physically, there's not a lot of room.

It just probably drags it out.

It can.

Yeah, we had a lot of squirrel moments because there were so many professionals there that could all participate and contribute that if something popped up, we all just, I mean, the conversation just ran, which is incredible.

Amazing.

That's the whole point.

You're there to learn.

So we could all participate with each other and do some really neat things.

Oh, there she is.

Hold on.

Wait.

Admit her.

Come.

Hey, girl.

Hey.

Oh, you should have a place where I can actually see your pieces.

Hello.

Hi.

Hello.

Welcome.

Hi.

How are you guys?

All right.

How are you?

You have his picture in the background.

I had to.

Oh, beautiful.

Yeah.

What a nice touch.

All right, girl.

You okay?

You ready for this?

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm ready for it.

Okay.

If you need to tap out or like take a lap or if you need a breather, just say, okay.

Okay.

And don't push yourself too far.

Like if you feel something and you're like, I can't go there, just divert.

Just bail.

I will feel all of the feels, but I'll share a story.

Okay.

All right.

Cool.

That's very generous.

Thank you.

All right.

So just as kind of our little guidelines, which are none, but you can say, of course, say whatever you want.

You can swear.

If you get to a point where you need to like vent and you want to just let it rip, go for it.

If you need anything cut out, if you want anything just stricken from the record, say the word, snip, snap, snip, snap.

I can do it.

Okay.

Cool.

Great.

Okay.

So let's go ahead and start a little bit with you.

Do you want to tell us a little bit about you, your background in horses and your career as a professional?

Sure.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I have been working with horses for about 23 years now.

Started riding when I was five or six, took lessons for a while, started in the English world, went to the Western world.

And then after high school, my college was in equine science and pre-vet.

So I went to Montana State University, worked up there for a while.

I got my first horse at 18.

He was a rescue gilding.

He moved with me to school.

And my last year at college is when I got Teddy, which is my problem child I currently have.

And they both moved with me back to California.

After I graduated, while I was at MSU, I did their cult starting program.

I interned with a vet for a couple months, about a year.

Loved that she was a chiropractor.

In my time with my rescue gilding, when you're around horses, you think you know horses.

When you own horses, you learn how much you don't know about horses.

Oh girl, put that on a funny t-shirt.

I was so naive going into it.

I was like, I'll be fine.

I was not fine.

And he had all of the issues under the sun.

He was a six-year-old rescue who was a neglect case.

They put weight back on him before I got him.

He was technically rideable.

But within a few months, he was just reactive.

We went through everything with the Vet Med.

We tried back injections.

We tried everything till my vet at the time referred me to an osteopath.

— Brittany's Journey Begins: Trying Everything for Otis

And I was like, no, never heard of that before.

She came out and she did bodywork, did the spinal manipulations, the skeletal manipulations and some of the soft tissue stuff.

And I was hooked.

I was like, I want to do that.

Like I don't know what that is, but I want to do that.

And my vet had told me, he's like, if you want to do chiropractic, if you want to do osteopathy, he goes, you might as well go to vet school first.

So you have that degree and then veer off and do it.

Because I wanted to combine the two.

So I was like, that sounds great.

So I went for pre-vet and equine science.

And then I didn't get into vet school.

So I've applied twice.

Life circumstances didn't work out partly because I broke my back the last year I had applied.

My problem child me up.

But I did end up going into the body work field.

So I worked as a vet tech for a little while before finding the certification program that I actually respected the credentials for.

And was close enough and easy enough for me to, it was accessible at the time.

So I went to Animal Rehab Institute.

It has an online portion where it was a good chunk of time just for learning the anatomy, the different techniques, the trigger points, and then practicing.

And then we had a five-day in-person hands-on clinical.

So total about probably 40 hours of hands-on at the facility in Florida.

Excellent.

And yeah, I loved it.

I love the people.

One of my colleagues out here actually went with me.

We were at the same class, which was crazy.

Oh, very cool.

Small world, right?

Yes.

So that was kind of neat.

And I've been working full-time as a bodywork professional for about two years now.

I mean, it's awesome.

Yeah.

Where are you?

Oh, I'm in Northwest Georgia.

Northwest Georgia.

I'm a big part of Rock Mart, but you're willing to pay the travel fee, I'll travel.

Amazing.

Yeah.

My general bubble is about an hour and a half to two hours.

That's kind of my local routes, but I have and we'll go further.

Excellent.

Amazing.

Okay.

And I remember at the dissection too, you mentioned that you were in, you were actually going into the osteopathy program.

Is that correct?

I am.

Thank you for reminding me.

I am a student of osteopathy with London College of Animal Osteopathy.

So it's a self-paced online program, but it is very thorough.

I have slacked a little bit in the consistency over the last few months.

You've been present.

A little bit.

But I am more than halfway through.

I'm almost done with all of the pre-clinicals and I'm getting into the clinicals and once I get through the clinicals and can attend, there are five day, nine day, if you do well.

I'm doing the canine and equine route.

So it'll be cool.

And we'll be able to work on any mammal.

Right.

I know they have students there who graduated that work on like giraffes and like zoo animals.

Yeah.

Oh my God, sick.

Right?

I know.

It's pretty cool.

Wow.

Yeah.

Okay.

Good question.

Yes.

So you said London School of Osteopathy?

Yeah.

Are you gonna have to go to London?

They have their practicums all over the world.

I don't think they actually have one in the United States yet, but I've been eyeing the one in New Zealand.

So they have them in different locations, right?

They have ones in London, Canada, Spain.

They've done New Zealand.

They've done Australia.

So they basically, I think, it's two or three times a year, they offer them for the in-person.

Yeah, it's pretty spectacular.

What a time in my life.

That's incredible.

Yeah.

I think we'll work with people all over, and they have an online section where I can connect with other students.

So we've been able to talk and discuss different topics.

If there's something that's difficult in one of the courses, you can bounce questions off of each other, and the instructors are super available.

So if you have any questions, you can go straight to them, and I've definitely done that a couple of times.

But yeah, it's really cool, and it has helped with the body work I'm currently doing, just with my approach to what I'm looking at.

Like understanding the holistic, everything matters, diet, nutrition, lifestyle, exercise.

I mean, it all plays a role.

And osteopathy very much looks at the whole horse.

Like you can't look at one thing without realizing it affects the rest.

So, totally very cool.

You're so cool.

Thank you.

You're so smart.

I love that.

All right.

So why don't we jump into Otis' story?

How did you guys meet?

So I had moved to Texas back in like, beginning of October of 2020.

And I had moved with my rescue and Teddy.

So the ones that were in Montana moved back and came out with me.

And it was on my own property, and they were just the only two horses.

And I really wanted a third so that I could go off property with one and not leave the other behind and just kind of round it all out.

And I had looked for a while.

I ended up driving all the way down to San Antonio.

That coal didn't work out.

I brought a puppy home.

And then that next week, I took said puppy to a performance horse sale where I ended up bringing home Otis and Freya.

My mom was not thrilled.

I got it too.

This is Freya.

Oh, that's a Freya too?

She's so cute.

So Otis was six months old, freshly weaned.

My other half is looking around the corner.

— Freya & the Ranch: Where Otis Came From

And Freya was 18 months old.

So they both came from the same ranch.

It was Heartbar Horse and Cattle Company out in Texas, just north of Fort Worth.

Great ranch.

All of those horses are just spectacular.

The ones that were already trained and saddled.

Confirmation wise, they were gorgeous.

They were really just the train ability of these horses was pretty cool to see.

I wasn't familiar with the ranch before I went to the sale, but I definitely paid attention once I was there.

And after I got home, my mare has been a super easy start.

She is such a golden girl.

Like she is awesome.

And Otis had the mind to be like that too.

He was an absolute ugly duckling.

He was a duck.

His papers called him sorrow.

I'm not really sure why, but he was wonky.

He was that big baby butt for the quarter horse with the fancy, bitsy eunuch that he kind of grew into.

He didn't grow into it, but he was just such a dweeb.

And I adored every minute of it.

He was such a goofball.

But he muddied up with my older gelding, my rescue, because he was like the babysitter personality.

And so they were like this.

And then when he got a little bit older, he and Teddy became like best pals, where Bitey Face was the best game ever.

And they would just go get zoomies around the pasture.

My poor mare, she was like, she thought she was the bee's knees and the boys were like, but we have our thing going.

Yeah.

But they were really good.

So that's how I ended up with him.

He was kind of halter broke.

But I did all the handling with him.

I think I had bareback pads on his back and him picking up all four feet within the first month of me having him.

And he was just like an in-your-pocket kind of personality.

The best.

Oh, yeah.

If he could sleep in my bed, he would have.

Mine's the same way.

I love my Velcro pony.

Yes.

He's definitely a puppy dog personality.

I loved it.

He was my sunshine boy.

But yeah.

Okay.

So let's kind of get into the tale of it, right?

So he was two when everything kind of turned?

He was a yearling.

He was a yearling?

Oh, I misspoke.

Okay.

Year three months or year six months?

I don't remember.

I think he was 18 months old.

Okay.

We'll go with that.

I didn't look at the actual time, but sure.

Okay.

But yeah, came out one morning, he was three legged, like would not put his foot down.

And I'm like, okay, well, this is an emergency call.

So I reached out to my local vet, hauled him in.

It's his first time hauling on the trailer by himself.

And he had an episode and fixed the trailer loading.

But he went out there, we took x-rays and the fracture was either not noticed or was an assumed bipartite navicular, which is something they're born with.

They thought it was a bone cyst in his P2.

And because of that, I was like, okay, well, let's manage it.

They were like, well, the cyst was, what they thought was a cyst was right in the middle of P2.

It was actually just where the bone marrow was.

It wasn't even a growth plate.

It was, it wasn't on the ends.

It was just very strange placement.

So I was like, whoa, well, what were suggested to?

They said, let him be a horse, come back in 30 days.

We'll re-X-ray it.

If it hasn't changed, then it's okay to wait until we can get somewhere for him to have an operation to alleviate the pressure from the cyst and we can recover.

So I was like, okay, waited 30 days.

He never got sound.

I took him back in.

They re-X-rayed, no change.

And they were like, well, surgery is going to be on the optilike is the option.

But because there's no shift, no change, it's not emergent.

Because of that, my mare was coming into season.

She was old enough and became fertile.

And Otis got old enough.

He was still a stud.

Otis became old enough to start attempting.

And so I was like, well, if this is a congenital bone cyst, I'm not going to keep him a stud.

And part of me was thinking like, because I was intending to, he had the mind, nobody actually thought he was still attacked when they'd handled him.

Like he was just so mellow, so sweet, never, never behaved out of the ordinary or any stud-like tendencies.

So I went ahead and had him gelded.

And he had just turned two.

So we were about six months in when I had him gelded.

And then, I don't remember when that was.

I ended up moving to Georgia.

We had some family having some health issues and I wanted to be closer to home.

So we were like, well, we'll wait.

I'll make the move to Georgia and I'll get in touch with Auburn.

Because I'm like, when we're out here, it'll be a much closer drive.

If they're like, if I'm going to have anybody do the surgery, it's going to be them.

So we get out here, we get established.

I reach out to Auburn, send them the x-rays.

They're like, we don't see a bone cyst, but we need more x-rays.

We think there's a fracture.

I was like, okay, then everything stopped.

I was like, yeah, excuse me.

So I called Dr.

Amari out, adore her, bless her.

And she took more x-rays and she was like, yeah, that looks like a fracture.

And the biggest tell is it wasn't even.

But it was a complete fracture, far enough apart, it would never close.

And this was 10 months post-break.

So we had missed any form of stabilize, try to limit hoof movement, any possibility to try to even give it a chance of healing.

And so that missed window kind of broke my heart.

— Missed Windows & Broken Hearts: The Diagnostic Maze

Of course.

Yeah.

Obviously surgery was no longer a thing.

So we were like, well, where are we now?

The recommendation was to put steel on, like put shoes on, protect the foot, like keep him off the ground because he was really like, he was moving more sound at this point, but he was still tender footed, but he had to compensate.

So like he was moving pretty darn good.

And I ended up taking him out to Cusa Equine in Alabama for a full lameness workup.

He was about two and a half years at this point.

I was like, he seems to be okay.

But I know this is a thing.

So let's just look at everything.

When I took him out there, he was sound.

I was like, we don't see a lameness.

They x-rayed both front feet.

Right front navicular disease was not noted at the time.

I found out a few years after that, but it was actually pretty prominent.

I just didn't know what I was looking for.

And it wasn't noted on.

So they recommended what type of shoes to use.

My carrier and I had decided or determined that at that point in time in the environment we were in, that the aluminum rocker wasn't an option because he was turned out in pasture.

That was really rocky.

So he would choose really quickly.

So we ended up doing a steel shoe with a two-degree wedge.

Let him wear the toe so he had a natural rocker.

And that kind of worked for it.

It worked for a little while.

Like it got uncomfortable.

Everything was stabilized.

I was cleared to start working him.

They were like, he should be rideable.

They were like, we don't see any reason why he wouldn't be.

They lunged him for like 15, 20 minutes.

He never took a bad step.

So, okay, cool.

So we started doing actual training, like getting ready for ridden work.

So he was already saddle broke.

He was a little spicy with it, but he was saddle broke.

I progressed him up to ground driving.

He was doing beautifully with all of it.

My first few times on his back were bare back of the halter and the rope in the round pen.

And he was like, sweet.

I popped on.

Like he knew how to line up to the rail and everything.

Like he'd just walk up.

He was like, let's go do stuff.

I'm like, okay.

And walked trot both directions.

We got steering.

We got backing up.

Like he was doing really well, but I was starting to feel him get shaky.

Like we'd only ride a little bit and I could feel that knee shake.

Oh.

Okay.

Don't like that.

So we backed off on training.

Re-evaluated lameness.

I don't know how many times we had all kinds of mis-eval done on that point.

And it was always a conversation with my failure, with my vet of he's comfortable, but this isn't right.

And where do we go from here?

My failure at the time, he had an explanation for why he didn't want to try things.

Got it.

And I listened, I believed him.

As you do.

Yeah, that was the best I had.

And he was referred to me by my vet.

So I was like, okay, well, they have that dynamic, they have that relationship.

We have the team, not working.

And Otis had kind of progressed to the point where every time he was shod, he would go lame for about a week.

And I'm like, okay, this isn't working.

He had gone from a two year old to a four year old, where he filled into his quarter horse body.

He went from like 14'2 to about 15'1 hands and put muscle on and he stayed in double op shoes.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And every time I was like, he's got tiny feet.

Like he's just got quarter horse feet.

They're just the typical navicular quarter horse feet.

I'm like, okay, sure.

But the heel was crushing it.

And I kept asking about it and it was always a, that's just how he wears.

You're never going to get the heel up.

You're never going to be able to do X, Y, and Z.

We can't take toe, we'll cripple him.

And then at one point I was like, can we try this?

And I was told, if you want your horse to have bigger movement, I can shoe him for that, but it'll cripple him.

But what I'm shoeing him for now for the short choppy stride is what he needs.

Now it's okay.

Uh huh.

Okay.

Sure.

So you were stuck.

You were stuck.

Yes.

So that was frustrating.

Doing everything in my power that I could with the information I had at the time, trying to do what was right for him and watching him slowly deteriorate.

And I think I had backed him bareback maybe four or five times.

Every time we do, we'd have a couple of weeks, couple of months between another session.

Like he'd go do round pen work.

We did liberty work.

He was good for all of that.

We'd go on adventures.

Like one of my neighbors and friends has, I turned lobsticles at her property.

I took him out there and he was like, this is so much fun.

It was all enhanced stuff.

But he just, he loved to go for adventures.

And he just wanted to come along.

Like he was the first to load in the trailer.

He was like, sure, let's go do stuff.

So I brought him along.

I didn't do much.

I would turn him out in the arena when I would go with my other two, practice cutting, training my mare how to cut with him because he would like run down the rail.

It didn't work that he was more dominant than my mare and she couldn't really get him to turn around, but we tried.

It was fun.

Yeah, we just, we had play dates.

Like it was, that was kind of his primary gig was, is it that you get to come up on you, we'll get to go play and just do, just do stuff.

— Otis's Purpose: Playing, Connection & Being a Buddy

Yeah.

And eventually when I did get to her, I'm like, okay, we got the clear, you're doing all right.

We're going to put real rides on.

So his first saddled ride was in my round pen.

It's a 60 foot round pen with a really soft stamp.

So it was like super easy.

We walked, trotted both directions.

It was maybe a five minute ride and we called it good.

Cause for me, I'm always like, if we're gentle and you're listening and you pick up on all of the cues and do everything right the first time, we call it good.

I'm never going to push past them.

Yeah.

And yeah.

And he was just like, cool, this is great.

And we did that a few times.

And then his third ride, maybe fourth ride under saddle and his last ride under saddle, I was determined to get a canner cause we hadn't made it to that point yet.

Or I was like, we can do it.

It'll be fine.

I'm like, we just, we just need to get through the lack of confidence.

It felt like a balance thing.

And then it was during a cal sorting clinic at my local arena.

So much going on.

I jumped on him.

He was an absolute dream.

He was trying so hard.

Like we were trotting figure eights and I was asking for the canner and asking for it and asking for it.

And he just, he couldn't get it.

I could feel he was unstable.

I'm like, I'm not going to keep pushing.

I don't want you to fall over.

It was just, we called it when he, we had a stop and point.

We called it good.

But I was like, something's just not right.

Like my gut was just, you know, at heart as a rock feeling where you're like, that's something's not okay.

Yeah.

So I didn't get back on forever, but I had him checked again.

Knowing that we had that navicular every year, at least we would take more x-rays to see what progression looked like.

And I'd started to notice some swelling in his left carcass.

That was one of the first things that I was like, that's new, that's a progression.

He started to get more lame on his right front.

Now I'm also not great.

And then I started to see this left timeliness, very, very mild.

But it was enough for me to be like, that's just something, it was that cringe.

But it's hard to track something that I knew was tertiary to other stuff.

So he had the farrier back out.

He reshawed.

And the next two days, the horse was just dead lame.

And I called my farrier.

I'm like, can you just come look at him?

I'm like, I don't know if it was a hot nail.

I don't know if it was just the angles or if it was trimmed too short.

I'm like, I'm not sure, but he's not right.

And he came out and watched me run in.

And he had flat out told me, if this is my horse, I'd be happy with how he's moving.

He looks fine to me.

I was like, I hate the answer.

I've heard that answer before.

I don't like that answer.

I've had that answer.

It sucks.

Yeah.

Was it just- I know what you got.

I was so mad and I was like, okay.

I also kind of ticked him off because I switched to Kelly working on my mare and didn't tell him until he showed up one day.

So like, I kind of get it.

It was, I think it was actually that week that I was like, I really made it mad that I hadn't come out for Otis to look at him after the fact.

Still unprofessional.

Yes.

Yeah.

And that next week, I had my vet back out.

We took more x-rays.

That is when we saw how far the navicular disease had developed on the right front.

Like he was starting to get the bones spurs all the way up the side.

We took x-rays of feet, fat locks, carps, both sides, and both hocks.

And he was four years old.

Obviously, the navicular on the left, we were starting to see the bone cysts, mild arthritis in the coffin joint, arthritis in the left carps, that was starting to develop mild arthritis in both hocks.

Right front navicular had problems and we were starting to see just soft tissue inflammation.

Like it was clear on the x-rays, but it wasn't calcification yet.

But he looks sound, right?

A little heavy.

Sister?

I get it.

Yeah.

So I hauled him out.

Per my, per Dr.

Ramari's recommendation, I took him out to Countryside Equine in Covington?

Covington?

Oh, yeah.

That's my vet.

Yeah.

He's great.

He was like my chiropractor told me that he was like the lameness specialist, like he is who he goes, she goes to for a guy.

And I was like, so I took him out there.

He was traveling pretty sound.

Like you could, he's lame everywhere.

So he looks second.

But it was one of those like just off choppy, short strided, but super bracy.

You don't really have a head bob.

He just kind of holds.

Yeah.

And his, because my goal was, okay, what is our next option?

Like I know he's not comfortable.

I'm probably never going to ride him again.

I want him pasture sound.

And it was, are we looking at anorectomy?

If we do anorectomy, how long is that going to be safe for?

But that was my logic is okay.

Let's just take the pain away.

But with how much he was seeing on the x-rays, he was like, we really need an MRI to know what our treatment options are.

He's like these, we have multiple that we could attempt, but unless we know what we're treating, we're basically throwing money at a question mark.

And he's like, you can try all these things.

There's no guarantee any of them will work if you're not sure what we're actually treating.

— No Guarantees: Vet Conversations About What They're Treating

like, okay, that makes sense.

I'm like, reasonable.

Yeah.

By the time we had spent, if I had done the treatments first, I would have spent the same amount in treatments as the MRI cost, and we wouldn't have known what was working.

Yeah.

That's how he rolls.

Yeah.

I very much appreciate because then we're not blind.

I think a month later, I bit the bullet and took them to AGA for the MRIs.

We got both front feet.

I'm going to pull up the record because I don't remember all of it besides what I have a hundred times.

Right forefoot, moderate marked diffusion and proliferative navicular bursitis, moderate suprasesmoidean deep digital flexor tendinopathy, navicular bone degeneration, chronic collateral sesmoidean and impart desmopathy, and moderate distal interphalangeal osteoarthritis with mild articular cartilage damage.

Left forefront, chronic navicular bone defect based on clinical history, marked navicular bone generation, mild chronic effusion and proliferative navicular bursitis, chronic collateral sesmoidean and impart desmopathy, and mild moderate distal interphalangeal osteoarthritis, mild articular cartilage damage.

The deep digital flexor tendons in both of his front feet were torn and frayed.

Because of the soft tissue issues, the neuropathic neurectomy wasn't an option because if we took away the pain, he'd run through and cause more damage.

Because of the bony pain, the soft tissue treatments weren't an option because it wouldn't have taken away the pain because the primary pain source was the bones.

So we were on, all right, how do we manage this?

How do we keep them comfortable and for how long can we keep them comfortable?

So that was June of 2025.

So that was last year.

Those are heavy.

Yeah.

Jesus.

I can cut off the emotions to talk.

No, no, no.

You just think.

Oh yeah, please.

Yeah.

Do you think?

You got it right.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, that was full stop.

Mostly my heart, but everything else got wrong.

And Steele had to be pulled for the MRI, backtracking a little bit.

Kelly had been working with Freya for about eight months.

By the time the MRI became a thing.

And I had seen the changes in my mare's feet since she started working on her.

She's always been barefoot.

But just the change in ideology, approach, method, all of it.

And I was like, okay.

I'm like, well, like what we're doing with Otis' feet isn't working.

I'm like, I want to take that plunge.

I'm like, we need a plan.

I'm like, I need an absolutely bulletproof, solid plan where we have talked to everybody else that we can think of to make sure that we know what we're putting him into and we can work to make sure he's stable.

Yes.

And I also had my other horse at the time, Teddy, fully shod.

So I'm like, if I take Otis out of steel, we're taking him out of steel too.

So we were like, yes, let's see what happens.

Because I was just, we're jumping in, jumping in with both feet.

Yeah.

And then Taylor, she reached out to you, right?

And Molly and Sarah and the whole- This was a group effort.

We were all there.

Yes.

Yeah.

So she was like, can I share your x-rays?

Can I?

Send them everything.

I'm like, I want all of the minds all messed because if we can come to an agreement on, okay, this is how we best support him, I will feel more comfortable doing it.

And so we'd had a couple months of kind of figuring it out.

We've bounced back and forth of, okay, this is where he's at.

This is what we need.

We had the plan in place of, he comes out of steel for the MRI, we'll travel in cloud boots.

And when we get him home, we'll trim him and we'll put glue-ons.

Perfect.

Cool.

And we were so convinced that the package we decided on was going to work.

And yeah, I know you know what's coming.

So he was still in the steel with the two-degree wedge.

Okay.

When we pulled him out of steel, bless his heart, he could barely stand up for it and take the shoes off.

And we put him in the clouds and he was like, oh, this is nice.

I was going to ask, he probably loved them.

Loved them.

He ended up in them for over a month because he just wasn't ready for the glueons.

I think we tried to put them on at one point and he was like, no, I don't want that.

No, thank you.

Do you want to take my boot?

Yeah, he was like, he didn't even want me taking them off.

I was the same way, just to clean up and put powder.

Then he was like, no, this is my shoe, my Sketchers Shape-Ups.

I ended up having to get two pairs.

I borrowed one from Kelly so I could rotate because he was like, I don't want to be without them.

I was leaving for two hours a day.

I'm like, yeah, you need to let them breathe.

Our package plan was the, what is it, the air ride, the steel, where the air, the aluminum composites that have the aluminum in them.

Oh, the speed metals.

The speed metals.

So we were going to do the speed metals.

We're going to use the two-degree wedge.

So it's a similar package.

His hoof grew a whole size in four weeks.

Hell yeah, it did.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And I was like, what?

We had, I think I still have, well, I know I have the pictures.

I think within two or three trim cycles, his angles were better than they'd been in three years.

But I thought we couldn't take the toe bag and get the heel to grow.

But we put him in those, and we put him in that package and he was miserable.

— Boot Struggles: Otis Was Miserable in the Wedge Package

He was so uncomfortable.

And I told Kelly, I was like, hey, this isn't working.

And bless his heart, because her schedule was so busy, my schedule was so busy, he went the whole cycle without us resetting.

And then when he came back out, we were like, okay, we're putting him in versus.

Because we were like, we still wanted the support, but we didn't want the flexibility of the ones.

Yeah, yeah.

So we put him in those with the wedge and another pad.

I don't remember exactly.

We've done so many of them.

And when he popped one off and realized he could, without it hurting, he was like, oh, bye.

Like this one, gone.

Uh-huh.

This is so considerate and so convenient.

This is great.

Because I think we spoke about when Kelly was going through, when we were like, workshopping packages for him, I think we wanted to do a wedge and then some type of like, squish on top.

I think that's probably...

Which I did.

He didn't like it?

Too much.

Yeah, too much pressure.

I have, I've noticed sometimes, because I have a couple, one in particular, where the speeds, the design of the speeds, the frog support, touches right on that insertion point, and it can really irritate.

So sometimes we have to either like, cut that out completely, but then we don't want to like, remove it.

Lose, slurp.

Yeah, so it's really, it's hard, and we just have to wait for them to tell us what they want.

That's actually what we did the last set that he had.

I think it was, yeah, that suggestion from you, we cut it out of that and the pads because he just didn't want that pressure over the nidicular.

But yeah, we went through so many different things.

And I always knew it was something that was uncomfortable and not just a gluing thing because he would always pull the same one.

It was always that left front.

Can we get more than three days like that?

That would be nice.

These aren't free, you know.

No.

Well, I adore Kelly so much.

I paid for materials and we trade work service.

So incredible.

Thank you.

She's a real one.

Yeah, she's fantastic.

And she and I met before either of us do what we do.

So we've known each other for years.

And I was with her as she learned.

And I watched how she did her own horses feet when I was out there working on her horses.

And that's where I was like, you're starting your business, come work on my mare.

But she knew me when she worked at Tractor Supply, because I'd go in there all the time with my dogs.

Because when I first moved out here, I was in there like three or four times a week, just getting stuff for the fences, for the horses, the cart, everything.

You get to the point where Ruger, my younger, younger dog, she would see them go, oh, please, I would just drop the leash.

He would run across the whole site.

I was Aunt Kelly.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

We knew each other from that.

Then when I got my massage certification, Dr.

Amari gave her my number and she goes, I know her.

The whole orange started.

I love that.

Yeah.

She's been an absolute blessing and amazing to work with.

We co-manage so many horses now, and it's been so neat getting involved with your guys' community.

Because, I mean, just the mindset is so crazy.

Yes.

I've learned more about feet in the last six months than I have in the last 29 years.

That was me in the past couple of years.

I was like, I didn't even know what I didn't know.

Exactly.

Yeah.

These girls are so cool.

I'll just shut up.

It's just drinking from the fire hose, but we have built a really cool community, and we can all just support each other in that.

So it's not normal.

This is not normal, what we have.

No, it's not, and it is so unique and so special, and I am so grateful to be part of it.

Because I have any sort of question I defer to you guys, and it's so unique in my bodywork side of things, especially going out to a new client.

I'd say about 80% of the time, it's feet, especially out here.

And it's like, I go out and watch a horse move, and I just go straight to the feet.

And I'm like, I'm not zeroing in.

However, all of the dysfunction I'm seeing everywhere else is either contributing to the bad angles and or the feet are contributing to the dysfunction.

Because of, you have one without the other.

And it's that scale.

So being able to have the access to the information, the education that you guys have, and the knowledge that I've learned from you guys is beyond what I learned with school and with everything else, is super helpful with talking to clients about the importance of correct angles and proper trims and there is a time and a place for every form of hoof management, 100% when done correctly.

And it's the when done correctly that's a little bit difficult to do because everybody has their own idea of what's right and it's all well and good.

But you need to look at the results and the body to see how well it's working.

And that was kind of an alhambut with Teddy.

He had been clinically sound.

Every time I had him checked out, no vet could figure out what was wrong with him.

He is a very, very overly sensitive pain in my tuchus.

Because he's very opinionated when something's not comfortable.

And by opinionated, I mean, he's the one that broke my back.

— Explosive When Unhappy: Otis's Sensitive, Opinionated Nature

Like he's explosive when he's not happy.

He's very sensitive.

Yes.

He got to the point where he was starting to rear and throw his head.

And he used to bronch.

He doesn't bronch so much anymore.

He mostly rears.

I don't ride him anymore.

I shouldn't ride him again.

But you know, that's neither here nor there.

He I had roped off of him.

I jumped in.

We were starting sorting and he started getting to the point where the twisting was making him really angry and so we did more lameness workups.

His stifles are wonky shaped.

His like the actual joints are square, not round.

But the joints facing cartilage is perfectly healthy.

So my A is congenital.

I think it's a confirmation thing.

Yeah.

I think they're felt that way.

That way.

But he doesn't tolerate torsion well.

Does he camp under?

Yes.

He does.

So this is one of those NPA things.

So he toe drags.

He had a weak stifle, his right weak stifle.

That's fine.

We're on a different horse.

We'll get back to Otis.

But every time I was like, why is he toe dragging?

I can't get him to stop.

We rehabbed stifles.

He was doing well with that.

He palpated and flexed normal after a while.

He's on all the right supplements, all the things.

And he kept toe dragging.

And I kept asking my fair yard.

He just kept taking the toe back.

So he ended up with these very square back toes that were very NPA.

I started, I would go to touch his top line and he would dip out from underneath and he'd hold back, fisciculating.

Oh, buddy.

Oh, yeah.

Glutes started atrophying.

He started getting a whole bunch of just dysfunction.

Like he was, he's always been a flexy horse, but he got unstable and I was like he was not his norm.

He's, he's an Appaloosa quarter horse cross.

He's a little bit more of the leaner, longer Appaloosa side.

But he still generally like he's stocky.

He's tall.

He's doing well.

Yeah.

And I'm like, I can't, I don't know what's going on.

We pulled steel, we fixed angles.

He's no longer dipping.

He has no more back pain.

We, he was treated for ulcers at one point, but the ulcers are gone.

They haven't come back.

His glutes are starting to develop again.

He's not camping under nearly as much.

His stifles don't hurt.

He still toe drags, but I think it's a weakness thing now.

We're getting him in a Pro 6.

Oh, we can talk about Pro 6 later too.

We're going to talk about that.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Cause that's so bad.

Right?

So yeah.

So, so feet are everything.

I was, I texted Kelly, I think it was about six weeks after we, we gone barefoot.

And he never wanted glue ons.

He did fine in the boots and then perfectly just fully barefoot.

And I was like, we have glutes.

He's not, he's not flinching when I'm grooming him.

I'm like, this is wild.

Cause I've been asking my vets for months about that.

And they're like, we don't see anything wrong.

There's no kissing spine.

There's no, like he doesn't palpate to spinal pain.

I don't know.

Brittany.

Man, I was thinking when we were talking about, it was Teddy Stifles, you said Teddy Stifles were almost like square, right?

Is that what you were saying?

So I have a client who, not the same thing.

It's, he has something else that's going on, but he- You come back.

Did I forget?

She has weird internet.

It might be back.

Oh, oh wait, no, Brittany went away.

That's where she is.

You have a client.

Okay, we're here.

Yes.

Okay.

So I have a client who he was NPA.

He was toe-dragging really good on a rock, and we kept doing all the interventions that we were supposed to do.

And usually, they respond within like a trim or two, and you're good to go.

Bob's your uncle.

Go about your business and it's fine.

And he just wouldn't respond.

And I was like, this is not a foot problem.

This is not...

No, it was...

The shape of his stifles was just abnormal congenitally.

And they injected it with arthramid, which you can liken it to lip filler.

And within two or three cycles, back to normal.

No problems.

Yeah, so that was a huge thing.

Granted, there was a lot more that went into it.

We had some whoopsies along the way, but that was it.

He just needed some stifle support, and now his owner is doing a bunch of stifle rehab, just to really straighten fit him up, and he's good.

He hasn't crouched on me since.

Awesome.

Anderson was a game changer for Teddy.

The hyaluronic acid for the joint fluid made a big difference for him in our rehab.

But his stuff, it was all, I mean, you know, hand walking, ground poles, hill work.

He was everything, slow and gradual, getting him to start lifting and using himself better.

We're back to that because he's been a pasture puff for a little while.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

It was weird.

And he's mildly sickle-hawked.

So that contributes to the crushing of the heels.

Yeah.

But we haven't had that issue since going barefoot and using him better.

He was blowing abscesses like crazy on his right hind.

And I need to get to that foot just to figure out why.

But his bars were welded over.

He had one, well, the last abscess was a hot nail that bruised and got gross and then it just kept getting gross.

So they're like soaking it all the time.

Yeah.

Even after we took a while for it to go away, we actually just grew it out enough that it broke off.

But yeah, right.

That medial support, who needs it?

It's just not necessary.

— Otis Goes Barefoot & the Clock Begins

All right.

So currently, Teddy's barefoot now.

Teddy decided, I'm sorry, not Teddy, Otis.

We're moving back to Otis.

Otis decided he's done with his outfit.

We went through so many different packages.

So we would find one that would work for a cycle or two.

And then his feet were changing so much that one package just wasn't going to work for the rest because, I mean, they grew so much more and he got more sole depth.

Like we were doing really well.

If you look at x-ray side by side between when we started and the last set that I took right before the dissection, you don't really see the difference because he started going backwards a few months prior.

But that was because the soft tissue and the bone changes, they progressed to the point where he just couldn't keep getting better.

But that upward swing when we first pulled it was incredible to see.

So we started with the speed metals, then we went to the Versus, then we ended up in the Ones and he actually really liked the Ones.

He was like anything that gives him that flexibility and he gets the balance.

Like he loved it, but he was still high-low.

And so we were trying to do different pads.

Instead of doing a wedge, we went down to flat pads, but we really did the 12 millimeter in the left front and the six millimeter in the right front.

It didn't like the uneven.

He was very clearly uncomfortable.

So he either popped one or I would be like, he's letting me to fix it.

Which one was the high foot and which one had the thicker pad?

I'm pretty sure the right was high and the left had the pad.

Okay.

Yeah.

Pad the high foot.

Yeah.

Yes.

My left, your right.

Okay.

But the pad was on the high foot.

Pad was on the low foot.

Is that right?

Yeah, the pad the high foot.

Okay.

I might have it now.

Oh, it's okay.

Kelly has it, right?

She knows what she said.

She did it.

Yeah.

She did it.

Yeah, yeah.

No, because I remember Kelly reached out to me about that, and we were chatting about it because I'm one of the ones who does the taboo thing where you pad the high foot, and it's worked for me every damn time.

But- Is it just because it lifts it up and gives them more room?

So, if next time you look at a high-low horse, look at their shoulders and the high foot always has a weaker shoulder.

So, if you pad it, that limb has support and doesn't have to- it's still weak.

It's hard to explain it over a podcast, but- Yeah, it doesn't make sense, but- One of our mutual clients, he has like an inch and a half different length cannon bone on his other one.

I don't remember which one was which.

If you've had her on a podcast, can we name drop?

We're name dropping.

Emma Stertecchi.

Yeah.

Oh, we love Emma.

Yes.

I know.

I still have thoughts on right there on our shoulder.

It's the left.

No, I think I have that back.

I don't remember.

One of them shorter than the other.

Sure.

Ellie did high-low and I went out there and his body was jacked up like he couldn't handle that.

His shoulders were all lopsided, his pecs were weird.

We were like, okay, we need to get the knees the same level and go from there.

But that was one of those.

Kelly had been out a few days before I went out there, and Emma and I were both like, we'll talk.

It's not working, but that's okay.

We'll just try again.

I love how adaptive everybody is for things like that.

I'm like, nobody's ego's getting hurt and something doesn't work.

She's like, okay, horse doesn't like it, figure it out.

Yeah.

So Otis went through all of the options.

We did DIM, we did no DIM.

We did pads, we did no pads.

We did the wedge, he didn't like the wedge.

We did a lesser wedge, he still didn't like the wedge.

And we got to at one point, he was pretty comfortable with the airs and I think the pads, but we had to keep the same level pad.

He didn't like the different thickness, he kept pulling that off.

And then he got to where he was hurting more.

So we did, Taylor, what you suggested with the versus, we cut in versus or ones, we cut out the tip of the frog.

The versus.

So that he had that.

And then we had to cut out the pad to do the same.

That's what he had for his last two rounds of composites.

He, I think I got a week out of that last round of composites, maybe two, and he pulled one off.

And I was like, all right, he's living in clouds.

And like he can't stand with them anymore.

I'm not going to force him through it.

Like, let's just put him in the boots.

We know he likes them.

We'll just keep them comfortable.

Cause we just, it was, okay, steel pulled in June.

I'm going to the Trinity thing now.

Are we just like jumping in?

You can do whatever you want.

Cool.

So timeline is bouncing all over the place.

But I followed Trinity Equine Services for a couple years and have wanted to go to a dissection for a wide.

I was supposed to go to the Sharon May Davis Clinic in 2024.

And I had a, wasn't a riding accident, but where my back had broken, it slipped forward during an endurance ride.

Oh, okay.

In September of 24.

And I couldn't physically make it to the dissection.

I had surgery the December after.

So like that was, and if you're like, I'm not going to do this again.

That was end of 24.

So come June, June, 2025, when I knew we were doing the MRI, when I got the MRI results back, I was like, okay, we're officially on hospice.

— MRI Results: The Decision to Start Hospice Care

Like, how long do we have?

I reached out to Lorre and was like, I didn't think I was going to be making this email anytime soon.

And it's kind of breaking my heart.

However, I've been following your stuff for a while.

And I have a force that would be a candidate.

I'm like, this is his story.

This is where we are.

I want to get him at least a year and see how, like, if we can get him comfortable, like get him to that point, would he, like, is there a wait list or something like that?

I could at least give, like, if it works out timing wise, that I can donate him for this.

Because I knew like, I had that boy five years and I was like, the only thing I was able, that he was able to gift was education.

Like, I really feel in my bones it's why I had him, was so that I could give him for this.

And now I'm crying.

Um, Lorre reached back out.

She was like, we do dissection spring and fall.

Um, she's like, let me know as it gets closer.

She's like, I can send you the dates that we will need a horse and we can see if something's like in, in your vicinity.

I was like, okay, give me a year.

Let me see what we can do.

Four months later.

Um, so Otis, sorry, backtracking again.

Before we had the MRI, so I think it was February of 25, was the first time we tried Osphos, um, for bone pain relief.

We knew the navicular had developed.

We knew he was hurting from that.

So we were like, let's give it a shot.

We had about five months before he was not doing good anymore.

And I was like, that's supposed to last a year.

So five months was hard.

But we waited to give another dose until after the MRI, because they, when they're reading the MRI, they read it differently based off of the Osphos, because it changed bone absorption.

Oh, okay.

So it registers differently, which is, I think, why we had really severe synovitis without bony changes.

Dr.

Amari put those two together.

I saw that you wrote that on the Facebook page and the group, yeah.

Makes sense.

I was like, um, so MRI was in June.

We got the clear to give him more Osphos.

So he got more Osphos.

End of June.

We got four months.

Hi, I'm Bree.

And a year ago, I bought my dream horse, Teddy.

But just eight short months later, he was diagnosed with wobblers and rapidly declined until I had to make the choice to let him go.

The only way I was able to get a diagnosis was by getting a CT scan.

Out of state, expensive, and honestly not accessible for most people.

But it gave me an answer, even though it wasn't the answer I wanted.

That's why I founded Teddy's Legacy, a non-profit dedicated to helping horse owners get advanced diagnostics to make informed, compassionate decisions for their horses.

We also support research, education, and welfare.

I know what it feels like to love a horse and not have the information you need to wonder if you're doing the right thing.

I have a CT scan candidate who applied for a grant through Teddy's Legacy.

Someone who is in the shoes I was in not long ago.

Someone who loves her horse and is desperate for answers she can't afford to get.

If you want to learn more or support our mission, you can visit our website at teddyslegacy.org.

Osfoss in June, one month later, Osfoss was no longer effective.

He was struggling really badly with standing for the farrier.

I couldn't do more than five, 10 minutes of groundwork just to check on him without him being head-bobbing lame.

And bless his heart, he tried so hard.

Like Kelly, every time he'd pick up a foot, he would offer the foot and start to shake.

And we'd put it back down and as soon as it would touch back down, he'd pick it back up, but he just couldn't hold it.

And I'm like, okay.

So I had Dr.

Amari out again, and she and I were both like, back in June, we're like, he'll be fine.

We'll get a while out of him.

It'll be good.

She saw him in October and when I walked him off and she goes, oh, I was like, that wasn't the confirmation.

Ouch, Ouch, Ouch.

So we ordered another round of Osfoss, and I reached out to Lorre.

I was like, he's not making it here.

I was able to look at their website to see what dates they had available.

Texas is a little far, but I was willing.

Yeah, Osfoss in June, Dr.

Amari came out in October, and I touched face with Lorre again in October about- February.

Yes, about dates.

So she reached out to Gabby, who's she coordinated everything with the dissection in Florida.

She's a victory on services, also amazing and super sweet and just a great overall human being.

So she got me in touch with her and with Dr.

Kahlan, whose facility we did the dissection at.

And I reached out and I was like, okay, this is Otis' story.

My boyfriend's still here, you shouldn't wake him up.

No, we can't hear him.

Okay, cool.

He's on the couch.

So back on topic.

So I reached out to them and it was just an email to all of them.

I was like, this is Otis' story.

This is where we are.

If this is the horse she would like to use for this, like let me know.

And they were both like, yes, like absolutely, like if you were willing to give him up for that, 100 percent.

Gabby had told me when I got to Florida, that she'd had, she'd been looking for a horse for that dissection for a while.

And it was hard finding somebody that didn't just want to free euthanasia for an old horse.

— Finding Lorre Mueller: Otis Becomes a Teacher

So when the opportunity for Otis to be the teacher came up, she was like, please.

I guess it's a very unique situation for me to be able to be there, knowing his whole story, answering questions.

And also as the body worker that had a whole community behind him, with my community being there.

Like Dr.

Shelley, she never worked on my horses.

I used Dr.

Cheyenne Coleman because I knew her long before I met Dr.

Shelley.

But I've worked with Dr.

Shelley, actually in her office, on people, and then have seen her work with the horses, and she's amazing.

So Dr.

Shelley was there, Taylor was there, Kelly was there, Molly was there.

So to have a chiropractor that has worked with Otis, just for fun, she didn't groundwork, we did a whole photo shoot, like she adored that horse.

To have all of us there, that new historian, were part of, especially his last like six months, was just not something they've ever really had the opportunity for.

Like a lot of the times these courses are donated and you don't have the full history, you're just kind of, it's a guessing game.

And for him to be so young with the issues he had, it was very much a clinical, not clinical experience, what's the word?

I guess unique opportunity, just because you don't think that a five-year-old horse is going to have that much going on.

Not that was fairly worked and besides an injury, I mean, nutrition was dialed and supplements were dialed and like everything about his care.

Not that I'm counting my own horn, but I mean, I did everything I could and you know you could write and I am still absolutely blown away by the extent of the findings that we saw in that dissection.

I haven't looked at the photos.

I have and I was told to put them away because I don't handle it well.

But I will be able to refer back to you later and I just, it's a lot.

Staggering.

Yeah.

I think I'm going to get ahead of myself.

So we reached out to Trinity.

We got it scheduled.

And so the last four months were, OK, how do we get him?

How do we get him to February?

How do we get him comfortable enough to make it to Florida?

Yeah.

And that's where Pro 6 came in.

It's so great.

Molly had one on loan.

She had a couple, but we had told her that he was getting to the point where he just could not stand barely for trans.

Like the poor boy, the rasping hurt so bad he couldn't walk.

Like it was bad.

And I'm like, we needed to get him to get these blue ones on.

We just, I was like, we need to get these on.

And we're like, it's our last time.

It's our last time.

And Molly was like, okay, we'll borrow this.

See if it works.

Well, Kelly and I and all of our brilliance, forgot about it for the first one to go on.

It was a well-frozen first one.

But we had gotten to a point with him where we would pull the composites, we'd do a trim, we'd come back in two weeks.

He could not do it all in one go.

He needed a break.

He needed some decompression time and squishy clouds.

Then he would go on the glue-ons and be good for a few weeks.

We had done that a little while.

My property where my barn is has a very slight grade to it, and he didn't do well on the angle, so I started shelling to her on her flat pad.

We were at her property the last time we put composites on.

We were on the level, he was doing really well standing for the one.

We asked him to go to the other one, and he was like, I can't do this, like shaking, falling backwards, he just couldn't hold his foot up.

And she and I both went, we have that thing, we could try that.

We put that group 6 on him, and he was like, oh, okay.

I have the videos, it was the first time we put it on.

He turned and pointed at his belly and just looked at it.

I'm like, do not bite them, it costs more than you do.

Kelly was like, or after the medical bills.

And I was like, before.

I was like, before.

But he did, he went from barely being able to hold up that left front foot for 10 seconds to holding it for over a minute.

Whoa.

Wow.

Yup.

Okay, I need to buy one.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

I actually had a phone consult with Pro6 last week, two weeks ago, and was talking to them about it.

I will be getting a couple, just I want to have them on hand because I have clients from like, please use this.

I know it's expensive, please.

I really want this.

I love you.

Yeah.

Right.

So that was incredible.

I mean, it was for him just that little bit of support.

It was the proprioceptive awareness.

I think it brought attention to his brain to use muscles he hadn't of using, to just keep compensated for so much, for so long.

Like his baseline existence was pain.

And you didn't even notice how bad it was until you took something away.

Like the first time I ever noticed or like recognized the level of pain he was in was, he was about three, maybe four.

It was before we did the x-rays that showed the navicular in the other foot, but we nerve blocked to try to track that left hand lameness.

And I hadn't seen him like yawn and let go like that ever.

That to me was a, oh, you're hurting a lot more than I could have even fathomed.

And that was a blow.

That's where I started to go down the path of maybe anorectomy.

Just make him feel better.

Yeah.

And I knew if we went down that route, he would never be a ridden workhorse because I didn't want him to run himself into the ground.

— Keeping Him Comfortable: Not Asking Him to Run Into the Ground

It was just to make him comfortable and it wasn't feasible without causing severe damage.

So I was like, okay.

But yeah, so that Pro6, it gave him support.

It's like wearing a hug.

And he just, he braced into it and was like, this is great.

He was yawning, he was super calm.

He like fell asleep afterwards.

I get, I was like, okay.

If you read their website and you see them, because as a conditioning tool, you need to like gradually get them used to it.

It's just like going straight into band, like for some band training and you can fatigue and get really sore.

So Molly had told us that since it worked so well for me to keep it and let him wear it when we haul.

So he was going to wear trailer drive down.

It's like, okay.

So I started getting him used to wearing it.

So it was for 20 minutes a day and then half an hour a day and then an hour a day.

And he got to where he was putting his nose in it and then getting mad at me when I went to take it off.

I love him.

He communicated very clearly, respectfully, but clearly.

And he was hilarious.

Even my mom went out to go take it off of him one day and she's like, he doesn't want to give it back.

I know.

So it needs to come off at least.

But he ended up living in it.

I left it on him only for seven towards the end, because it just helped.

I mean, when I put it on him the second or third time, it was after we did the gluons.

So before he pulled it, it's the timeline.

And I sent him out on the lunge line just to check how he was moving.

And, oh, actually, the lunge line, United Circle, we were walking and we trotted in like a 20-foot loop.

Yep, my version of lunging too.

Right?

He loved sound.

Yep.

I called Kelly crying.

I was like, this almost makes me think there's hope, but I know there's not, but I'm so happy he's comfortable.

I think this was December, and I'm like, oh, my heart.

But he did, he loved that thing.

I mean, you've seen the video, right?

Like I have a full, I posted one on Facebook, on the business page of him.

Oh my gosh, that was him.

I saw that.

That's him.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was him.

That was him.

Yeah.

So they were like, we have this client who does this, that, and the other.

They were talking to Kelly and Kelly's like, yeah, I know that horse.

They're like, how is he?

She's like, well, I don't know.

But using it as a hospice tool, not that I'd be like, it's a hospice tool, but using it for him to give him that level of comfort through the end, it became his baseline.

Yeah.

He wore it the whole way down to Florida.

Took it off of him when we stopped overnight.

So when we did haul, I broke it up, so we had four hours and four hours a day, and we didn't do the whole eight-hour drive.

That's smart.

There was no way.

I had this grandiose idea that I could leave all of the things in the trailer open.

I have a three-horse stocking trailer.

A horse-free slant load.

His snoring is bothering me.

Oh my God.

I just heard it.

If John were out here, that's what he would hear too.

That's so funny.

I'm always worried patients are going to hear him snoring on the couch behind me.

That's so funny.

Oh my God.

So actually, it's so funny that we're talking so much about the Pro6 right now because I actually spoke to Kelly this morning and we were talking about the Pro6 and it's like on the list of things to buy.

Like I need to get a Pro6 because I have two horses in particular who I think like they need it for sure.

And so I emailed them this morning and asked them some questions about it.

I really want to have those ladies on.

I think they would be really great to talk to.

They would love to.

Yeah.

It was really neat talking with them because we just started sharing stories.

Yes.

A little bit.

They developed it with an idea in mind, not having any clue, just the breadth that it would go and all of the different things it's been used for.

And the more testimonials they get, the more experiences that people have that they share, it's just growing and growing.

And it's really cool to see something that was developed with a specific intention, turn into something so much more, that is so beneficial on so many scales.

Yeah.

We'll reach out to them for sure.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

You did.

We should.

Cool.

But yeah.

Yeah.

Otis was that thing.

He was ridiculous.

He was.

Every time.

I had to get good about having it ready, like having all of the pieces so I could just stick it over his nose, because if I didn't have it prepped, he'd get so frustrated.

He'd like stick his nose in there and be like, figure out the straps.

Like the straps where they go.

That's so cute.

So bad.

You're adorable, but you're also a Venice.

You know what?

It sounds like through his life of experiencing a lot of pain and having every reason to be very unpleasant, that he never lost his spark.

Yeah.

It was when he started getting grouchy, that I knew he was getting a problem.

That was actually how it came to be with the farrier before I transitioned to barefoot, was he was just, one, he fell on the guy's assistant one day.

They would move his back down and he full body fell over.

He just could not hold himself up.

Oh, no.

Maybe don't jack the foot up and move when the horse starts leaning.

— Getting Nippy & Grouchy: His Body Telling the Truth

I'm just a thug.

But he got nippy, he got grouchy, he got where he was miserable.

I'm like this.

We pulled the steel, we've reached, he got his pet back, he got his spark back.

The last time Kelly came out for his feet was two weeks before we left, maybe three.

He pulled one of the cullons, par for the course.

I was like, I'm not putting him through it again, let's take the other one off.

He hurt so bad from the clean up rasp, that they almost couldn't put the cloud boots back on.

He was nipped, he didn't want to pick up a foot, and I'm like, he's around a nuzzle you.

Yeah.

He doesn't bite.

I could poke and prod and twist and do everything, and he doesn't bite.

I was like, okay, I'm like, it's time.

If we didn't have the goal of getting him to Florida in February, I probably would have put him down in December.

Well, it was just watching him suffer and trying to just manage it as best as you could.

He was still happy and faster, kicking up his heels, playing with the other two.

He wouldn't fool out and gallop that often.

He would usually like trot really fast with his tail on his nose, way up in the air, snorting, looking around while the others were zooming by him.

But he would still play and buck and, yeah.

So the last couple of months were rough.

Yeah.

But that was another telltale.

He didn't want to load.

He was a horse that was like, adventure, I'm the first to go.

And the first time he just stopped at the entrance of the trailer and looked at it and didn't just follow me in.

I'm like, he didn't have to buck, he didn't have to step back, he didn't have to do it.

It was the hesitation.

And I was like, we're reaching that.

So three more trailer rides.

We got to get to Kelly's once and you got to get to the two stops.

I was like, that's all we need to do.

Yeah.

And he did that the last day we went to load up, he just stepped right on.

That was when we saw him.

I think it's Ashburn, Georgia.

There's a little horse motel.

I need to find the name of these people, because if anybody's down that way and they want to stop there, they're such fantastic human beings.

They are all, I think it's like 50 acres, way out in the middle of nowhere.

Nice little barn.

They don't have horses anymore, but they get their horse fixed by the people that come and stay with them, and they rent out a room in their house.

It's like, wow, chill along the property.

And they were so sweet.

And we just met, like Jason was up almost all night talking with the guy.

And I was like, I'll go read my Bible and go to bed because my brain, I was so done.

I got like maybe three nights, hours of sleep the night before, and we drove four hours.

Oh my gosh.

But that would be a great overnight place for anybody calling.

But yeah, and I had traveled with my other two horses often and left him home by himself.

So he was pretty good at regulating being just the only horse around.

Yeah.

Out there at 5 a.m.

We'll get him loaded going from that stop to Florida.

And he was like zonked out sleeping, like fully laying down.

He almost didn't see me walk up to him, but I was like, I'm so glad you're comfortable enough.

They were the only horse on this property.

There's cows nearby, and you're terrified of cows.

And he was just sleeping with the cows.

I was like, sweet.

So can you tell us?

If I didn't know better, I'd say our horses are related.

Yeah.

You're as afraid of cows too.

Fucking hetrified.

Like, we'll fight a bear, has run away, has like saved me from a coyote, like protected me from a coyote.

But cows, they're sketchy.

So Otis is roping bread.

Like that is his lines.

He is supposed to be a cow chaser.

No, he's not.

He was.

He was curious about them when he was younger.

Unfortunately, I would bring him with me places and he would stand tight at the rail.

One of the places I took him to, they were having a roping practice and a rogue steer got loose and got between him and the fence.

And he lost his mind.

He said, he panicked, he reared, got his leg tingled around the lead rope, right on the top rail of a six foot panel, by the way.

Managed to get himself undone as I jumped off of my horse and hold one.

Oh, last word.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

But we spent a few weeks trying to fix that because my local arena, when they bring the cows down to the lower costure, I'll just go ride through them.

And so I walked in through them.

I was like, we're getting over this.

We're just going to walk in the middle of this big herd.

Unfortunately, the mamas get scary sometimes.

They snort and square off.

And he was like, he's looking at me.

He's looking at me.

He got to what he would be okay.

And then one would run at him, usually while he was standing tied.

And I was like, oh, that's when you're trapped.

So cows, cows are in here.

I'm scared of cows now because I'm like, I'm going to get killed if I try to ride near a cat.

My Baymare, she's cow bread.

She's reigned cow bread and she eats them.

She will pin her ears and square off.

And like she, she's not a vegetarian.

She would chomp out during cow sorting.

I'm like, we get in trouble for that?

We can be DQ, no biting the cows.

Don't bite the cows.

I was helping bring her herd down to get ready for a cow sorting clinic.

And I had my little Aussie mix with me.

— The Dissection Weekend: Dogs, Crows & Sacred Atmosphere

And he's very loud.

He's an Australian Shepherd German Shorthaired pointer mix.

So he thinks he can herd and he can't, but he's annoying.

So he'll let go and chase him out and move him around.

Well, some of those, some of those mama cows and some of the babies, they're a couple months old, were like snorting and trying to chase my dog.

And Freya, she's like, she tolerates my dog.

She jumped between Ruger and this charlay.

Ears flat back was like, you don't get to touch that.

I mean, she went for, like went for her face.

And the cow turned off and ran off and I was like, bless this mare.

I love her.

I adore her.

She's awesome.

Otis probably would have bucked me off and left me in the dust.

He was like, I'm out here for myself.

Yeah.

So, yeah, he tolerated the travel really well.

Excellent.

When we got down to Florida, we got there, I think about 11 a.m.

I had planned on being there by 10 and that didn't happen.

But Gabby met us there and kind of got us situated.

There was a paddock with a barn that he stayed in that night.

But he went out in that sand.

I was like, this is great.

It's nice and warm.

It's pretty.

He ran and trotted all around and started eating the little trees that were in the bathroom in such a mess.

Then Lorre came a couple hours after we got there.

So Otis kind of settled down.

She does a full assessment that she would do as if she was about to work on an animal.

She's an osteopath.

And he took to her pretty much immediately.

One of the first things she tried to do was look at his teeth though.

And he was like, I don't like you touching my lips.

And she said, let me have right here.

She said, how about down here?

And he just goes, oh, and I was like, so sweet.

But she did.

She looked over everything, checked the mobility in the joints, watched him move, like she had me put him out at a walk in a trot, a straight line.

And it always gets me when people were like, he doesn't look that bad.

Cause he didn't.

But I was like, but I knew my horse.

Like I knew how bad it was and I knew how bad it could be.

So I was like, I'm glad he looks comfortable.

Like that, that was the goal.

Like I always wanted him to, for other people to look at him and be like, there's something wrong with him.

Yeah, there's a lot wrong.

But she, when she palpated, obviously she felt more, but watching him move, he didn't look horrible.

So that was, that was neat.

That next morning, oh, I'll keep bouncing around.

There was a goat on the property named Rosie.

Oh, I remember Rosie.

Yeah.

Dr.

Kahlan said that she was the emotional support goat, or maybe Gabby.

I don't know But Otis was so enthralled.

He'd never met a goat before.

He wanted to say hi.

So bad.

I would walk him around, and he would go to the very end of the lead rope, ears forward, trotting after her, and she'd just walk away.

And he's like, I just want to make friends.

So that Friday morning, she kept trying to come around for the alfalfa, and then would leave, and Otis would come towards her.

Lorre came up to see us that morning, walked through the gate, and Otis walked up to her.

We were all the way at the back of the barn.

He walked all the way up to the front of the paddock to meet her at the gate.

And I was like, I have that on camera.

The goat came up, and they touched noses.

I was like, he got to say hi to the goat.

And I got it on a camera.

I'm just like, that's all he wanted.

I know, he just really wanted to say hi to her.

But yeah, so the whole experience with Trinity and with Lorre and Gabby and Dr.

Kahlan, I know Dr.

Kahlan wasn't around as much as she thought she would be, which was fine, but Gabby, especially, she was so sweet.

Lorre was so considerate.

Yeah, everything about how much reverence and respect and just kindness that they showed, it was so incredibly impactful and it made the whole process as painless and as smooth as humanly possible.

Well, I will forever be grateful to them for how well and how well they managed to all of it.

And knowing that Lorre does this on so many times a year, like it can't be easy to say horse, that I mean horses.

But she did tell me, well, us, I guess, when we were sedating Otis, because he was he was euthanized via lidocaine, so they anesthetized him first.

But while we were waiting on the sedatives to kind of kick in, birds were coming up.

And Lorre was like, oh, the birds are here.

Dr.

Kahlan was like, what do you mean the birds are here?

She goes, every single time one of the horses is put down, some form of bird will show up, like heaven's angels.

It's like they'll show up and they'll take the spirit away.

And I was like, huh.

She'd mentioned a story of a raven or a canary or something from another place they were.

And this one bird flew up, sat on the rail, as soon as the horse was gone, flew away.

And it was the type of bird that the owner had nicknamed the horse.

And I was like, and when I looked around, the birds that came for Otis were crows.

I don't have crows at my property.

We have eagles and hawks and turkey vultures that keep the crows away.

The week before we left, there was a whole flock of crows that had been around my pasture.

And so seeing the crows at that property after Lorre had made that comment, I was like, gosh.

— Crows at the Property: Signs, Spirituality & What Was Felt

And they weren't really around for the rest of the weekend.

Like not the crows, there were other types of birds, but not the crows.

Yeah.

So I was like, okay, well, thanks.

All the birds are coming down and taking the critters back.

But I'm like, that's something I'm going to be paying attention to more now.

But it was just, it was incredible.

Like we said a prayer before we put him down.

I mean, it was absolutely beautiful.

It was everything that I would have wanted and needed in that moment.

And with Dr.

Kahlan anesthetizing him, I mean, you know, sometimes anesthesia goes not great.

He went down so gently.

Like it was a, he rocked back on his hips and just like, Oh, that's the best.

And he, yeah.

And I was, I was worried about that.

Cause I was like, if he fights this, yeah, it's going to kind of, that's going to crush you.

Yeah.

But he was so young.

He was so ready.

I mean, it was, it was a heartbeat and he was gone.

And I was like, shh, shh.

So he did the right thing.

Yeah.

Afterwards, I felt like this quiet and this peace.

My mom was out there with me.

Jason came with me.

I wouldn't have gotten through that week without Jason.

But we went and got coffee and I was good.

Until I got back to the property and Kelly came up and was sobbing and we just started crying together.

No.

But it's the community thing.

You know, of course, you celebrate together, you mourn together, it's all things.

But yeah, it was a truly remarkable experience.

I'm very, very grateful that we were able to do it and that Otis was able to be the teacher.

Like his life needed to mean something.

I needed it to mean something.

And this was it for me, for him, for everybody that was there, for what I gathered on speaking for other people.

But you know, he was a teacher.

And now you're sharing it even more.

Yeah, we are composting his skeleton and we'll have a fully assembled horse in a couple of months, maybe a year, there was more on it than I know.

But he'll continue to teach.

That's incredible.

Yeah, I know it has changed a lot of lives.

Everyone who was there at the clinic, they all have their hands on multiple horses.

And just the ripple effect.

Significant, significant.

Did you see the one comment from one of the gals like the day after, like that Monday back, she's like she worked on one of her client's horses or three of them.

They had spent months, if not over a year, trying to get a breakthrough point on her, on these horses, body worker.

And she goes, we had a different approach and we made bigger changes and bigger leaps in this one session we have in the last months.

I was like, this is wild.

That is Otis.

That was Otis.

Yeah.

And that's one of those body worker side of things with him.

I couldn't work on him.

If I worked on him, I would cripple him.

And he just, he couldn't, he wouldn't mentally handle it.

He couldn't physically deal with it.

And he taught me so much about when to back off and why and how.

Because there's seldom cases with horses I work on where I'm like, this isn't helping, they need something else.

But he made it so very clear what did and didn't work.

And not that every horse has the same behaviors, but to feel the tissues and the reactivity and how he would mentally push me out.

Like he just, he was gone.

And if I did manage to get through the tissues and get him to release and relax, he was head bobbing lame.

And I'm like, oh, so he was a hands off.

He got chirod and he had PE math, but I would not do soft tissue work on him.

I did a little bit right before I left.

Do you think it destabilized him?

I think it destabilized him.

I think part of it was bringing more awareness to the areas that hurt.

Oh, he just previously had held so much tension.

He was literally bracing everywhere.

Yes.

And that became so apparent when we got inside.

Yeah.

I mean, it was absolutely flooring.

How much skeletally was wrong with him?

Like, it was just for me, I was like, I can't wrap my head around this.

It made a lot of sense.

He always clicked.

Like, every time he'd move, something was clicking.

His neck, his legs, he was always popping, cracking.

Even as a youngster, like, he was always just a clicky baby.

I was told that was normal.

So I didn't think much of it.

But when it was time for him to have another osphos injection, the clicking would be worse.

And then we'd inject and it would get better.

So I don't know if it was.

Yeah.

I'm not entirely sure what it was.

I mean, you had it most of his life.

Yeah.

I had it ever since he was weaned.

I mean, you know, the health of the mayor and the time before weaning matters too.

But that's just a lot.

Yeah.

Because I could reach out to the ranch part of me, wants to just to ask about stuff.

But because I don't know what his birth was like, I don't know what his upbringing was like.

I know not that I mean different bloodlines, different possibilities, but Freya has never had any issues remotely.

She's never had any issues.

She's really ever been sick.

A few times needed help is because she's gashed her side on something.

She's stupid, but there's just a few times.

But besides that, she's never had a lameness from something like that.

I'm like, and they grew up pretty much in the same environment, same pasture turnout situation, mare foal situation, they have property with a whole breeding and training program.

— Freya & the Ranch: Congenital Questions & Breeding Context

They have the facility for it, they have the land for it.

But yeah, I don't know what it's for six months were like, yeah.

Yeah, the findings on the table were, they were jarring.

They were jarring.

I think the two big things that I think really stuck with, not to speak for everyone, but that really kind of stuck with all of us were the findings in his back and in his back.

Because I think we didn't really get in there until the end.

And that was very unexpected.

Yeah.

Say more.

So we had a couple of saddle fitters that were there.

And Gaby had told me that one of them had reached out, like super excited to see a horse and how their musculature is with poor saddle fit.

She's like, this isn't going to be the horse for you.

Horses are saddled four or five times.

So his musculature, beautiful.

I mean, I see him behind you.

That's a sexy horse.

You're the beefy boy.

Like he was a beefcake.

He was 15'1, 15'2, 1100 something pounds.

Like stocky boy.

Yeah.

Yes.

And not like not fat.

I mean, he was muscle and we get underneath all the muscle and every single cervical vertebra was too close together.

Some of them, the joints were overlapping and hooked.

Yep.

You get down into the thoracic.

I believe it was at T13 or 1415.

I'll tell you right now. 1415 and then 18L1 refused.

Yep. 1415 had hooks on the dorsal spinous processes.

So becoming fused, kissing spine.

Thoracolumbar, kissing spine.

And then the transverse processes of every single lumbar vertebra were malformed or fused.

Every single one of them.

Yep.

Uh-huh.

That, so during Lorre's eval, the only place he really got angry and like spun your spin like he was going to mad.

Yeah.

Was when she palpated mid thoracics.

It was when he went there and his head whipped around.

That was the only place he got like, hey, that was where the hooks were.

That was where it was actively painful.

Yeah.

It was like, that's fair.

Yes.

I think that was a big one for me.

The synovitis in every joint in all of his limbs.

We did both sides.

I stayed at the very end and helped them open up the front right and the right hind.

He had the same level of synovitis with the cartilaginous changes on the hip joint, stifle joint and elbow on the right side.

I did it on the left.

So what was it?

The elbow joint?

He had blood in?

Or was it the hip?

Oh my God.

This poor horse.

Yeah.

Like this is a list.

Isn't it gross?

Yeah.

Well, it's like- It was the hip.

Yes.

Blood in his hip.

Left hind, one that I'm like, I knew he had a lameness that we just weren't going to track.

It was very- Everyone was like, he's fine.

Yeah.

But to see, we opened it up and there was blood and there were divots and damaged the cartilage in the femurocytobular joint, so the hip joint, the stifles.

Stifles weren't horrible, but there was synovitis there.

Hox had serious synovitis, moderate to severe synovitis.

Arcus had it.

The elbow joints were really bad.

The left elbow had a lot of cartilaginous changes.

That makes sense though.

Asterns, pretty much every single joint we opened was inflamed.

A lot of them had normal colored mucus, one of them was abnormal.

But- Well, they were decapitating him.

We got to play with the left forefoot because that was ground zero.

I think that's- Yeah, I know what you're saying.

You know, Lorre bless her.

She's like, if you guys want something to do, please.

So we all grabbed his left limb and scurried over to another table and just did our thing in private.

Well, they did their thing.

Yeah.

Well, we really wanted to see that in the vicular.

Yeah.

Yeah, because we knew that was ground zero.

And I have videos and pictures of me sitting there carving with a scalpel.

That was a pain in the butt to get down to.

Well, I was impressed.

It was like, okay, I mean, it's a good thing.

It's well put together.

Well, we got all the way down to it.

That was so, the MRI doesn't show anything further up the limb.

It was just like the hoof capsule.

But the deep digital flexor tendon and the superficial digital flexor were severely bruised about halfway up the metacarpal bone, or the carpal bone.

Not metacarpal, yeah, cannon bone.

And I'm like, that high up, I mean, we have the picture.

It was actually like purple and red.

It was weird.

I didn't expect that.

But it was very angry.

We didn't, I don't know if we would have been able to actually see the tears of the navicular bone, or the digital flexor tendon.

The navicular, because we couldn't really get all the way down into it.

But we pulled off P2 and you can see the bone, it was thinning and the fracture almost created this, but it didn't fuse, there was still very much a gap, but it just looked like it was trying to fuse to the coffin bone, or the deep digital flexor, like it was flush and curled up it.

Oh yeah, it was like really adhered.

Yeah.

It appeared thinner too, as though it had, it was very, flimsy is the word that comes to mind.

It almost looked malleable.

That's the word, that's the fancy word for it.

Yeah.

The bone?

Yeah.

And it was almost, there was, it wasn't translucent.

It was almost translucent.

Well, the edges were.

Yeah.

We'll call it that.

Yeah.

Okay.

I feel as though you should talk to the farm where you got him from at some point in your life.

— Telling the Farm: Sharing What Was Learned About ECVM

I'm going to partly, I want to let them know that some of this was congenital, so that they get more responsible breeding.

Because it is typical cordivores, big body, little feet.

His barrier practices didn't do him any good.

Yeah.

The right front navicular bone was also mal-shaped.

Dr.

Carter believes that that was just a congenital thing.

It was just wonky.

I think the left front was too, which made it easier to compromise.

That was the weakest link.

Yeah.

Because it was an absolute fluke.

He was playing in pasture, and best guess is he was dead on a rock.

There's nothing else that would have done it.

You can't kick that.

There was nothing for him to have done it on, besides running in the pasture.

It was a weak link.

His front right, it just all clicked.

That's why the spiral was so profound.

I mean, it would have been profound anyway.

I'd imagine so.

But that's why it just became such a global hit.

No one had told me about the mouth shaped right in the vicular until Dr.

Carter looked at them.

People saw the bony changes for the vicular, but it wasn't even noted the first time I had them checked.

So I was just like, it was weird that there were a lot of later down the line aha moments and not a lot of in the moment, hey, this could be a problem.

I wish I'd had more blatant upfront information.

Like if somebody had seen it at the beginning and said, hey, you all wish.

Yeah.

Especially with that right front because I didn't know as well how to read the radiographs years back when we first did this.

So I didn't even know to look for the right front for the navicular changes.

But they were there by the time it was two.

Yeah.

They weren't noted.

I didn't have that like, okay, I need to be managing this.

I was flagging that for you.

Yeah.

And so there's a lot of that going forward.

If I do more things, I do with more animals, more horses, I'm going to be like, I want you to tell me everything.

Even if you don't think it's important, I want it noted because I want the information to be able to utilize it as I need to.

Like, because what you may not think is clinically significant could be down the line.

And I want to be able to manage it before it becomes a problem.

You want to know all the red flags before they even are that red.

Yeah.

So that's, you know, you live and you learn, but...

And it's so hard because everywhere you hear is trust your professionals.

And I did.

And I guess one of the questions was the aha moments for me, right?

Like the, on your little note thing.

Yeah.

My biggest takeaway for any owner, anyone that's around horses or animals, trust your gut.

You know them better than anybody else.

If you think something's wrong, something's wrong.

And if you have that little like inkling of hey, something's not sitting right, keep looking for the answers.

Yeah.

Because everybody will look at something differently.

I can take that same set of x-rays and send them to four different vets and some will look at something different.

Yeah.

There will be the same basis, but there will always be those little bits of things.

It's just more information for you to have, to be able to manage it as best as you can.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's humans reading it, no matter how educated they are.

People see the world differently.

People are going to notice things differently.

It's like everything else.

You sure trust your professionals, but they're only people.

Yeah.

Trust your professionals, but verify.

Yeah.

Trust, but verify.

Trust your gut first.

Yeah.

Follow through.

I don't know if I would actually change anything that I did because I did the best that I could with the information that I had.

Now that I know better, I won't wait as long before finding some other options.

Like I won't, if something's not sitting right, I'm not going to wait months.

I might wait a few weeks, but I'm not going to wait months.

Yeah.

Because you know the rules.

Yeah.

As owners, we pick up on the subtlest changes.

So we can catch things before they become a problem if we listen to that little inkling.

I swear, trust your gut has become such like a pillar.

Every single person we talk to, that's always.

That's the biggest takeaway.

Yeah.

Trust your gut and listen to it.

It has to be.

Listen to your horse.

Learn how to listen.

Learn their language. 100 percent.

Yeah.

Not all of us are as lucky to have a good communicator.

So you have to be good at learning a new language.

Is Stoic horses are a thing?

No.

I was always worried mine would end up that way because he's half walking horse and they can be really stoic.

That's like a boy's been a fear, but no.

Well, and gated horses are harder to track too, because unless you really know their movement, it's hard to tell if something's wrong.

Yeah.

The story isn't about me, but I've got it.

Yeah.

It's really hard.

But I mean, clearly you did everything that you possibly could.

And obviously you learned a lot in your career.

You're going to keep learning a lot and use this experience.

Like, I don't, it feels selfish to say that he was born to teach.

He was.

You know, he was born to bring joy.

He was born to, you know, chase a little goat.

He was born to maybe be scared of cows.

You know, he was born to be a buddy.

— What Otis Was Born to Be: A Teacher & an Adventure Pal

He was born to be your little, your little adventure pal.

And he was a good teacher.

And he will continue to teach.

Yes.

That's not all.

And he was beautiful.

Like, I've been, I hope it looks like I'm making eye contact with you, but I'm not.

I was all the time, I'm like, damn, he's so cute.

Yeah.

He was a good boy.

Yeah.

He was.

I miss him.

Yeah.

So he's going to get home.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

Oh no.

He's at Kelly's, right?

She and her husband, Jason, and me, and Dr.

Shelley.

Well, Dr.

Shelley and Kelly and her husband met us as soon as we got back from Florida.

And we joked that if we need buddies to help us bury a body, we don't even know where to go because we already did.

Because they're good friends.

Well, Anthony, Kelly's husband had dug up about a foot, foot and a half out in what Kelly calls her little Rainbow Ridge, where she has her horses buried.

And so he had already prepped it.

We had gone out and purchased the supplies to make a proper compost.

And she has a whole pile of black gold on the back pasture.

So we got them home.

We got them laid out and organized.

And it was the five of us covering them up.

And two of the ladies from the dissection, I think it was Elise and Lisa, the flowers that last day.

So we put those flowers on the grave.

And we will go back out and we will, Kelly is going to check on them.

I haven't been able to run myself back over there.

That's fair, a little bit.

She'll check on them in a few months.

And we were hoping it would be like five or six, but there was a little bit more meat left than we wanted.

So it'll probably be closer to 10 months, maybe a year before we dig them up.

But you could use the time.

Yeah, yeah.

Lorre, when we told her we were making a, we were reassembling a standing skeleton, she's like, you sure about that?

Yeah, you're going to want to kill each other by the end.

Like it'll be a bonding experience, it's fine.

It's a real test of friendship and professionalism.

Actually, don't fight.

One's reassembled and there's no big deal.

Well, 207 if you count the broken one.

Hope we don't lose the Nodicular.

His highlight's still in my boyfriend's fridge.

I love you.

Does he know it's in there?

No.

He does.

Oh, thank God.

Okay.

Yeah.

That would be a terrible prank.

I meant to boil it within the first few days, and it's been there about a month.

Exactly.

A month almost.

It's fine.

Yeah.

It's okay.

Yeah.

It's a little bit, right?

Yeah.

Just don't.

It's all right.

There's bone.

We got it all.

They're hidden in the house.

It's very disturbing if the police ever come here.

Don't get, like, raided.

What the fuck's wrong with this person?

Don't push my bones.

Was it Sarah or Molly that has one that has teeth marks in it because the dog took off with one?

Oh.

Probably Molly.

Yeah.

I have been robbed by dogs, unfortunately.

I have.

Dog theft is a thing.

You got to be real careful with that.

I never thought of that.

Please don't let a dog take my horse's legs.

No, no, no.

He's safe.

He's still.

He's very secure.

Yeah.

Don't worry.

We know everything now.

I just felt Kahlan wrong.

She's like, Taylor has.

Taylor has.

I was like, oh my God.

That's why horses left.

Don't worry.

So I'm not even a dog crap.

I'm a cat person.

Cats will take the small ones, too.

Yeah.

Carnivores, wouldn't you?

Yeah, true.

So Brittany, do you feel that after going to the dissection, just separating being Otis' mom versus being a professional on this, just talking to the professional side, do you feel like your practice has changed from just what you've learned from the dissection?

If you want to.

Yeah, I think it's hard because my experience was so entwined with being the owner.

But one of the big takeaways I got, or one of the biggest things I was able to receive and retain from the dissection, was the community that was there, like the shared knowledge and the reliance upon each other.

But everybody shared their own experiences.

We learned from the Saddlefooters, we learned from the osteopaths, we learned from other body workers that were there, the farriers, like everybody contributed to just bits and pieces of their takeaways, but also talking things through on what we were seeing on the cadaver, on the horse, on the teacher.

That was really impactful to me because like we were just talking about the x-rays, everybody can look at the same horse and find something different, and having all of those perspectives, being able to bring it all together, that's how you get full horse health, that's how you get well-being and holistic care, and without every aspect, you're not going to make a big difference in the horses that you work with.

So my clients and my patients, I've been able to utilize some of the techniques people have talked about, which is being able to feel it out and try different things and soften, soften, soften.

That was the thing that was repeated the first day, that Lorre had talked about, that Isabel had talked about, that like all of the body parts, that was the hardest thing for any of them, was learning that the deeper you get, like you can get so deep into the tissue when you soften, you can't push into it, you can't force it.

The horses will force you out.

And I struggle with that.

I know I do, and I have, I have some horses that they really like that deep pressure and I have other horses where I'm like, if I push too fast, I'd say, okay, I'm going to earn your trust back a little bit.

— Deep Pressure & Earning Trust: Bodywork Lessons from Otis

But just being able to implement different approaches and mentalities going into working with the soft tissues and working with the horses specifically, understanding their neurology, their physiology, the anatomy.

I mean, there were so many things that I've learned in books.

I've dissected other animals.

I'd never dissected a full horse before.

I've done limbs, but seeing all of it interconnected, seeing the fascia network after doing a lot more study on what fascia is, what's incredible.

I mean, just the vast expanse of it and all of the different ways it works and forms and creates the whole organ, whole organism is spectacular.

And being able to see that and then feel it on the living creatures that I work with on a daily basis.

I have definitely felt some things be way more effective.

And one of the things Lorre had said is if you can picture it, you can touch it.

It's like if you can visualize it, you can touch it.

And being able to be in there and really get hands-on and seeing everything up close is, it has made understanding how everything is connected.

So if I'm working on something on one end of the horse, knowing how it's affecting somewhere else, just based off of how the fascia travels and integrates in all of the way that the nervous system works, was just really, really fascinating.

Myodural bridge, I use that all the time now.

I was like, feisty horse.

It's my little pause button.

I love it.

I'm like, this is so cool.

That was something I learned in my studying.

So I was like, that is amazing.

Wait, what do you say?

Say that differently.

Okay.

So there is a segment in the vertebral column.

So right behind C1 and to C2, there's an opening where you can access the spinal cord.

I mean, the actual spinal cord, the dura mater, and it's one of the back muscles.

Get it right?

You better hope your altar fits.

I was going to say that feels terrible.

Yes.

It's about this far back on a large horse from the pole.

Three fingers.

She was holding up there.

Yeah.

Yes.

It is, if people are listening and want to try this on their horse, do not put pressure.

You just touch like couch because you don't want to put pressure directly on the spinal cord.

But it's really fascinating because on a living horse, it's a very slow.

Accidentally, like not accidentally, but just like, you're not going to hurt if you're brushing and pinching like the muscle there, like it's thin.

No, I mean like I've experienced that in a good way.

Okay.

Yes.

Like just run your fingers down the neck.

There's a very, very fine divot in the muscle between C1 and C2, and that's where that myodural bridge is.

So if you're running your hand down your horse's neck, you can like palm where the atlas is, you feel that and the top of your fingers is right on it.

And I love it.

You'll feel the vibrating, you'll feel the energy from the spinal cord under your fingers.

That's so interesting because like, I've always, when I touch my horse, I, or any horse really, I just, nowadays I'm mostly touching my own.

I always like everywhere I place my hand, I'm watching their eyes to see like, what are you thinking?

What are you feeling?

And that, the spots that you're describing there, and then like, is SI kind of joint, is like an off button.

And every, and it's, it's so, all he does is blink.

There's never a big release, but it's just like, oh, it's like, yeah, that's so cool.

The system directly there.

It's incredible.

The economy works the same way.

If you're anxious and you're touching it, they're going to get a little tired.

Yeah.

But our energy directly affects theirs and vice versa.

I yawn more when I work than any time.

And I was on new clients.

I was like, I'm not bored.

I'm not tired.

Their heartbeat's slowing down and it's making mine.

So I'm like, yeah.

But it's amazing.

That was just really cool to see.

And the SI, the feeling that move, that micro movement and the actual ligament that holds the SI on, I mean, it's so minuscule.

So everybody's like, oh, big SI adjustment.

It's hairline, it's itty bitty.

If it's moving, then you have a problem.

Yeah.

But there were a lot of just really, really incredible things just from, from the nerdy perspective of like, when I was able to just actually get my head in the game and just dive in, I nerded out.

I was the one cutting open all the lens.

I was like, oh, let's pull this muscle away and let's do this one where it's like this.

I was like, I love that everybody just let me, but I was also like, I feel like I'm commentering all of it.

Well, I mean, of course.

That's what everybody told me, but I'm still like, if I'm doing, I probably would have fallen apart.

I was like, if we participate.

I'm golden, I only had to walk away a few times.

Science brain turned on.

Yeah.

And so that, I'm grateful I have that, and have Taylor sent me the notes that she took, because I took none.

I barely took pictures.

But I was present, and that was something I wasn't sure I would mentally be.

So I was really happy I was able to get in and really invest.

Kind of, it's not a sidetrack, it's we're back to different things.

— Beyond Muscle & Bone: The Fascia, Organs & Whole Horse

Outside of just the musculature and the skeletal system, one of the craziest things for, I think, everybody there when it came to the digestive system was he had ulcers.

Yeah.

Of course he did.

From the pain.

Yeah.

But he wasn't symptomatic.

Trigger points, nothing you wouldn't have ever noticed.

Yeah.

But he lived like that his whole life.

Yeah.

That was just one of those I was like, well, I was not expecting that.

Yeah.

That's why it's even more incredible that he was so sweet and goofy and pleasant.

That says a lot.

He was a really tough horse.

He was a really strong boy.

Well, I keep going back to, he lived with it for almost his entire life.

Yeah.

That was almost his normal.

That was his baseline.

Yeah.

That has made me look at some of the horses I work on in a completely different light too.

If I know that there's been a chronic issue, how much else has been affected and to what extent?

Yeah.

Horses are absolute masters of adaptation.

It's so hard to not spiral.

Yeah.

I think I heard a lot of people after they got home, be like, I'm never riding again.

I'm like, that was not supposed to be the takeaway.

Lorre kept saying that.

She's like, please don't go enjoy your horse, but just have it with this new lens on.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's the awareness and the intent that matters.

Yeah.

It very much, it's daunting and it's very, very difficult.

We already all look at horses and can point out everything that's biomechanically not correct.

That's part of our jobs.

Fair use, body workers, chiropractors, vets.

You can't look out in a pasture and not nitpick everything.

How much one thing can affect so many others so drastically and knowing them behaviorally, it might not be notable is a whole other level of how much am I helping?

How much am I hurting?

How much are they actually dealing with?

How much is fixable?

Because for me, I'm like, with Otis, there was no fixing it.

Then when I was at Sarah Hathaway's, discovering the Equine Hoof Clinic in December of last year.

Oh, cool.

You went to that.

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

There was a case study of a founder horse who had completely come through the soul.

That he chapped and was playing and running and bucking in pasture.

I had a moment where I had to look at Kelly and be like, am I giving up too soon?

It had to be one of those conversations of this horse had a chance at recovery.

Otis didn't.

But it made me one, I really had to sit there and look at how much other people were doing for horses that some would consider too far gone, that they were making drastic recoveries and then coming back from and having a good quality of life from.

It was hard for me to really accept that Otis was at that point where there wasn't coming back.

I was listening to him, but my brain was trying to get in the way and that was hard.

I have that struggle with some horses, especially the older horses I worked on, where I'm like, what's manageable, what's healable, and what's too much?

And the only one that has the answer to that's the horse.

And it's a matter of being able to listen and do right by them.

And that is the hardest thing I think any of us have to do.

Yep.

That's the magic trick.

Yeah.

To tease out those different options.

That's the magic trick.

Kahlan, you're never going to be done learning how to listen.

You're never going to be like, oh, yeah, I can totally, any horse is put in front of me, I'll know what they need.

It's a trick or an error.

And what works once isn't going to work always.

And I think being adaptable and being able to change accordingly is so important for every professional involved, owners included.

They have to have an open mind.

But I think it's also a hard reality that the owners have to face of when it's too much.

Yeah.

Like, are you doing this for your horse, or are you doing it for you?

And that's a really, really tough line to walk.

Yeah.

Because there's always something you can try.

Thumbs aren't a problem.

Then there are so many different things you can try.

I almost go back to prosthetics for horses.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

For me, that was a hard line.

That's a very hard line.

Yeah.

But people are like, but we can, but we can try.

I'm like, but at what expense?

Yeah.

Like you're prolonging the inevitable and making them have to go through so much suffering for you to say, oh, look, we did it.

And I'm like, so that's an extreme.

But that was the line I came down to with Otis is, unfortunately, finances were a thing and I had to be realistic that I was going to be throwing money at a lost cause.

I could have done different treatments.

I could have done different injections just to prolong the inevitable, but nothing was going to heal him.

And that was a hard one for me to get my head around because I was like, I'll do more if I can.

But that it was a very blunt conversation with my vets of, we can inject this, we can do lidocaine or we can do the steroid with the arthroman, they were going to do that, a coffin joint.

It was half the cost of the MRI.

So I would have been doing the MRI and that to maybe six months of some form of comfort.

There's no guarantee it would work and it wouldn't fix any of the other damage.

So that's a very tough emotional one to have to go through.

— Comfort Comes at a Cost: The Emotional & Financial Toll

Oh, yeah.

It will provide comfort, but it's hard on the wallet and it's not going to, not gonna say fix, but there's no reversing what was done.

Yeah.

And that's just giving you comfort for a little bit longer.

Yeah.

And I wasn't going to put him through that because it was another one of those, if he feels better, how much more damage is he going to do when he starts running around like a fool?

Yeah.

He has to self-regulate somehow.

He already acts like a maniac sometimes.

He doesn't know.

He doesn't know that he's, yeah.

Those are really like excellent points to bring up because I think there's so many people out there in the world who, there's only so much that we can do financially without destroying ourselves.

And I think that's something for people to think about.

Like, if you decide to go that route, good for you, fantastic.

But are you just postponing the inevitable?

Are you just making hospice care longer?

And who are you doing that for?

Yeah.

Is that really ethical?

That is always the line.

My logic is if you have the funds and it can get better, try.

Hell yeah.

But if you know that, but that's where some of those things can you really know?

Like, you know, there's medical miracles, things happen all the time.

But given the information that you're given, what's the prognosis?

What's the probability?

If you're dealing with the minuscule probability in a very, very poor prognosis, maybe don't put your horse through all of it.

But if you have a 50-50 chance and finances are not an issue, I would 100% go all in.

I'd go in with a 30 or 40% chance.

You never know.

But people have to be aware, like paying attention to how is your horse actually feeling?

How are they handling treatments?

How are they handling stall rest?

How are they handling the constant management?

Because I know some horses, sure, you can get them there, but the process of getting them there makes them absolutely miserable to the point where you're going to have behavioral issues and pain or something.

Ulcers, but the fear of handling, the fear of the vet, the districts or bandages.

You're traumatizing them.

Exactly.

If they're never actually going to be sound, like you might get the pasture sound, you might get them somewhat comfortable.

But if you can't treat anything else that pops up because they're so horribly traumatized from it, who would you do that for?

Yeah.

That's their pre-annuals.

They don't think like we do, and it's not fair for us to confine them for our own comfort rather than what they really need.

That's just hard.

Super hard.

A lot of times, what I tell clients when they're in this, I think there's something wrong, I think I need to work through something, and the spidey sense is kicking in, but they're worried about money.

A lot of times, what I'll advise is, sit down with your partner.

If they have a partner, sit down with them, because I think it's important for it to be a household decision, and pick a number of a cap of what you're comfortable going in for with diagnostics.

So if you have, I don't know, let's just throw out 3,000 that you're willing to put into diagnostics, do that.

And tell the vet, this is what we're working with, work within those parameters.

And a lot of vets will do that.

They'll party within the range.

And then just- Just give me the options.

You can choose which ones you want to go with.

Exactly.

And I think that's a really safe way because it's something that you as a household have decided on together.

Like we can do this comfortably without destroying us.

And maybe we can get some answers and the answer will, we can kind of, if it's something that we have successfully, whatever the case may be.

But I've always kind of really tried to make it, if you guys are making a decision, you need to make this as a team.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, I had a lot of conversations with my mother-in-law.

I was like, what's reasonable?

What's not reasonable?

Like, this is where I am, this is where I'm not.

I'm like, it was a stretch for the MRI, but I'm glad we did it because it gave us, it gave us the information we needed to know how to proceed.

And it clarified things and it solidified ideologies.

Like, I don't want to say it destroyed hope, but it, it was a reality check.

But it was one I wouldn't have had, and I would have kept trying if I hadn't had it at his expense.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So it is one of those pick and choose what you're going to spend your, spend the money on, but do what's most beneficial for information gathering and for treatment options.

And you can go from there because unfortunately, there's no logic to science.

There is.

You have a scientific method, but not one thing works for everything.

And the body is so complex.

It's really hard to determine what the primary source of pain is.

Even as a body owner, as a fairy, or as any type of equine professional or animal professional, being able to know, okay, well, we're seeing an issue here.

But is this where the issue originates?

The origin of the problem.

Because we can address this, but if we're not fixing these other things, this is going to keep coming back.

Same thing with vet med.

You can go and start treating stuff.

You can keep chasing it.

— Chasing the Primary: When It's a Guessing Game

It's a guessing game on what's really the primary.

We knew ground zero.

We saw the changes and understanding in general, through all the different studies, how the body responds to bone pain versus soft tissue pain versus things like that, and what causes those things.

We were able to extrapolate the fact that the bone pain was the primary pain, and there was no helping that.

Tissue treatments weren't an option, weren't a reasonable option because they wouldn't have gotten away.

They would not have taken away the pain.

I feel like I'm going in a circle.

But having that information and being able to extrapolate that, understanding the anatomy, understanding what the vets are telling you, what the professionals are telling you, that they're feeling and seeing, it takes a team.

You just have to be able to communicate with everybody.

You're going to be able to really make a big difference, and not permanent, but a longer lasting.

Sustainable.

Yes.

Have a team, but trust yourself.

Exactly.

Have a team you can talk to.

Share your concerns, listen to them, and know that they will listen to you, and give the guidance based on sometimes hard truths, but sometimes you need the optimism.

Sometimes it's hard to see past the, oh, this is the end of the line.

If somebody else has an idea, they're like, well, let's try this.

That was you guys.

That was the hive mind for the composites.

It was, that didn't work.

Okay, back to the drawing board.

And that was, that was a big thing.

And I've used that with my clients all the time.

I stopped halfway through a session and called my chiropractor.

Like I did something and I don't know how to make it stop.

Like, what do I do?

I know the worst.

He released at the poll and got hiccups.

What?

Every time I touched his neck, and his owner and I were like, what's happening?

And then it kept happening.

I'm like, oh, it's hiccups.

I went further back and it was fine.

But I got back up to the neck and it started again.

And I'm like, Dr.

Shelley, help me.

I think it's the diaphragm spasming, but I don't know how to make it go away.

It just keeps like, wow.

So we went and worked on thoracics, top line, all of things, intercostals.

And then I went back up to all of the musculature around the neck and the base of the shoulders and everything around the shoulders.

And it resolved and we never had an issue.

But that was definitely one of those I was like, I heard.

I don't know what just happened.

And I need to make sure this doesn't keep happening before I leave the house.

Yeah, that's crazy.

Anatomy is wild.

So this has been absolutely incredible.

Thank you so much.

This is, how can people find you?

If people want to find you and come work with you, which they should, how can people find you?

Facebook is probably the easiest one.

That's one of my business pages.

It's Project Pegasus Equine Management, or sorry, oh my gosh, words, management.

Project Pegasus Equine Massage Therapy and Bodywork.

I'm going to be updating it.

It's just Project Pegasus Equine soon.

And my phone number, my business line is 678-883-0960.

Those are kind of the best ways.

But yeah, Facebook Messenger, text or call.

Perfect.

Anybody that has my business card.

Well, we'll link, we'll link your page.

We always link.

Yeah.

And then obviously we need a picture of our son.

The one that we've been staring at the whole time would be a great option.

Yeah.

You're based in Rockmart, you said, yeah?

Yes.

Okay.

So two hour, about a two hour radius.

— Closing: Dark Humor, Gratitude & Otis's Lasting Legacy

Excellent.

Cool.

Brittany, thank you.

This has been- Thank you so much.

This has been so intense, but so beautiful and just- Yeah.

You're incredible.

You're badass and so cool.

And I am so grateful for the time that we've had.

It's been really nice to meet you.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me on.

When Kelly told me you guys are interested in this, I was like, okay.

That's super.

Your generosity knows no bounds really.

Thank you so much.

And I'm so excited for people to hear, and for people to learn, continue to learn from him and you.

And thank you.

Where is he going to Dr.

Shelly's office?

He probably will exist there.

Okay.

But I want you guys to be able to rent him out for clinics, for expos, like London working events.

I want to put on the little like sticky Velcro things and have muscles, muscles printed out so people can actually go and learn the anatomy and interact with it.

So cool.

He fits in a harsh trailer, so, you know.

Honestly, your kindness is truly...

I'm telling you, it's crazy.

You're amazing.

I couldn't reassemble him and not use it.

I'm like, yeah, people have to...

He has to be able to teach.

That's a strong point.

I want people to be able to use him to teach.

I don't want him to be stuck in one place.

Yeah.

Well, he liked to go on adventures.

He did.

Well, and who has access to a full-standing skeleton to just be able to use as a demo?

Like, I mean, it's so hard to come by, and there's thousands of dollars if you ever want to buy one.

So I'm like, okay, make it available.

Let people use it.

That's super cool.

Unless somebody crosses a line and does something stupid and breaks it, then they might have a conversation or a change of heart, but we'll bail you out.

Don't worry.

Yeah.

We know where to hide bodies.

Yeah, and we know how to.

We know the people to call.

Oh, man.

Brittany, just thank you again.

I'm so impressed by you.

I think that was like the first thing I said to you.

I was like, hey, Brittany, nice to meet you.

Holy shit, girl, you're impressive.

I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, really.

And then she went back and texted me the same thing.

Yeah.

Taylor, meeting you and being around you that whole weekend, I was obsessed.

You were adorable.

You're like, yes, ma'am.

Also, we're getting back into it.

She's the best.

She's good people to have around.

Oh, I'm pretty sure.

I was a golden retriever in my past life, but that's okay.

You really were.

But a golden retriever with a big brain.

Oh, all right, girls.

Brittany, you have an awesome afternoon and just, I hope you have something really chill after this.

Yeah.

Absolutely nothing after this.

Maybe go take a bath.

Then go get coffee and play chess.

Oh, fuck yeah.

All right.

Thank you.

I appreciate the time.

Thanks.

You really do.

We'll see you later, girl.

All right.

Bye, all.

Bye.

If you or a friend have a topic, story or case study you want us to cover in an episode, visit our website at theredmareproject.com to leave your submission or email us at redmareproject.gmail.com.

If you have it, please include a cute picture of the horse we will be discussing so we can make it our Facebook page profile picture.

As a reminder for listeners, this content is for educational purposes only and is not meant to diagnose or treat.

We encourage everyone to do their own research and speak with your veterinarian and care team to make sound decisions for your horse's management.

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Peace.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

E14: Harry’s diagnostic cocktail: Extra Lyme in the MFM Margarita

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 07:13:45 GMT

Join Taylor and Kahlan as they chat with their new friend, Vanessa Cote, about her darling morgan, Harry. Vanessa emailed us a robust list of diagnoses and afflictions that she has been strategically managing for Harry, ranging from kissing spine and MFM to chronic Lyme disease. Join us as we unpack Vanessa’s strategies on listening to Harry, keeping him comfortable and happy, and how the journey unfolded. Lyme resources and information: Dr. Martha Faraday: https://4oaksequine.com/ Dr. Joyce Harman: https://harmanyequine.com/ Email us with your interesting stories. Your horse may be able to help another. redmareproject@gmail.com Taylor CL Schouten, MS, APF-I Hoofcare Practitioner Wild Hoof Equine LLC www.wildhoofequine.com Kahlan Ettere Holistic Equine Nutrition Wise Choice Equine Wellness LLC Check out our website: www.theredmareproject.com Follow along on Facebook: The Red Mare Project Instagram: Wild_Hoof_Equine

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

— Welcome: Introducing Vanessa Cote & Harry the Morgan

Welcome back to another episode.

Today's guest is our new friend Vanessa and her mighty Morgan, Harry.

Vanessa reached out to our email with quite the story to tell.

You know how we always say we become experts in whatever our force's ailment is?

Well, in order to avoid any spoilers, let's just say Vanessa has had to become very well informed.

Not only has she had to learn about muscle myopathy, but she's also had to do detected work to chase down mystery, lameness, and tick-borne illness.

Welcome Vanessa and Harry.

Welcome to The Red Mare Project.

This is exciting.

This is our very first total stranger that's emailed us just from being a listener.

We don't know this person.

We've never met her.

We're not mutual friends.

Like she just found our website or found the podcast and emailed us and it's a doozy.

She understood the assignment.

She saw what we were doing and she said, I got a story for you and dude, it is a list.

This poor little buddy has a bit of a list.

Start with the list and just kind of go from there?

Yeah, let's just run through the list and then we can...

Some of the stuff, luckily, are things that we've already spoken about in great detail so we can tell you guys some episodes to refer back to and then other stuff will give you just little insights on.

So, the first thing that Mr.

Harry comes to us with is severe kissing spine, yikes, but luckily, we have a very extensive episode on that, which is episode two, Kissing Spine Goodbye, so check that out if you want to know a little bit more about kissing spine.

Then we have, he also comes with extensive side bone in both front feet.

Which, okay, we have like two different experiences with side bone because you're a health care professional.

I'm just someone who's seen it.

I've only ever seen it in like retired, like, okay.

I've only ever seen it be a problem in barrel horses.

So, I don't know how many horses I've come across in my life that have it, and it's not a problem and it's never been an issue, but I'm not the one doing, I'm not the one upside down, seeing their, from the knee down.

Well, it makes sense that you would see it in a barrel horse just because the way that they dig in and turn, if there's gonna be any torsion or any movement, that's when it's gonna show up because they really have to dig in.

I've seen, and anytime I've seen it, I've seen it be a real problem, but I know for the most part, it's not a problem until it's a problem.

Can you explain from a farrier's perspective a little bit more of what that means?

Yeah.

So, well, first off, let's explain what side bone is.

So side bone, it's calcification of the lateral cartilages or the ungular cartilages in the hoof capsule.

And the ungular cartilages, they pretty much just provide shock absorption, just one of the many things that are shock absorbing in the foot.

But typically, it's caused from excessive concussion.

So if you're riding on really hard ground or just excessive concussion, it can pretty much just calcify it.

But other things that can lead to it would be poor hoof conformation or unbalanced hoof care.

And when I say poor hoof conformation, meaning that there's an imbalance in the limb, there's an imbalance in the foot, and one side, either medial or lateral, is going to be, it just gets more wear.

So it's going to calcify and harden up.

And typically, like what Kahlan was saying, like it's not a problem unless it becomes excessive.

I've seen it kind of like really become a problem if it's extreme or if it fractures.

Like if it, like the calcified structure like cracks off and now is like a floating irritant.

Mm-hmm, yeah.

And that can be very uncomfortable.

But I would think with things like, so like excessive concussion, I'm thinking jumping.

So, but with those horses, unless they have another reason to have an x-ray, you may not even know that it's there until it's a problem.

Like you may not even, unless someone's really good about getting like yearly rads, that's probably even gonna come up.

Hundred percent.

I mean, sometimes you can palpate it and you can feel it just, you know, upon palpation.

Yeah, you just feel it.

But like you said, like if they're not taking rads and they're not problematic, a lot of people just won't know that their horse has it.

But them, that's kind of scary because I'm like them.

They have it and then you're not gonna stop the thing that is the concussive sport or the concussive behavior.

So you're just kind of making it worse if you don't know about it until it.

Yeah.

Could be a concussive sport.

I mean, yeah, yeah.

It can be consistent, but a lot of times like they can experience a period in their life where they're living on really hard terrain and there's a lot of concussion and they get it from that one incident in their life.

— Navicular in Morgans: Terrain, Concussion & Breed Predisposition

And then going forward, you know, it's like that was something that happened at that period in their life, but afterwards they're not experiencing concussive courses.

So it's not gonna exasperate.

Do you find, this is like totally maybe out of left field, but do you see that more in Mustangs?

Um, that's a really good question.

The ones that I have, no, it's a good question.

I think I have one, two, I have three Mustangs on my books, and none of them, can I really feel it?

I haven't been able to palpate for it, and I don't have radiographs on them.

No, no, no, I lied.

I have radiographs.

I have lateral views of one of them.

But you probably wouldn't be able to see it.

Laterally, right?

If it's extremely bad.

So, can't vouch for that for those guys, but that's a damn good question.

I mean, it feels like it makes sense.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, usually, side bone isn't a problem unless it's until it's a problem.

But we'll see what's going on here with Harry, because like we were saying, if it's not a problem, usually it's not mentioned, and this one is mentioned.

So he probably had some kind of...

I mean, we know he had some kind of something else, because we're only number two on the list.

Yeah.

The list keeps going.

So this one, Taylor really should speak on it because she's the expert, but he also has an MFM diagnosis, which if you are unsure, you have questions about muscle myopathies, we've got not one, but three episodes.

Three.

On MFM, specifically.

Episode four is Taylor's horse, Leah.

Episode nine is Stella.

Episode 12 is Valley.

Stella, obviously, Leah is my favorite because she's my niece, but Stella is one of my favorite episodes that we've done so far.

That was a fun one.

It was fun.

Stella's a cool horse.

Definitely go listen to that.

For Valley's too, which was so great, that was Dr.

Amy Reynolds and she just came on.

I think her episode was recorded a week after she saw Dr.

Valberg speak in person.

Yes.

She hit us with, say, fresh knowledge, which was outstanding.

Yeah, that was fun.

That was really good.

Harry's got, so far, just to catch back up, we got Kissing Spine, Sidebone, MFM, and then the next thing we got, the first word is mysterious, hind end lameness, which, damn, that can speak to anything.

Literally anything.

Yeah.

So, but I'm interested to see, like, if he's got extensive side bone in the front, was he having some kind of, like, in general, like hoof care problems that led her to, like, I wonder if those are connected, but specifically, she, in her email, said that it wasn't resolved with specialized diet or injections.

So, it really is kind of a mystery.

And I know that, you know, hind end lameness is really hard because it can be a lot of different things, and it's really hard to see.

Like, I have a much easier time seeing the front end lameness.

Yeah.

And do you know what?

I think another thing, too, and we can all relate to this, especially professionals, I can make any horse lame if I look at them long enough.

Oh, God, yeah.

They're all lame.

Every one of them, they're broken somewhere.

It's so devastating.

I'll have people ask me to, like, watch them go, and I'm like, if you do it enough, if you walk and trot them for me more than five minutes, I'm gonna make them lame in my head, so just cut me off.

Yeah, truly.

Like, don't ask me.

If you want me to say yes, I can find something, but if you want me to say no...

It's not the same way.

Is he blink weird?

Is he holding his tail weird?

Oh, it's probably this.

Oh, is his pelvis...

I can't.

I know, I know.

So don't look at him for too long.

But yeah, so mysterious hide and lameness with this one.

And I'm curious if it's not rotating, but if it alternates.

Transient.

That's the word.

Yeah.

I'm curious if it's transient.

The next one is Your World.

Well, this, a spoiler for the next thing on the list.

I'm not surprised by this at all.

This one, she specifically mentions chronic hindgut issues, which is like, okay, yeah, and water is wet.

You have a horse that's constantly been in pain, tense muscles all the time.

And then our next bullet down in the list is that he deals with chronic Lyme.

I know chronic Lyme is one of the treatments, the main treatment, is a hell of a lot of antibiotics.

And we're not talking like five to seven days, we're talking every time they have a trigger, it's usually a month of hardcore antibiotics.

So they go scorched earth on these horses.

And obviously it's going to have hindgut issues because every single time he's on, and I know that MFM horses love ulcers.

— Hindgut Issues, Ulcers & Why MFM Horses Collect Problems

They hoard them.

Because everything hurts all the time, everything's hurting.

So I'm interested to see what his personality is like, because if I were this horse, I'd be a bitch.

I mean, it's such a, I mean, this Venn diagram of diagnostics, this poor buddy, it's not a Venn diagram, it's a damn circle.

Because all these can feed into each other.

And we'll talk a little bit more about Lyme in just a moment.

But like severe kissing spine, MFM, these guys are going to feed into each other.

And just like what you were saying about like having to go on DOCSY for the Lyme, that's going to piss off their gut, which is also going to create a positive feedback loop with the MFM and then the body pain.

And so this is, this is a, it sounds like he needs a hot bath and like a colostrum or something like that every day, once a day.

He needs that just to be comfortable.

Like his poor horse has so much going on here.

So to move on to the chronic Lyme, we cannot speak as vets on this.

It is something that if you have any suspicion of, or you see any list of certain symptoms, which we'll get into, it's definitely worth looking into, asking your vet if that's a possibility.

I know that some people, some medical professionals, will say, you know, we're in North Georgia.

Pretend I'm still there.

I'm in North Georgia right now.

I'm teleporting.

Some people will say that's not possible because tick-borne illness is in common and they don't carry Lyme in this part of the country.

That's straight up not true.

If it's, you know, it is more common in the Northeast because deer ticks are more prevalent and then they, you know, it spreads and spreads and spreads and spreads.

But it's not unheard of in the Southeast at all.

I mean, think about, picture the Southeast people.

It's wet.

There's deciduous trees.

There's lots of places for these critters to live.

And especially if you have a dark hair horse, you're not going to see it necessarily.

That's a lot of body to look over every single time you go out into the woods or go out anywhere where there's trees.

Like I know I've gone trail riding in North Georgia and come back with so many ticks on me.

Yeah.

You want to shave your head.

So it's not unheard of.

Taylor and I both, she actually introduced me recently to Martha Faraday, who is a total cool nerd lady.

Is she a DBM?

No, she actually has a very interesting past.

So she has a PhD.

She used to do, I believe, like pathology work in human labs.

So she's...

I feel like...

I want to represent her correctly.

You keep going and I'll chime in with what her official training is.

You're good.

Yeah.

She's got a really cool, we can link it below.

Her website is super informative, super sciency, kind of heavy science, and covers a lot of different...

She covers different viruses and bacterial illness in horses, but she is a Lyme expert.

Then the other one is Joyce Harman.

So we've got kind of the hardcore science nerd, and then also the science hippie, Joyce Harman, with Harmony Equine.

Her last name is Harmony, H-A-R-M-A-N, and her website is Harmony Equine, like Harmony, like in Harmony, but it's spelled like her last name.

And she is so freaking cool.

She has a store, she's got blog posts, she's got articles, she's got research.

She's so cool.

She's kind of like every horse girl's first dip into the hippie wellness world for horses.

She's a really good resource.

She not only understands the traditional treatment, I don't want to say traditional, but the allopathic approach to treating Lyme.

But she also includes a lot more holistic treatments and methodologies to keep these horses thriving even with the diagnosis.

Because Lyme is not something that you can be like, okay, I'm cured.

So those bacteria are in there.

And usually, I know with people, when you're ripping those bacteria out of their little cells, they're trying to take down the whole creature with them.

Yeah.

I picture every single Lyme bacteria, and there's many.

So we don't know exactly what he has.

We probably won't find that out, because the testing is not that advanced for horses.

I picture them like individual little bugs with their own little personalities inside each of my horses' blood cells.

Yeah.

And they will throw a temper tantrum on their way out, which can cause a whole rash of symptoms in the horse, aside from their Lyme symptoms.

So, it's like, it's just kind of, it's the circle again.

It's kind of tough, but we definitely encourage everybody to look up those two people in particular, because they have a pretty well-rounded approach to explaining this.

And Joyce Harman specifically, we can't talk enough about her.

— Lyme Resources: Dr. Joyce Harman & Holistic Approaches

She's wonderful.

Oh, yeah.

We do have...

Oh, do you want to talk a little bit about possible symptoms for horses with Lyme?

Yeah, yeah.

Let's do that.

But I did want to like answer the question that I scurried off to seek the answer for.

So Martha Faraday, she's a PhD, she's a scientist, but I believe her degree is in biology, I believe.

Oh, cool.

But she did a lot with working in path labs and things like that.

So she really understands labs.

She really understands just all things physiology.

And what's really cool about Joyce Harman and Martha Faraday both, they both also have a very particular liking of Lyme and EPM.

So these guys, and they take a very similar approach on how they can like holistically support the horse through nutrition and lifestyle.

So these are going to be your main girls.

Yeah, super cool.

And lots of content.

Like those, let's say it's rich with stuff.

Yeah.

And they have lots of webinars out as well.

So if you really want to get into like, you know, into the trenches with the diagnostics, that's going to be beyond the scope of this episode.

But check out the webinars that those ladies have posted because they are elite.

Yeah, just good learning.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you asked about symptoms.

Let's go over symptoms.

So Lyme symptoms in general can start off with full body stiffness and or lameness and more than one leg.

Shifting or intermittent lameness, leg shifting, muscle tenderness, especially sore back, lethargy.

Which sounds like?

Oh, the kissing spine.

And MFM.

Oh, and MFM.

Yeah.

And hindgut pain.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Lethargy and fatigue, sensitivity to cold, stiffness, skin sensitivity, weight loss, change in behaviors, a horse becoming spooky or withdrawn will not go forward, resist changing gates, will not pick up one lead, and then poor or inconsistent performance.

Which all of these, and this is why it's diagnostics is so, like, I feel like the finish line just constantly shifts around on us.

All of this can look like ulcers.

All of this can look like MFM.

All this can look like kissing spine.

All this could look like a Marenheat.

Oh, yeah.

Ask me how I know the last one.

Or all of them.

Yeah, for real.

Yeah, actually.

Well, I'm wondering, like I'm excited, curious, I shouldn't say excited.

I'm curious to see how this is going to unfold timeline-wise because that would be, obviously, we have like 2020 hindsight.

We're seeing the diagnoses after they happen, but I'm trying to picture if I'm this person, if I'm this horse owner, you're going to try to diagnose certain things as certain symptoms come up.

So like, did we, oh, she also has on here eyesight issues, which, you know, I don't know, we're going to get it a little bit more into that.

But that's just one little sprinkle on top there of the cocktail of craziness that he's going on.

So yeah, I think like for diagnostics, I know that sensitivity, like Lyme sensitivity is more skin sensitivity.

They're sensitive specifically to any kind of touch.

It can also be sound sensitive.

I know some people with Lyme are light sensitive.

But just like overall, everything is just too much.

Like the world has dialed up to 100.

But if she, and we don't know yet, but like if she had Lyme symptoms, I keep saying she, like the owner, but if he, Harry, the horse, had Lyme symptoms first, then she wouldn't have been able to rule it out by using the MFM palette if she had the MFM diagnosis first.

So I think like the big part of this is gonna be finding out what happened first.

Yeah.

Because that's gonna be like the only way that this is gonna be possible for her to figure this out.

Yeah, totally, totally.

Yeah, and like so many of these, like we were saying beforehand, they just kind of like feed into each other.

So this is a hell of a diagnostic web.

And this is, Vanessa, this is a lot for her to manage.

And I did want to go back to when you mentioned skin sensitivity, and this also kind of loops back to what you were saying about like, even though we're in North Georgia, like Lyme does still happen, I know two horses personally who have been diagnosed with Lyme here in North Georgia, one of which boards at my barn, and then the other one is on the other side of the city, but he's a good friend's horse.

The one that lives further away, not at my farm, his first thing, and this is a hell of an owner to be able to like lock in on this, wind.

He couldn't handle wind.

Yeah, that's crazy.

The attunement you have to have with your horse to figure out that they don't like wind.

Because horses in general get spooky, can get spooky depending on the animal, because they can't hear as well because the wind is loud.

— Spookiness, Wind Sensitivity & Prey Animal Behavior

They're prey animals.

They're going to be more on edge.

I never thought about that actually interfering with their hearing more so than the sensation.

That's fascinating.

That makes sense.

That's why I get nervous when it's really windy.

You just become a little bit more aware of your surroundings and a little more heightened when you can't hear because you're having this assault of wind sound.

For a horse relies on hearing their herd mates' heartbeats, the rustling in the bushes that could be a coyote, their owner whistling at them, the bucket being shaken half a mile away.

They suddenly can't, they don't have that same level of awareness so they have to be like, just kind of on a herd.

Yeah.

Interesting.

That's fascinating.

I mean, I don't know.

I just, I don't know.

It makes sense.

No, it makes fantastic sense.

Yeah.

But yeah, so for that guy, wind was, that was the ticket.

And then for the other horse that was here at my farm, he just had, his body just fell apart.

So him, it was more of weight loss and lethargy and fatigue.

He just got real Eeyore on us.

No.

Yeah.

He got very, very melancholy.

And it was kind of written up, it's like, oh, he's older.

And it's like, nah.

No, because old horses with certain, their personalities don't go away.

Exactly.

You know, like if you have a horse that is, if my horse all of a sudden was like really, really, really quiet and subdued and well-behaved, I'd be like, oh my God, call the president, call 911, call the queen, call my mom.

It's happening.

Something's wrong.

But yeah, the tricky thing is that there is a lot of, there's a lot of moving parts and you know, the shifting intermittent lameness that kind of speaks to some other possibilities too.

So there's so many things.

There's a lot of attunement.

That's a great word.

There's a lot of attunement that goes into managing these horses.

But just like everything else we talk about, it'll make you a better horse person.

Unfortunately, there's always one that's got to be the canary in the coal mine for your learning.

But I'm really excited to meet her because she sounds really lovely.

And I was so glad that I saw someone.

Don't forget, guys, please reach out to us.

We want to talk to you.

We want to have you on.

We need more friends.

Like honestly, the amount of feedback that we get, which is so incredible, that people will reach out and say, just hearing this story has helped me so much.

I don't feel alone.

That's our whole point.

Dude, when that girl emailed us from Australia, I was sitting on the couch sobbing.

Oh, I cried.

I was like, oh my god, no one is listening to us.

It matters.

We're doing it.

It matters.

It does matter.

And you know, that's what we talk about all the time is like, the whole point of this is to build that supportive community.

So for those of like people who are in the diagnostic trenches, like, homie, you're not alone.

This path has been forged.

And reach out.

Like reach out.

Because, oh my god, like, I don't know where I'd be.

I don't know where Taylor would be.

I don't know where any of us would be if we didn't reach out and figure out that we are not the first people doing any of this.

Oh, I'd be in jail.

I don't know that I would even.

I can't.

I have to tell you about a dream I had.

Okay.

We have to go ahead and go ahead and click on for Vanessa because I'm really excited.

But then after I have to tell you about a dream I had last night.

Okay.

All right.

You tell me.

Well, I'll write that down.

We'll talk about that after we talk to her.

But that's perfect timing though because she is here.

So are you ready?

Let's do it.

Cool.

Welcome.

How are you guys?

Good.

How are you?

Welcome.

Good.

Thanks for having me.

Oh, thanks for reaching out.

I was listening to all of the episodes and I was thinking to myself, I really would love to pick these people's brains about what the heck is going on with my horse.

Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot to talk about, so we can't wait.

He is an abyss of problems, but we love him.

All right.

Well, so you've listened to the show before, but just a little, the guidelines, I guess.

We don't have guidelines, but- Guidelines are there are no guidelines.

Yeah, they're clear bumpers.

But yeah, you can swear, you can say whatever you want if you're going through the story and you reach a point where you're like, oh, actually, I don't want that on the record.

Just holler and we can go ahead and cut that out and edit accordingly.

Okay.

But yeah, this is your time for Harry.

Cool.

Thank you.

Where do you guys want me to start?

How did you meet him?

How long have you had him?

Yeah, totally.

Take us through the whole thing.

— How Vanessa Found Harry at University of Wyoming

I transferred into the school that I met him at as a sophomore.

So I actually did my freshman year of college out at the University of Wyoming, thinking that I was going to have this fantastic, horsey experience and I just didn't.

I wanted to be closer to home, so I transferred back east.

I'm in Massachusetts and he was actually bred at the school that I was going to.

I was in an equine science class because at the time, my major was animal science with an equine concentration.

They had just hired out the equestrian team, so they had a coach come in.

She brought all of her own horses and they weren't using the horses that they bred at the school for the equestrian team anymore.

I go into this class first day, don't know anybody and the professor is like, anybody want to ride some horses for free?

I was like, I would love to.

I ended up scheduling something with her and the first horse that she put me on is Harry and I sat on him and I was like, I don't need to sit on another horse ever again.

I just loved him and he looked awful at the time because he hadn't been in work for six plus months.

How old was he?

Six.

Okay.

But like very, I would say lightly started, he was started by students.

So it's something that came up is that through them learning, just things were missed in the foundation.

So he was like totally safe to walk, drop, can or turn.

He jumped, but like a lot of the more in-depth stuff wasn't there.

So this was 2018.

Okay.

And I started writing him and I just completely fell in love with him.

So even before I purchased him earlier than I was intending, but from pretty much the get-go, I was going to try to purchase him after I graduated college.

So he had quite a few issues that I knew about just from the get-go with writing him because he was born there.

Obviously, they had all of their records.

So I knew going into it that he had tested positive for PSSM2.

Okay.

And so I went into it and I learned a lot about the disease.

So he was on a very low NSC diet.

He was in, once I started writing him and I got him back into work, I was held pretty accountable to a consistent work schedule.

So I was writing him about five times a week, even if it was just at the walk for 10 minutes, just to get him to move.

He was outdoors 24-7, living out.

And I thought I had a pretty good handle on like, okay, like this is obviously not ideal, but it's manageable.

And he struggled a lot with building top line.

So even though he was very well fed, he had those very classic PSSM A-frame type hips, where he was very pointy, like a big hunter's bump.

His spine was quite exposed just from lack of top line, from not being in work.

So all of this, I thought like, okay, whatever.

And so I'm leasing him in college for probably about, say a year and a half.

And leasing him in that, I was the only person that was writing him, but I didn't have any sort of formal thing.

And I was TAing for an equine management class, and my professor came up to me and she was like, hey, so we're actually listing Harry for sale tomorrow.

And I went, excuse me, you're doing what?

So then I actually wrote out an email to the director of the program, and I was like, hey, I don't want to own a horse in college.

Like this is not what I see for myself, but I would be happy to lease him.

I would pay you for a lease.

So I like did a price breakdown of what he cost every month and his supplements.

And I was like, I will pay you more than this every month so that I can buy him when I graduate.

And they agreed to that.

So I managed to dodge him being sold at that point.

And then I was leasing him.

So then COVID hit.

And I decided that I wasn't going to be super well suited for online school.

Like I really need to go to class.

I need to go to a cafe to do my homework.

Like I have a really difficult time working in my home space.

And so I was like, you know what, I overloaded on credits.

I have all this time.

Why don't I find an internship?

So I ended up applying for and getting a working student position down in Virginia for a three-star event rider.

So I got that.

And then they decided, hey, we're going to actually revamp the entire Equestrian program.

So initially they were doing like equine management type of stuff.

And then they decided that they were going to shift to more of a vet tech focus.

And in that they sold off all of the horses that were bred at the university because they wanted to bring in more calm, like very relaxed horses that were going to be very easy to be poked and prodded by vet tech students that were not used to being around horses at all.

And so at the time it kind of worked out because I originally was going to lease him while I brought him to Virginia with me.

— Bringing Harry to Virginia: Lease to Purchase

And then I was in a position where I could purchase him and they were in a position where they really wanted to sell him.

So I ended up buying him at that point, which was actually Mother's Day 2020.

So it was like May of 2020.

And two days later I put him on a trailer and I shipped him to Virginia.

And it has been a roller coaster thing.

If I can back up real quick.

So you said in 2018 he tested positive for PSSM2.

Is that right? 2017.

So he was already positive when I met him in 2018.

Okay.

So 2017.

So because Valberg didn't find MFM until 2018.

So did you guys do a muscle biopsy?

Yeah, he was muscle biopsied.

So I heard the story kind of third hand.

So I don't know how accurate it is.

But my understanding is that the school had a horse tie up really, really bad.

And he ended up needing to be put to sleep.

And in the knee crapsie, they found that his whole body was just full of scar tissue from repeated tying up of the cells.

So after that, they ended up doing muscle biopsies.

And because they did the genetic test for PSSM-1 and they were all negative.

So they ended up doing muscle biopsies on all of the horses that they had.

And a majority of them tested positive for some sort of muscle myopathy.

Interesting.

So the running theory is that the stallion that was standing at stud at the time must have been a carrier for it.

Because as far as I know from people that have spoken to you that knew him, he'd never presented like he had the symptoms.

But yeah, Harry and his siblings, multiple of them have muscle biopathy.

Okay.

Wow.

So we won't ask who the stud is, but what breed is he?

He's a Morgan.

Really?

He's a Morgan.

Plot twist.

Not your typical PSSM or MFM horse for sure.

No.

Wow.

Okay.

That's interesting though, because if he came back as a PSSM-2 and he was on a low NSC feed, that's usually the opposite of what we're going for.

He did okay on it?

Yeah.

He did okay, but he never looked great.

I could not for the life of me get him to put on enough top line, and he certainly started to fill out just from being in work, because again, he hadn't been in any work for months when I first started writing him.

But he always just looked very lean, and he never got very filled out through his top line or through his hind end.

I thought at the time just, okay, that's what PSSM-2 looks like.

He's only going to get to a certain point and then he's going to plateau.

Got it.

Okay, okay.

All right.

So back to the story.

So he just got to Virginia, right?

He just got to you, right?

Yeah.

So in Virginia, he had his first muscle wastage episode, which was my first experience with the bad side of PSSM.

Because as far as I am aware, he has never tied up in his life.

He's been pretty easy to manage, minus the fact that his body never looked great.

But just through the stress of moving to Virginia, because he had been born on that property, he had only been trailer off of it a handful of times, and then I put him on a trailer and I shipped him seven hours.

So he had a very, very bad muscle wastage episode.

It looked like overnight, he just was un-initiated.

He looked awful when I got down there.

He was back to spine completely protruding out, very, very pointy A-frame hips.

He dropped a bunch of weight.

So I was thinking in my head, because I'm panicking, right?

He's the first horse that I've ever owned.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

I move him down to this new state that I've never been to before, and he's never been to before, and he looks like this.

I'm trying to stay very rigid in the PSSM2 management.

So my boss at the time is like, he's on pasture, why can't we?

We can take his muzzle off, he can have grass and I'm like, no, no, no, he can't have grass.

He was on a ration balancer and she's like, we can put him on grain and I'm like, no, no, no, he can't have grain.

But eventually, it was after probably about a month, he just looked so awful and he wasn't gaining.

I spoke to the nutritionist that they had because they were sponsored by a feed company, and he eased my fears a little bit and was like, okay, we can put him on a little bit of grain and take his muzzle off and just see how he does.

Because he's underweight right now, he looks bad, he really needs something he's got to give.

Weirdly, I took the muzzle off and I put him on pasture, and I put him on a higher NFC feed, and it was like the best that he ever had.

At the time, I was thinking like, that is so bizarre, that's so crazy that he looks good on this diet that he's not supposed to be on.

Obviously, he was in a lot more intense work.

— Harry in Intense Work: Schooling & Performance Challenges

Over the time that we were down there, because we were down there for about nine or 10 months, he ended up schooling with not a level of ending and first level dressage.

He was doing a lot more intense kind of work that I think also aided him in building muscle, but I was flabbergasted at how good he looked on that kind of diet, because it was just completely opposite of what I thought.

I thought that it would be like, you know.

And in hindsight, I'm like, duh, you know.

Well, we didn't know.

We didn't know.

Yeah.

But it's also, you know, it's 2020 at this point.

It's not, MFM isn't something that's coming up for me or that I'm really hearing about.

So I just kind of said, okay, whatever, like, I'm glad that worked moving on.

So then I moved him back and then I was in school.

And so I didn't have the time to have him in the kind of training program.

I wasn't able to bring him to a bar that had a trainer.

So like his work level very much.

I'm so sorry.

Can you hear my cat meowing?

Or can you not hear her?

I can hear her.

It's fine.

I wasn't sure if she had a child.

No, that's my cat with a toy in her mouth because she likes to just walk around and scream.

I get it.

Mine doesn't say anything.

Okay.

Honestly, there's like a little magic AI thing that gets rid of background noise.

But actually, I hope it leaves it because it's very cute.

It's very real.

She came right by me and it was so loud.

I was like, there's no way that they can't do this.

Anyway, so I move him back up here.

He's in a lot less work.

I'm at school.

I'm busy.

So I'm able to do a lot less with him and he starts getting fat.

So at that point, I have to cut him down.

I'm back in Massachusetts.

It's winter, there's no pasture.

So I get him back onto a ration balancer eventually, and his body kind of deteriorates and he doesn't look as good anymore.

And he definitely looks better than he did prior to when I went to Virginia, because I gained all this knowledge and now he's again doing more collection, like more strength work that's going to just inherently help him build muscle.

And he didn't really have any gate issues or anything like that.

I'm going to pull up my notes now because this is when things start getting crazy.

It's a little interesting, so I just want to make sure I don't miss anything.

We appreciate that.

Oh my god, I'm so sorry.

Can I backtrack actually?

Yes, of course.

Totally.

So while I was a working student in 2020, I did a jump lesson where we did an exercise where my trainer had put jumps down the center line and we were doing serpentines through.

And after that day, he came up so freaking lame, so lame.

And before we went down to Virginia, he'd actually strained a suspensory.

Like he'd done a couple other things and he was never, ever lame even with that.

So when I saw that he was like three-legged, I freaked out.

Yeah.

So at the time I'm a broke working student, so I treated it as an abscess for a few days, but he didn't get any better.

So then I called out the vet for x-rays and they concluded that he had actually fractured the side bone in his right front foot.

Hmm.

Oh my God.

Which was very interesting.

Well, we were just talking about how side bone is never an issue until it's an issue.

Yeah.

Because it breaks.

Which is- Oh, no.

Okay.

Yeah, which is exactly what happened on his PPE.

So I did a PPE where I did front hoof x-rays, I did back x-rays, and I did hock x-rays.

And his hocks were clear.

I saw the side bone in his front feet, and I was like, what the heck is that?

That does not look normal.

And my vet that I had do the PPE was like, that's a heck of a lot of side bone, but side bone doesn't typically cause issues, so it's just kind of a thing that he has, and I wouldn't worry about it.

And I also found on his PPE that he had mild kissing spine, but again, he was going well, he didn't palpate sensitive at all.

So she was like, you know, ride the horse out the x-ray.

If he feels good, I wouldn't be super worried about it.

So I had these things in the back of my head that he was dealing with, but I didn't think of them as particularly clinically significant.

So he fractured the side bone in his right front.

And because I did the PPE, we were actually able to compare it to the previous x-rays, and it looked the same.

So what the vet that I had do the second set of x-rays concluded is that it was an old fracture and it had healed with scar tissue.

And he tore that scar tissue that it had healed with.

Oh damn.

So yikes.

That was a whole new animal for me.

So we ended up putting him on Equiox, and he was rested for six weeks, and we put him in a bar shoe to stabilize the fracture.

— Fetlock Fracture: Bar Shoe, Equiox & Six Weeks Rest

And I was told at that time that he was going to have to be in a bar shoe for the rest of his life.

That didn't happen, which we'll get to.

So he's been barefoot for years and he's been great.

So the side bone hasn't come up again as a thing, but it's just something that I monitor.

So I get x-rays done of his front feet typically once a year when I do shots, just to kind of check in on it.

Thank you, thank you.

You're welcome.

Just to check in on it and make sure that it hasn't gotten any bigger, I did some digging and I was able to actually find in his record x-rays from 2016 and he already had the majority of that side bone as a four-year-old.

So, it's pretty intense, there's a lot of it.

So, I will skip forward again into 2021.

So, he does pretty well for the last bit of when I'm in college, I end up graduating college in 2021 and then I moved him home.

All I'm able to find for him because again, I'm thinking PSSM2, it's Massachusetts, there's not a lot of pasture board up here just because it's cold, there's snow, not a lot of people do it.

So, all I was able to find for a pasture board situation was a backyard barn, which was lovely, it was very, very quiet and he was able to be out.

All of a sudden, he gets super aggressive and he's a very, very goofy, like, silly kind of horse.

He really has enough personality for like three horses shoved into his little body.

So, being aggressive is just not even at all.

Like, something that I would ever relate to him.

And so, it first kind of starts off with he's out in a turnout 24-7 with three other horses and he starts not letting them into the shed.

So, if it's rainy, if it's snowy, he just stands in this big shed by himself.

And if anybody tries to get into the shed, he charges them.

And I was like, that's really weird.

And then he ends up getting separated into a smaller paddock by himself with his own shed, because it's winter in Massachusetts, like it's snowing.

You have to let the horses in, yeah.

They need shelter.

Yeah.

And so he's by himself.

And then he actually charges my barn owner while she's picking his paddock.

Oh, wow.

And I was like, my little Harrison?

He's a sweet, sweet boy?

My sweet little boy?

He went after you in his paddock?

Like that doesn't make any sense.

And at this time, he's also getting really, really skin sensitive.

So I'm having trouble brushing him.

And it's not even just like honest flank, like you would think ulcers.

I can't brush his neck.

I can't brush his legs.

He is swishing his tail, putting his ears like trying to bite me.

And it is so not like him.

So I'm trying to think of what the heck could be going on.

And I'm going to ulcers and actually my farrier was like, have you ever tested him for Lyme?

I want to go.

No, that's awesome.

Because he also was really, really stiff.

Like he was having a hard time for her picking up and holding his feet.

And I tested him for Lyme and levels were off the charts.

Like absolutely, like totally chronic, very, very high.

And so I treat him with Doxy and within a week back, like totally normal, settled, calm.

And he ended up, sorry, go ahead.

Oh, did you all do the SNAP test or what test did you guys do?

Blood test.

Okay.

So I'm assuming that would be the...

Yeah.

So we sent it off.

Okay.

To Cornell.

Yeah.

I think it's Cornell.

Cool.

Okay.

All right.

Oh, all right.

Hold on.

I'm just taking notes.

Keep going.

Oh, okay.

How long was the antibiotic course?

I believe a month.

And it was just with the Doxy or did you cycle other stuff?

We just did Doxy.

Cool.

And that did it?

That did it.

Wow.

Okay.

So did he have any, like, sound sensitivity as well or was it just, like, touch and body stiffness?

Not that I remember because at this point, he's been treated for life many times.

I don't think that he gets any sound sensitivity.

It's really touch.

Like, that is the big indicator because he's normally, he loves being brushed, he loves being curried, like, he's always itchy.

And if I even approach him with a brush, he is penning his ears, switching his tails, biting.

Like, it's very, very apparent that something is wrong and something that I have learned to really, really appreciate about him is that he doesn't hide anything that he feels.

So he's very emotional, which is great because it gives me a lot of information and a lot of things to work off of.

It's just a matter of trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with him based off of the information that he's giving me because as we'll find...

There's so many things that go on with him.

It's always a guessing game of, okay, what is the thing that's bothering him right now?

Did you notice if he had any sensitivity to wind, like heavy winds?

— Wind Sensitivity & Mystery of the Shed: Lyme Connection?

Well, that actually might be why he was hanging out in the shed.

Could be why he's hanging out in the shed.

Not that I have noticed.

Okay.

Were you able to blanket him that winter at all?

Good question.

With him cross-tied.

Oy yoy yoy.

That would be sensory overload.

Yeah, I'm just thinking, standing out, no wonder why he was being so aggressive.

I can't imagine how uncomfortable a blanket would be, but then also sensitive to the cold, sensitive potentially to wind, his muscles are tight.

Poor guy.

Yeah, I feel really, really bad for all of the stuff that he has to deal with, because there's just so many things that he can't get away from that are going to be chronic, and he's going to deal with for the rest of his life that make him uncomfortable.

And I do everything that I can to try to make him as comfortable as possible, but it feels like there's only so much that I can do.

Like sometimes I feel like I can't get ahead of it.

Yeah, so you've done your first round of DOCSE potentially a month, you said a month.

A month, yeah.

And then how are we going?

I feel like this is just a list of like, okay, what's next?

So he actually, because of the charging and everything, even though he was being treated for Lyme, he ended up getting kicked out of that part.

Oh, no.

Which I don't, I don't blame her for at all.

Like she had young kids that were around her and around the horses.

Like, I completely understand her being wary of him after what he did to her.

Like, don't blame her at all.

So I moved him to another barn that's local that I was able to find.

And similar sort of situation with the turnout, he did great in Virginia because he was on a 20- acre pasture with like 13 other geldings.

So he moved a ton on a day-to-day basis.

Yeah.

And coming back to Massachusetts, like there's just not a lot of land here, let alone land for horses because I live about 45 minutes outside of Boston.

So I'm not in, I'm in a pretty densely populated area of Massachusetts.

So he's out 24-7, but the paddock size is significantly smaller.

And there's also no grass.

It's quite rocky.

So he's just not, it's not the same, it's not the same, right?

Like he's out 24-7, but he's not doing nearly as much as he was when he was at Virginia.

But he is generally pretty good.

Like I have him in, I'm doing like lessons once or twice a week with my dressage trainer because I ended up deciding after I came back from Virginia and I got updated x-rays on the side bone to retire him from jumping because honestly, he was not a great event horse, love him to death.

He's very slow and he's very slow and he's not very catty over fences.

Like we spent months doing pretty much adjust grids to try to get his front end better because he always saw the flyer and I was like, Dear God, please do not take off the stride before that cross-country fence.

He just wouldn't do it.

I remember one time we were out cross-country schooling and we were doing a coffin.

So it was like novice level jump, downhill ditch, novice level jump on the other side.

It was supposed to be a one-stride through.

He took the flyer to the first one and bounced the whole thing.

I was like, Dear God, help me.

I don't think I can do this.

So we're not jumping anymore.

We're not jumping anymore for everyone's safety.

I just figured it's not worth it.

His risk of reinjury in that side bone on the right front was quite high.

And he started not tolerating getting shot very well.

Like he, I think the concussion was quite painful for him.

So every single time the farrier would come, it was a battle.

I would give him dorm.

He would blow right through it.

He was running out the aisle with like nails sticking out of his foot.

Like it just was not worth the battle that we were having.

And the farrier that I was working with at the time, because I did switch a couple times, she was like, honestly, if you're not going to jump in, this is really stressful for him.

He's very uncomfortable.

Why don't we just pull them and see what happens?

And I said, okay, don't tell me twice.

I would love to get those things off of him because he obviously hate the entire process.

So we transitioned him barefoot at that point, which I believe was 2022.

And he's been barefoot since.

We've done gluons a couple of times just over the summer when it was particularly hard and rocky at that farm that he was previously at, just to help him out a little bit.

But he's been great.

That's one thing that I can say about him.

He's got great feet.

Cool.

Very, very happy about that.

But it's one thing that I don't need to have on my plate with him.

I'd be worried about.

— Managing the Load: One Thing at a Time

Yeah, for real.

So he ends up schooling through second level dressage.

I have a goal that I wanted to get my bronze on him.

He's starting third level movements.

He's going really, really well into 2023.

And in summer of 2023 is when he starts going downhill.

So at this point, he is 11 years old.

The main thing that starts happening is he just doesn't have any stamina under saddle, or he starts to lose stamina under saddle.

And it's summer, it's 90 degrees, it's humid.

Again, we're starting third level stuff.

So he's doing a lot more collection.

We're trying to school changes.

We're trying to do all of these things that are a lot more difficult for his body.

So my trainer, I absolutely love her.

She has such a kind, empathetic approach with the horses.

So we would do the harder stuff in the beginning and do the more chill stuff towards the end.

And if he said that he was done, we were like, OK, don't care if it's early.

We're done.

We're just going to let him be.

Love her.

And I love her so much.

I've known her since I was, I think I've known her for like 10 years at this point.

And she's just the best.

I could never replace her.

She's incredible.

That's cool.

Very influential on my approach with horses.

She's just, she's so gentle.

She really listens and I just love her.

I'm so lucky to have her.

Shout out.

Good trainers.

Love them.

So we kind of attribute that to the summer.

It's hot.

He's doing hard stuff.

Hopefully it gets better in the winter, right?

And it doesn't get better in the winter.

It doesn't get better when it's cold.

It actually gets worse.

So it kind of progressively snowballs over the course of months.

So at first it was just a little bit, then it was a little bit more.

And I'm like, I don't know what's going on, but like I can still work him.

Like he's still okay.

He just can't go for as long.

So that's okay.

I'll just listen to him and stop when he's done.

And it ends up snowballing to the point that I can barely ride him.

Like I get on him and I can trot a lap maybe to before he, it feels like the way that it feels when I was riding him is like he was going, going, going, going brick wall.

Like no warning.

He just physically was like, oh my God, I can't move anymore.

Pony stop.

And he, yeah.

Pony stop.

And I knew it wasn't behavioral because he has such a willing attitude.

Like he really, really gives you his all.

And so if he's stopping like that, it's him flashing a neon sign at me.

Like I can't do it.

Yeah.

My body can't and totally respected it and would just walk for a while and try again and see what he gave.

Um, I ended up at that point when I could only try out like a lap or two, his canner really, really deteriorated to the point that I could care like a 20 meter circle.

And then I couldn't care more than a couple strides.

And then I couldn't canner at all.

Because I would ask for canner and he would just like bounce in place.

Like he just couldn't get into it.

And he also had a minor right hind lateness that came up at this time.

And I got a bunch of x-rays done and I couldn't find anything in his right hind.

Like his stifle had a very minimal amount of arthritis in it.

So we ended up injecting his stifle and he got a little bit better.

Like for my farrier, he was able to lift for longer and he felt better for her.

And it was a very, very minor improvement under saddle.

But I knew like this isn't the thing.

This isn't it's helping a little, but this is not the magic thing that's going to fix him at this point.

Into like May of 2024, I was talking to my vet and I went, he has kissing spine.

Like I know that he has kissing spine.

Should we just check it just to see, you know, did it get any worse?

Like what's going on?

Because his top line visually looked better at this point than it did when I got his x-rays done on his PPE.

And we got the updated back x-rays and they were bad.

Like he now has severe kissing spine.

He's got multiple points of overriding.

He's got some remodeling.

But he never palpated sore ever.

Like my vet was digging into his back, nothing.

Like absolutely no problems.

And he doesn't have, he had no point had any of your typical like kissing spine under saddle issues.

He never bucked.

Like, so it was very surprising to me that his back looked like that.

But I saw, you know, these horrible x-rays and I went, oh my God, it's the thing.

I mean, these are crazy photographs.

I'm looking at them right now.

He's got bone spurs in here.

There's a lot of jewelry going on in here.

Yeah, they're bad.

So I was like, oh my God, we figured it out.

Go us.

That's the thing.

And then we injected his back and we did mesotherapy and nothing happened.

— Back Injections & Mesotherapy: Nothing Works

Nothing happened.

It was like a similar thing to the cycle.

I would say we'd moved the needle a teeny, teeny, tiny bit.

He felt very slightly better, but all of the same- That wasn't the thing.

It wasn't the thing.

All of the same stamina type of behaviors were still going on.

So at this point, I'm like, I'm not going to ride.

Riding him sucks.

I feel awful because he's obviously uncomfortable and in pain.

And the last thing that I want to do is try to push him through this.

So then I commit to doing like strict kissing spine type rehab for six months.

I love that.

Oh, yeah.

I don't ride.

I do so much longlining.

I love longlining.

I don't know.

I feel like that might be a hot take, but I just put in a podcast and I just drive my horse like a little race car.

I love it.

But he starts going really, really well with the longlining because he had so many years of, he's a very anxious, very tense kind of horse.

So he would tend to go behind the vertical and invert his back under saddle when things got hard or he was confused.

I longline him just in a halter and without even a surfer single, like just the line behind him and he started going phenomenally, like lifting through his back, like his quality of gait got a lot better.

I did a lot of pole work.

I was pretty limited at that facility because it was on a pretty small plot of land.

There was an indoor and an outdoor, but there was no access to trails and I couldn't ride down the street or anything because it was a busy road, it was pretty windy.

I was very limited in what I was able to do as far as trail riding, hill work, that kind of stuff, but I did the best that I could and he visually loved a lot better, built a lot of top line, built a lot of muscle in his hind end.

I start reintroducing undersaddle work and the same kind of, it's better, but it's not great.

My vet actually mentioned probably, I think around right before I did the kissing spine x-rays, that he was like, have you ever heard of MFM?

He might have MFM and I was like, no, please stop doing, please stop telling me things he could have.

I was like, no, he's got PSSM.

He has PSSM, don't worry about it.

Then we had the back x-rays and I was like, oh, it's a stag and I honestly forgot about it.

Again, it's another thing that I now kick myself for because he was right.

Sorry, I lost my train of thought.

We'll look at my notes.

It didn't happen.

MFM, he mentioned it and he said no and then we're like, wait, let's check it out.

Yeah.

I actually don't check out MFM until last year.

Oh, really?

I honestly just continued mostly longlining, getting on him once or twice a month just to see where I was at.

But again, I really enjoy longlining.

I have a lot of fun and he's really fun to be around.

He's so quirky.

He's got so much of a personality.

I just want to hang out with him.

I don't really care if I can't ride him because I can do all of this other stuff that's still rewarding.

And I feel better because I'm not making him uncomfortable through riding and I'm not making him tense.

Like, you know, we're both having a good time.

And he started to really struggle in the cold in that winter.

So winter 2024 into 2025, which he didn't really before.

He never wore a blanket when he was out at the university.

Like they didn't blanket any of their horses.

He got fuzzy.

He never shivered.

Like he was fine.

And then he started, you know, like feeling really freaking tight all winter, just bad.

And at this point, I got him on a pretty strict bodywork schedule.

So I absolutely love my bodyworker.

She does the Masterson Method, which she was the first person that I worked with that used that and it just works so well for him.

Like the gentle pressure, the very slow releases.

She has gotten further with him through that than anybody else ever has.

And I do attribute like a lot of the improvement that he has had to working with her.

Like she is another person who is just so empathetic and listens to the horses.

And she always tells me like, I swear this horse speaks English.

He is so...

He's a good communicator.

He's so expressive.

Like if she touches a spot that's sore on him, like you see his little eyes furrow.

And he's like, oh, oh, oh, oh.

And then they slowly relax and then they get big and they get glassy.

And he does a big yawn.

Like he is just sweet.

Really talks you through whatever is going on in his body.

He really participates, which is so fun.

I love watching him get body work done.

I just sit and I just look at his little eyeballs and see all the tension melt away.

So I absolutely love her, but she starts noticing as she's working on him throughout the winter that things are getting a lot more difficult for him.

— Bodyworker Notices Decline: Harry Goes Backward in Winter

And he kind of goes backwards a bit, undersaddle and even just with the longlining too, he just really has a difficult time warming up, moving through his body, working everything out.

And in early 2025, so this is like spring, spring of last year, my vet brings up the MFM again.

And he's like, hey girl, remember that thing I told you about?

I still think that.

I really think that she has that.

And he convinced me, he was like, reach out to a nutritionist, work out a diet, because he did a lot of research on his own, which again, I absolutely love about him.

Like he's very amazing.

He loves being a vet.

Like he really is committed to try to figure out what is wrong with Harry.

And I appreciate him so much for that.

So he did a lot of research on MFM on his own.

And that's kind of what led him to come back and say, hey, I really think that he has this.

And he was like, you can put him on the MFM pellets for a month, do the diet for a month.

And if it works, you have information.

Like he probably has it.

And if it makes no improvement, you're out, you know, $400 or whatever the pellets are, which stinks.

But then you know.

And I reached out to a nutritionist and we switched up his diet quite a bit.

So he goes from the Triple Crown Ration Balancer on to the Purina Omelette 400.

We put in the Nano Q10, the liquid.

I take him off of a couple other supplements and just do, yeah, the Vitamin E, the Nano Q10 and the MFM pellets.

And he hates the MFM pellets.

Oh no.

I don't know if you've had this experience with your horse Taylor, but he hates them.

Like and I get it.

I mean, I want to gag.

They smell crazy.

Oh, they smell so bad.

Oh my God.

So I'm trying with the nutritionist to get him to eat these freaking pellets.

And once it gets to a certain point, he just goes, nah, I'm not eating anymore.

So I end up doing a very slow transition.

So over the course of a month, I weekly incorporate a little bit more of the MFM pellets.

And I also have to put them on Equasweet to get him to eat it.

So in like the Omeline 400, two pumps of Equasweet to get him to eat the MFM pellets.

And he only eats them like 85% of the time.

I am laughing in solidarity with you.

I'm glad that you feel my pain because I'm in like the MFM forum, Facebook group, and everyone in there is like, yeah, just put them on the MFM pellets, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, sure, your horses eat these?

They're disgusting.

It smells like that.

They're disgusting.

They smell so bad.

We call them the stinky pellets.

Like I make his grain at my house.

And if I have them open, my sister will come downstairs and she's like, do you have the stinky pellets?

Yes, I can smell them from across the house.

They stink up my mail room.

Like when we have them delivered to the mail room here, the entire room, even if it's in a locker, just, yeah.

Stinky.

It's not.

Yeah, they smell like sewage.

It's just.

That's a nice word.

Just, I don't know.

Oh my God.

So he's eating like 85% with all the seasoning.

So yeah, keep going, keep going.

The best I can do.

And he gets better, I will say, but it wasn't like this magical transition that I have heard from a lot of people about their experiences with the MFM pellets.

You know, cause yeah, I'm in the MFM form.

I'm braiding through, I'm doing my region.

Doing all the stuff.

All these people are saying, yeah, I put my horse in the MFM pellets and, you know, he's back to schooling dressage or he's back to a venting training level.

And I'm like, my horse can trot three laps now.

Yeah.

Oh, but.

I can kind of canter.

And so yeah, it was really disheartening cause I felt again, after thinking the kissing spine was the thing and the rehab was going to be the thing.

I was like, Oh, this is going to be the thing.

And it was just disappointing cause it, it helped a bit, but he still wasn't anything like he was in 2020 when I was a working student.

Like he, he could not physically move like that anymore.

And he continues to have that mild right hind lameness even on the MFM pellets.

So that continues.

I end up consulting with a couple of surgeons about doing kissing spine surgery on him because I'm like, okay, maybe it's the combination of these two things.

But I ultimately decide, I can't put him through it.

Like he struggles so much with building muscle already.

He's also very, again, very anxious, like very stressed out.

He doesn't like trailer and he doesn't like new places.

And so I'm just thinking this, the horror of him being at a vet hospital and then being on stall rest and like, what's that going to do to him mentally and on his body?

— Hospital Dread: Mental & Physical Cost of Stall Rest

Because he has lived outside his entire life.

Like he's not great in a stall.

He doesn't like being in a stall.

He paces, like he just, and I kept thinking of reasons that it wasn't worth it.

Like I just couldn't do it to him.

So I made my peace and I was like, all right, like if he doesn't get better, I'll retire him.

Like it's okay, it sucks.

You know, he's 12 years old.

He should be in the prime of his life.

But if that's what he needs to be comfortable, that's okay.

That's what we do.

Yeah, that's just your pal.

Yeah, you know, like he's my son.

I love him.

He can get whatever he wants.

Money is not real when it comes to Harry.

So yeah, we had all of that through like early to mid 2025.

And then my body worker actually recommends that I start listening to the Horse First Podcast with Dr.

Duclue.

Have you guys heard of that one?

Oh yeah, she makes me feel so bad myself when I listen to that podcast.

That's a little intense.

It's an intense thing.

It's so educational, but every time I log off, I'm like, I'm just going to drive off a cliff now.

I listen to it and I'm like, I'm so wrong.

I'm sorry.

It's a fantastic episode.

She does terrific work.

I could have said that aggressive thing.

I got to clear it a little.

But she's really incredible with the education.

I learned through her about body lameness and I'm like, oh my God, this makes so much sense.

I've done all of the things with his right hind leg and there's nothing to write home about.

Nothing that would suggest that there's a reason why he's intermittently lame on that leg.

And so at this point, I'm pretty convinced that he has something going on higher up.

I think that there's something in his right hip.

But again, my vet said you should get a bone scan on him.

But it's the same thing with the kissing spine surgery.

If he gets stressed out, it triggers a live episode every single time.

And so I have to go into things thinking about, okay, so if I do this, I'm going to have to treat him for Lyme.

If I treat him for Lyme, I have to take him off of the MFM pellets because he won't eat them together.

And then I have to do a slow roll, get him back on the MFM pellets after.

And he's worried about him.

And now we're going to have, yeah.

Yeah.

And then he's going to have all sorts of like.

Yeah.

So I ended up reaching out to Dr.

Workman from Denali Equine, who works very closely with Dr.

DeClue.

Love her.

And love her.

She's so sweet.

She's actually, they're thinking about doing a Northeast trip next month.

And I immediately emailed and I was like, if you guys come up here, please for the love of God, look at my horse.

Yeah.

So I really, really hope that they're able to come up because I would pay any amount of money that they want from me for her to do a workup on him.

Hey, if that actually happens, we would love to talk about like if you're comfortable.

And of course, like given what they find, that would be incredible to come back on and talk about that because their work really is revolutionary.

Yeah, follow up.

Yeah.

Yeah, I would.

I'm so excited.

Like I really hope that it works out.

But I end up reaching in.

Yeah, totally.

I will.

So I reached out to her for a consult and I was like, I got all of his x-rays.

I got like his entire medical record.

I put it in a Google Drive file and I shared it with her.

And I was like, this is my horse.

This is what he's doing.

What do you think?

And she asked if I had ever x-rayed his neck.

And I haven't.

So I have my vet out.

I x-ray his neck.

Thank God.

Like I was like, oh my God, he has freaking ECBM.

No, that's immediately.

I was like, something else is going to happen.

They're like, oh God.

And again, it's another thing where I talked to my vet about it.

And he goes, that's really interesting, baby.

That's the thing.

And we x-ray and the radiologist said he's got mild arthritis at C3, C4, and C4, C5.

She doesn't think it's clinically significant.

C6 looked totally normal.

So no concern for ECBM.

So I go back, I talk to Dr.

Workman again, and I ask her about the bone scan, because I'm still debating doing the bone scan.

And she was like, honestly, he's got so much going on in his body.

I don't know how worthwhile it is going to be to you, which makes a lot of sense to me, right?

Like I honestly think that if I bring him in for a bone scan, he's going to light up like a Christmas tree and we're going to have no more information about what is clinically significant.

How is it even helpful?

Yeah.

Because there's just so much.

So at this time, I haven't done a bone scan.

Maybe I will change that in the future.

But as of right now, it's just all of the reasons why it will negatively affect him outweigh the possible information that I will get from it.

— Biopsy Decision: Why Vanessa Said No for Now

Okay.

So I'll touch on the stress and the Lyme situation a bit more.

He is triggered from very stressful or anxiety-inducing events to the point that he had a paddock change, and he went out with these two little minis for three years.

And he didn't even seem like he was that attached to them.

Like I'd take him out of the paddock, there was no calling, no nothing.

And then the minis got separated from him.

And I thought he was going to die.

Like I could not fathom the way that he was acting.

Like it was just, he was hysterical.

He was trying to break down the fence to get to them.

And the minis ended up breaking down the fence to get to him.

And it was something that my barn owner did without talking to me first.

Not knowing the gravity of the situation.

Yeah, which if I had known, I honestly probably would have sedated him or like taken him out of the paddock and then put him back out without, like done, just done it differently.

Yeah.

But he ended up, because we moved them to, they were moved to total opposite sides of the property.

So he was in the way back and they were out front.

So they couldn't see each other, which was definitely for the best as far as trying to break them apart.

But he screamed so much that he lost his voice.

Oh, buddy.

In over the course of three days, like it was some of the most heartbreaking things I've ever seen.

That's so sad.

From him, like he would try to witty and it would just like blow out air.

It was so depressing.

Homie.

It's good for a boy.

Then a week later, I can't brush him and I test him for Lyme and it's off the charts.

He got treated for Lyme three times last year.

It was that instance.

Over the summer, my vet accidentally tested him for Lyme instead of vitamin E because we test him for Lyme so often, but it came back slightly positive.

I assumed that's what you wanted.

I just assumed that I was doing a Lyme test, which is so funny.

It's fine.

It's not awful.

It's terrible.

It was good information to have.

I was like, stick, free Lyme test, bring it on.

I tested him.

He was very slightly elevated, so I treated him for Lyme over the summer.

That was the second time because the paddock change was in the spring and then I just had to treat him for Lyme again, because I actually moved to barns.

I moved him to a new barn on November 1st.

And within a few weeks, it's a classic Lyme.

Test him, super positive, treat him.

And so now he's more back to normal.

But the Lyme is really interesting because it plays with the MFM in a way that I can't decide or I can't figure out easily which one it is.

Like the Lyme causes a lot of sensitivity, the MFM causes a lot of sensitivity.

Like if he's having a bad day and his muscles are really tight, I have a hard time brushing him when he's symptomatic for Lyme.

Can't brush him.

So the symptoms overlap a lot.

And that's one of the things that's really difficult on a day-to-day basis of owning him is just figuring out which one is the problem at hand.

Yeah.

So, you know, I can test him for Lyme, but it's like a couple hundred bucks every time I test him for Lyme.

It's a couple hundred bucks to treat him for Lyme.

So it's not something that I can do all of the time.

And I don't want to kill his gut biome by putting him on antibiotics.

Yeah, I don't want to just put him on antibiotics all the time.

And he also, we're treating him for hindgut ulcers right now, because even after the Lyme treatment, he got a lot better.

But he was very, very sensitive just on his right flank.

He continued to be quite sensitive there.

So he's currently on sucral fate and mesoprostol for that.

And that's finishing up within about a week.

So hopefully that helps that.

I will say that moving him to the new barn, I think, has been really, really good for him.

I don't have an indoor anymore.

And I don't know if you guys are familiar with the snow magetton that we had in the Northeast, but there's like two plus feet of snow on the ground right now.

But the barn that he was at previously with the small turnout that was quite rocky, it was also a lessened barn.

So they had about 20 horses on quite a small property.

So he was in a small paddock.

It was very busy, like they're a little overstimulating for him, very overstimulating for him because he's kind of like, what?

All the time anyways.

And so having, you know, a lot of kids running around, a lot of lessons, it just wasn't a great environment for him mentally.

And now he is at this private barn at the end of a mile long driveway.

They have like 30 acres.

He's out with a little Icelandic pony and a thoroughbred.

— Harry's Pasture Girlfriends: Icelandic Pony & Thoroughbred

They're his little girlfriends.

He loves them.

He's on a huge pasture that's early.

He has a stall, but it has a run attached to it that's quite big.

So he goes in and out.

He's next to his girlfriends.

Like he is so, so happy there.

And even not having an indoor and not being able to have him in consistent work, I do think that his body actually looks better this year than it did last year when I was riding and working him consistently in the indoor, just because he's so much more relaxed.

Like his whole body has just like taken a deep breath since coming to this place.

So I'm cautiously optimistic about what the spring is going to look like and when I can start working him more, because really a lot of what I do right now is hand walking, ground work, and ride walking around the property.

But the snow that we have right now, because we've had like snow, then ice, then snow, is really difficult to work through, because they kind of like step in and then sink down.

So it's definitely not something that I even really want to walk through.

They're just going like up and down the driveway a lot, and I'm like leg yielding, and I can walk as much as I can in a straight line.

So that's kind of where he's at now.

He's currently off the MFM pellets, because again, he will not eat the antibiotics when he's on them.

So I took him off to treat him for Lyme, and I kept him off so that he'll eat the medication for the hindgut ulcers.

So the plan is that once he finishes up that treatment, I'm going to slowly reintroduce him to the MFM pellets.

My vet did get the biopsy tool about a month ago to do an actual muscle biopsy, because we were just going off of response to diet.

So I did do his muscle biopsy for MFM, and it came back positive.

So now we have concrete answers that he does in fact have MFM, which really stinks, but it's really just confirmation of what I already know.

Yeah.

So how, okay, there's so many things happening right now.

I'm so sorry.

There's a lot of stuff going on with that.

No, no, no.

I'm just, I don't know, nothing I can say is going to be really helpful to you because my comments are what you already know is like, how do you tell what's what?

Now, is he wasting away because he's got absolutely no microbiome, because I've had him on antibiotics a million times.

Is this body pain and sensitivity from this or is it from this?

Like, do you notice if it's a Lyme flare, do you notice more prevalence of joint pain versus muscle pain?

Or is it just over sensitivity in general?

Like, when he's cold, like you live in a very cold place, how are you keeping his muscles loose in a cold place?

But he does also like previously not worn a blanket.

What is your protocol for rebuilding his gut after antibiotics?

Because it seems like something that you have to do all the time.

Have you figured out like a go-to?

Do you have like a Harry's after antibiotic protocol that you do?

I haven't been able to find anything that I feel like makes a significant difference.

Like I typically end up putting him on sucral fatigue after he has an antibiotic treatment.

I've had success with the Vitalize Alamend, if I put him on that throughout the course of the treatment, where he doesn't backslide so much.

But that's something that I'm like very open to suggestions for, because I've tried a bunch of different probiotics to put him on throughout the course of the treatment, and I haven't noticed much of a difference.

So if you have any suggestions, I am all ears.

She does.

I'll email you.

Thank you.

I would love that.

I'm pretty sure it's going to have to do with imubium.

That's, yep.

Yeah, imubium is fantastic.

Yeah, that's where it's at.

And we have a, I got you.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, colostrum is our friend.

Colostrum and mushrooms.

I did have a thought about the trailering though.

Now I do realize that like you have two disease processes that are like fueling each other.

So you have a pretty solid feedback loop with this.

But the trailering part, what kind of trailer was he in historically?

Like was it slant, straight, backward ride, box tall?

So what I have found is that he trailers the worst in a straight load.

He trailers okay in a slant and trailers the best in a box.

Okay, so you've been down this road too.

I just bought a new trailer the other day because my mare doesn't like the one that I had before.

You didn't tell me that.

What the hell?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

It was very fast.

This is my best friend.

This is a big deal.

I'm so sorry.

I had my body worker out and she was like, Taylor, she doesn't like your slant load.

You need to buy a straight.

— Straight Stall Search & Harry's Living Situation

And I was like, damn it.

So three days later, I found one.

But yeah, I'll send you.

It's okay then.

I love you.

Let it go.

Yeah, but it makes a huge difference.

I totally understand, yeah.

If I put my horse in that order, it's the hardest for him.

Like a straight load, he'll jump the chest bar and he'll try to kill himself.

He'll get upside down and tangled and hurt.

In a slant, he just gets like claustrophobic almost.

In a box, he stands backwards and he looks me dead in the eyes.

I drive behind him and he's chilling like a villain.

Yeah, and that's something that I learned on the fly.

So I shipped him down to Virginia and the truck was empty going down to Virginia because they were bringing horses back up.

And so they were like, yeah, we can put him in the box stall.

And he was in the box stall, he trailer so quiet, he was great.

I was so pleasantly surprised with how he did.

And then when I'm a working student, we're going cross country schooling for the first time and we're taking my manager's five horse trailer.

So it was like the two head to head and then the box in the middle and we put him in the head to head.

And so he backed in like facing the back of the trailer and he was like freaking out.

And I'm like, he just doesn't like trailer and whatever.

We get to the cross country schooling place, we take the horse out of the box and he's like climbing the chest bar trying to get out of the trailer.

He hated that position that he was in.

So after that we experimented and we started putting him in the box, fine, no problems.

It's so much harder when they only have that little chest bar to balance with, it triggers the freak out.

Loki had literally multiple times jumped the chest bar and gotten it under him.

And he's not a big boy, that's a significant climb.

I totally get it.

It's like, I feel like in general, trailering is yes, it's very stressful on their body, and it's something that they have to be educated for.

But in general, they all have a preference and you just need to find where they feel the most comfortable.

And it's not a rule.

And a lot of people, I know that riding backwards for most horses, they do seem to prefer that.

But this is especially between like all three of ours, it's such a testament to is like a very specific, it's whatever they prefer.

I had no idea.

I never thought in a million years, I should let him ride backwards.

I mean, that's...

Yeah, what would you think about?

I don't know.

And now, like people like you, people like Taylor, like I know so many people that they're like, yeah, oh yeah, sometimes they do much better.

But I don't know if you had the same experience, but having him, was he loose in a box or did you tie him?

He was tied.

Okay, mine has to be loose.

So there's the difference.

But I always thought like, that's gotta be more dangerous.

Like he needs to lean up.

Nope.

Yeah, fine.

They do okay.

They're individuals.

You have alien voice, Taylor.

I don't know why that happens sometimes.

I think maybe my internet does, do I still sound like an alien?

Yes.

So I'm just gonna ask you a very serious question in alien voice.

All right.

So I am kind of curious because if he was recommended to go on Omeline 400, did you work specifically with Valberg's Lab for that diet?

And if so, is he still on it?

Like, what's his menu currently?

I worked with a nutritionist who works very closely with a nutritionist from Valberg's Lab.

Got it.

Okay.

So you're back.

You're back to normal.

I'm back.

Okay.

So what's his menu right now?

So right now, I put him back on the Omeline because he loves it.

Like he eats it up because he's a fat Morgan that's been on a ration balancer his entire life.

He's like, this is the best.

Delicious.

So right now, he's getting a pound of that a day.

So half a pound in the morning, half a pound at night.

He's getting the Triple Crown Diamond Balancer, like the one that feeds in more of a supplement ration.

Just because we really need the Omeline to be the bulk of what he's eating because he's so picky and he will go on a hunger strike at the drop of a hat.

Like he needs to have majority Omeline.

But he's a Morgan.

He's not going to eat enough of it.

Yeah.

Yeah, I cannot put him on enough of that.

Like he will blow up.

So he's on the Omeline, the Triple Crown Diamond Balancer.

He's on vitamin E and the...

Which E?

Elevate.

The powder one, not the liquid one.

Elevate the powder.

Okay, yeah.

He's on Elevate.

There's a concentrate and a maintenance one.

Okay.

He's on the concentrate.

How much is he getting?

Like, what's his IU?

Great question.

How many scoops of the concentrate?

Two a day.

Two?

Okay.

What is that, six or ten?

— Supplement Dosing Details & Protocol Questions

Is it a 3,000 scoop or is it a five?

I can't remember. 1,000.

No, that's the maintenance.

She said concentrate.

Hold on.

Elevate.

Let's learn together.

We're learning in real time.

We're learning together.

The maintenance is 1,000 per scoop.

It's in my house.

If you want me to go look for it, I can...

I can tell you for certain.

Okay.

No, hold on.

I caught up.

All right.

I see exactly what you mean.

All right.

So one scoop is 5,000. 3,000 or five.

Okay.

So he's on 10 a day.

If he's on the concentrate, then he's on 10 a day.

If he's on the maintenance, then he's on two a day.

I'm going to double check.

I want to make sure that I'm giving you correct information.

So I'm going to look at my order history.

It's hard to get the concentrate.

Not a lot of places have it.

I know that I know that information.

I feel like I bought the concentrate.

If you tell me how much it costs, I can tell you which one it is. 76.58 for a two pound.

I'm looking at it right now.

How did I not know that there was a concentrate?

It's hard to find.

I'm learning this.

It's really hard to find.

Tractor Supply says that they have it and they never do.

You can order it online, but it has to go through their pharmacy.

A lot of places, you have to go through the pharmacy to get it.

That's the problem.

I'm so sorry.

I lied to you.

He's on the maintenance powder.

Okay, so he's on 2000.

There you go.

Okay.

He was okay with 2000?

Yeah, he's been okay.

I've tested his blood many levels multiple times, and they've always come back normal.

There was a period of time when he was younger, and we were doing a PSSM-2 diet, he was on quite a bit more.

But it's not something that it has seemed like his body is asking for more of.

Got it.

Amazing.

And he's still on the CoQ10?

Yes, he's on that in the morning.

Do you notice a difference with that?

I never noticed a difference with it.

I haven't taken him off of it since I started him on it last year, because it's something that he'll dependably eat every day.

But it is something that I spoke with my nutritionist about possibly trying to take him off of.

I kept him on it because I pulled him off of the MFM pellets just to give him something.

But I have gone back and forth about taking him off of it.

Got it.

Yeah.

I just never really noticed a difference with it.

For me, the E was always the heavy hitter.

That's the one that was night and day.

She's good.

Do you have him on any extra magnesium?

I interrupted you to ask you which vitamin E that you want.

Is that the rest of his menu?

At the moment, sorry, I'm thinking.

I just want to make sure that I get what's right.

That's okay.

At the moment, yeah, that's everything that he's on.

Okay, so the Q10, the Omeline, the Balancer, the vitamin E.

Amazing.

We'll find something for his gut.

Yeah, Kay's got you.

One of the things that I was trying to figure out how he handled, because he's a Morgan, which these guys are inherently air ferns.

How was he on grass?

Yeah, grass in the fact that he's eating an MFM diet, which is the opposite of what his breeding...

Yeah.

Any metabolic concerns?

How's he doing with that?

It's something that I've talked to my vet quite a bit about, because my vet doesn't have any experience with insulin-resistant MFM horses, and I don't think MFM horses at all, really.

It's something that we're kind of just playing by ear.

Like, we're just trying to tackle it.

Like, what is the problem right now?

And the problem is that we want to treat him for MFM and see if he improves.

But that is definitely a concern because he's 13 now.

I've tested his insulin twice in the last year, and he's been slightly elevated, but nothing crazy.

Yeah, it's definitely a concern of mine, though, is how that's going to play out as he gets older.

Do you know what the grass situation looks like in the spring and summer at this new barn and into the fall?

There will be grass at this new barn.

You almost need to put him on a track.

I would love to if they exist.

Everyone needs to be going on a track.

There's tracks up there.

There's the track up there.

Yeah, Alisha Harlov.

She's a mess.

I think her board is out of my budget.

Oh, that's okay.

No, no, no.

Yeah, yeah, it's not.

It's fair.

Yeah.

It's out of mine, sister.

Yeah.

I did just get a remote job.

So the goal for the year is that I'm going to move himself because I don't want to live here personally, and he certainly doesn't want to live here.

So.

That would be so good for him to be in a warmer environment.

Yeah, definitely.

Well, if you choose North Georgia, we have a track for you.

Good to know.

Thank you.

If you choose.

Oh, yes, too.

Yeah, Molly and Sarah.

If you choose Houston, Texas, I got a place for you here, too.

— Houston Hospitality & Finding Support Along the Way

Thank you.

Good to know.

I'm aiming for probably Virginia.

I did love living in Virginia, and I have quite a few friends there, but it's coarse country.

There's got to be tracks.

Isn't that where Morgan's originate?

That's their territory as Virginia.

No, they originated in Vermont.

Vermont.

The other V state.

Well, that'll be great.

The winter thing, I wanted to go back to that, because also I just wanted to, this might make you feel better.

This winter in particular, and I don't know if it's just as winter's compound, as time goes, because it is a progressive disease.

This winter in particular kicked my mare's ass.

Just trashed her.

January was a brutal, brutal month.

I spoke to a few other of my girlfriends, who they have mares with MFM, and it's been the consensus, just the hard winters.

So for mine, and don't do this without talking to your vet, but I had to put mine on methacarbonyl, and that is what got her through.

Wow.

Yeah, that seemed to help.

And I hate doing it.

I don't like giving drugs, but at this point, it was a quality of life thing.

You have, yeah.

She was so upset.

I mean, she was bundled up.

She looked like the kid from The Christmas Story, and I just...

He did jacuzzi for her.

Jacuzzi.

She needs a hot bath, Taylor.

Poor girl.

She needed a hot bath, so...

But I say that because it sounds like your guy was having very similar issues, and I can only imagine what a Massachusetts winter was like.

I don't...

I'm from Florida.

Yeah, like, negatives, many nights, days.

Thank you.

It's been so cold.

But he really...

And I don't know what your experience has been with your mare, but I don't see him shiver.

Like, he really doesn't act like he's cold.

He doesn't act like he wants a blanket, but I put it on him anyway, but he still is very stiff.

So it's like his body is reacting to the cold, but he doesn't behaviorally react to the cold, if that makes sense.

He doesn't get cranky even?

Like, pissed off because he's tight?

Um, I would say sometimes like he definitely on the really cold days I can tell.

So that's something that's new this year is that I have all of this information.

Sometimes if I go to brush him and he just seems like really tight and he's not super happy about it, I'll just go straight to work.

And then after I work him, I bring it back in the barn, then he's very receptive to being brushed because he's loose and he's warmed up.

So that's been something that I have learned this year, which has been pretty interesting.

I also, one of the other boarders at my barn has been kind enough to let me use her beamer, so he's been getting beamered a lot, which I also think has been really, really helpful.

But I would say, yeah, a little bit of the grumpiness just with brushing, but not generally out of the paddock or anything.

Interesting.

I think they all present a little bit different with that.

And I feel like for Harry specifically, since there is that line factor, that sensitivity is going to, it kind of has a double play.

Mine, when she's cold, she doesn't shiver, unless it's like wet cold.

Wet cold, which is always in Georgia.

The worst.

That sucks, I'm sorry.

I mean, it is what it is, but now she just lives under an umbrella.

But she gets really, not quite spooky, but electric, spazzy.

And the second I put a blanket on her, she just quiets down.

So if she's up.

Interesting.

Does that make sense kind of?

Yeah, because he definitely gets like that, but I've never thought of it from the cold angle.

So I'm going to do some experimenting with that.

Yeah, for sure.

Because it's hard to tell with him because he's kind of an up horse anyway.

Leah is a very level-headed citizen.

Yeah, she's pretty chill.

So when she's having a spaz, that's when I'm like, okay, there's something going on.

And usually it is cold.

The other thing too, what does he do with bugs, like bug season?

How does he do with that?

I'm asking for a friend.

Bug?

Yeah.

I'm the friend.

Bug season is interesting.

He historically hasn't really been too bothered.

He's really weird.

Like, I try to put a flysheet on him, but he seems to overheat very easily, or maybe he just doesn't like it when it's over a certain temperature, but he actually bites the front of the flysheet and he'll yank it up when he'd get this thing off of me.

So, I'm telling you, he speaks English.

And I take it off and he's quiet.

So, I really can't flysheet him over 80 degrees most of the time because he just hates it.

He just does not want to wear the flysheet.

And I even have one of the Schneider's, the Mosquito Mesh ones, because I had him in a Rambo, then I had him in a Bucus.

I don't know how to say it.

— MFM vs. Vision Issues: Symptoms That Overlap

Oh, that complicates things.

Well, but also, and you know, I'm not the MFM queen here, but I'm not hearing that his spooky behavior is on brand with an MFM spooky behavior.

I agree.

He's spooky.

He's flighty, but he's not panicking.

He's not panicky.

No, he does not.

He gets like very elevated.

Like he'll get really tight and feel like riding a coiled up spring because he's just like, oh my god, oh my god, but he's never bolted.

He's never done anything like that.

Like, um, I've heard multiple people on your podcast describe that kind of like blind panic with their MFM horses.

I have never experienced that with him.

He is also like quite a lazy horse by nature.

So even when he does get pretty up, like I'm never afraid of him taking off with me because he loves to stop stopping.

That's his behavior.

Well, it's also the first MFM Morgan we've had on here.

Yeah, I've actually have not heard of Morgan having it.

Yeah.

So that may, you know, maybe there's nothing to it.

I don't know.

I'm just saying stuff.

Yeah.

Um, I definitely like, that's something that I found interesting when I was listening to the previous podcast episodes that you guys have done is I was like a lot of the symptoms line up, but that definitely is one that doesn't.

And typically if he is in that kind of state, it's made worse by me being on him.

So I will typically just get off and hand walk in.

And if I hand walk in for a minute or two, he usually settles down.

So he deescalates quickly.

That's a really, that was a good observation, Kahlan, because that, that's, you're right.

He doesn't, it doesn't sound like he gets panicky.

Like he's, if you can deescalate him quickly just by taking him for a walk, that's nice.

That's not the same.

Yeah.

But he's a very emotionally sound, like he's, he's a very sensitive and I know that he can be nervous, but like he handles it well.

Yeah.

He knows what he needs.

Yeah, absolutely.

And like I've had him at this point for almost eight years.

Yeah.

Like I know I'm like the back of my hand.

He's very much a one person kind of horse.

I feel like he's very intuitive.

He's very sensitive to the kind of energy that I'm putting out.

So as long as I'm able to stay calm and de-escalate myself, he really feeds off of that quite a bit.

So as long as I keep a level head, which is something that, you know, no pressure, easier.

We all need more patience than we have.

Like, you know, it's something that is a constant work in progress for me because, you know, I get scared because I'm like, what's going on?

Yeah.

And trying to de-escalate myself.

But like, again, like I have been, you know, kind of raised with horses since like my college years, to have a very empathetic understanding sort of approach.

Like, you know, I took a Equine Behavior and Learning Theory class in college and it like totally revolutionized the way I thought about everything with horses.

That's awesome.

And so I have done a lot of positive reinforcement training with him.

So I have a lot of tools in my toolbox to be able to help him get to a place where he can de-escalate because he's very food motivated.

So I have like the calm command.

So if I say calm, he puts his head on the ground and he can kind of like relax there in that state.

That's awesome.

Teach me how to do that.

Wow.

It's a really, really great tool to have because it kind of like tricks them into being more physiologically.

Yeah.

And when he gets in that kind of anxious panic state, he's really looking for something to do and he's very food motivated.

So I fall back on the positive reinforcement training a lot because it is a tool that I can use.

And then the act of eating makes him calm down as well.

So it's just, it's a task for him to do.

And that I find really, really helps him deescalate his behavior.

That's, you're so cool.

That's, you are our people.

You are.

If this horse had to go to someone, I'm glad it was you.

Sorry, guys.

That's really funny because there's this, this person that really wanted him, like they had a thing previously where if you put your name in the horse's file, you'd be contacted when they were for sale.

And that went away when I was in college.

So I bought Harry and she was actually talking to one of my friends is a vet tech out in Kentucky and she lives there now.

And she was talking to my friend and she was like, I really wish I could have had Harry.

And my friend was like, no, you don't.

No, you don't.

Call Vanessa.

Show her your vet bills.

But I just adore him and he has taught me so much.

— Learning Something New Every Day: Vanessa's Love for Harry

I learned something new from him every single day.

And even in the journey that I'm in with him now, I'm doing a bunch of groundwork with him that I never thought that I would do.

And I'm really enjoying groundwork.

I have made my peace with the fact that I don't ride my horse competitively.

And I really don't think that I ever will again.

And I don't think that he's going to get back to that point.

I would love for him to be happy just doing some bebopping around lower level stuff.

But I don't love owning a horse.

I love riding Harry or owning Harry.

And I don't know that I would own a horse if it wasn't Harry.

He is just so special to me.

And I've been on such a journey with him.

I just feel a closeness to him that I have never felt to another horse.

And I don't know if I will ever be able to replicate that.

Because I hope with whatever next horse I buy, I don't have to go through all of it.

But it's been really special.

And I've learned so much.

And I owe him so much.

And he's done a lot for me just personally and through my riding career.

So I owe it to him to do as much as I can to figure out what's wrong with him and just give him the best life that I can.

You're the best.

You're exactly what we wanted to hear.

That was really nice to hear.

I just love him.

That's your son.

He's just the best.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, the ones that are, you know, the ones that we care about so much that break our hearts and like put us through the worst stress ever.

They make us such better horse people.

And they give you such an understanding that you couldn't get elsewhere.

Like you can't manufacture that.

You can't get that from riding lessons.

You can't get that from competing.

You can't get that from winning.

You can only get that from actually having that true empathy and working through the hard shit with them.

Because like you see him, you see him in every difficult state he's ever experienced and you just want to make it better.

Like you just want to be his pal.

You want to be there for him and you are.

Like you're doing such a good job.

I can't wait to hear after you have a workup because you're gonna.

I hope so.

They're going to be like, oh my gosh, this girl needs us and it's going to be great.

So please update us because we really want to hear.

If you would like some recommendations for the hangout support, I will help you.

I would love them because it's such a work in progress.

I only know what I know and I know that I don't know a lot.

So any information, advice that either of you can give me, I am all ears.

I'm not somebody who's ever going to punish you for giving me advice.

I want to figure out what's wrong with him so bad.

Because he deserves to be comfortable.

Yeah.

Well, it sounds like you have a really good team too.

Your vet has been a shining star.

Let's give a quick shout out to your team before we wrap up.

You've had some really good support.

You have a wonderful trainer, a wonderful body worker, a vet who never rests.

That's a big deal.

Yeah.

I'm so grateful.

I literally have a good team on my notes.

Halfway through, I was like, she's got a good team.

I could read it all the way from Texas.

Yeah.

I'm so grateful for all of them, and they're just the kindest people and always treat me and him with understanding.

I have never been told by anyone on his current care team that it's behavioral or I should just work him through it.

Everyone is aware and committed that there is something wrong with him, we all need to work together.

It's a cool little circle too, right?

My body worker and my farrier both use my bed.

They independently will talk about my horse and then come back to me and be like, I thought of this thing for Harry.

Because my farrier also shout out to my farrier, she's incredible.

I have this amazing barefoot tremor, and she's so educated and patient with him.

Because he was so bad for the farrier.

When I pulled his shoes, again, he was rearing, he was bolting out of the bar.

Even when I had him barefoot, he was really, I think, traumatized just from that whole experience.

It's been years of working with him to try to get him to calm down and relax just to get his feet trimmed.

And she has never escalated him.

She's never even thought about hitting him or smacking him or anything, which would horrify me.

She's been so kind and so patient with him and approaching him with that kind of attitude.

He is the best now that he has ever been for the farrier.

So shout out to her, shout out to my whole character.

I love them so much.

I'm going to miss them so much when I move, because I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to replicate this.

— Moving On & the Fear of Losing a Great Support Team

It's hard.

Yeah.

But now you know what you need and now you don't have to go through all the riffraff of advocating for him.

You're like, this is what he needs.

If you can't provide it, you're not my care team.

Yeah, definitely.

I cringe at the way that I saw people treat him back in 2018, 2019, because it just doesn't work.

You just have to be nice to him.

You should be nice to all horses, but especially him.

Yeah, he needs the extra support and he'll participate if you give it to him.

So yeah, definitely keep us updated and I'll email you with my number.

And Taylor, obviously, if you think of anything, you jump in too.

But thank you so much for sharing that.

That was like, you know, that's someone who's going to hear this and be like, oh, maybe my horse has lime or oh, my gosh, that maybe she knows how to help me work my horse through this fear that he has.

You know, like that's that's the whole point of what we're doing is the community aspect of it.

And you are a really good example of that.

So I appreciate you reaching out to us.

You're are you maybe our first guest who's a stranger?

Uh, wait, wait, second, third.

No, maybe you might be.

That's like my mother-in-law would say a rank stranger.

Not not applicable here.

No, you smell you smell great.

I'm sure you're not rank.

But I think you are the first person that we've had on that just reached out to us from being a listener.

Yeah.

Where did you find the show?

Yeah.

I actually saw the first episode that you guys posted in the MFM forum Facebook group and I was like, Wait, I don't think I even posted it in there.

Someone posted it.

It was- Someone posted it.

Hold on.

Someone posted it.

Like our pilot episode?

It was the- For Leah Hutt.

I think it was either the Leah episode or the Stella episode.

Oh, do you know what?

It was Stella.

Oh, it was probably, yeah.

It was Stella.

Yeah.

Cool.

But it's been such a great way for me to learn more about MFM because I don't know anybody that has an MFM horse and my vet doesn't have a lot of experience with it.

Nobody on my care team has a lot of experience with it because it is so new.

I'm constantly in that Facebook group just trying to gain as much knowledge as I can, but there's only so much knowledge you can gain by reading a Facebook post.

I feel like the conversations that you both are having, we're able to really deep dive into the longterm timeline of what this disease looks like, has been so helpful for me and that's what made me feel compelled to share because I feel like I've gained so much from both of you.

I would love to just, if I can give something to somebody else, I really appreciate what you both are doing as far as knowledge sharing because we all have so much to learn from each other.

Well, thank you for sharing your parts too.

Thank you.

That's so wonderful.

I love talking about him.

That's so nice.

Honestly, his story- It's kind of easy, isn't it?

His story will help a lot because it's especially with the line, a lot of people will discredit it and say, it's rare, it's not that, but well, rare things do happen.

I mean, we're here in Georgia and there's a horse at my barn or I board who was diagnosed with Lyme and they kept overlooking it because it's in Georgia and it's like, well, no, it still happens.

If you're in California, it'd probably be a little bit more like, nah, you could probably put that further down on the list, but rare stuff does happen.

So, yeah, keep looking.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for coming on, Vanessa.

It was so nice to meet you and I'm so glad we have a new friend.

Yeah, I'm so glad to meet you both.

Thank you so much for having me and letting me share.

Send us, unless you want his x-rays to be the Facebook picture, send us a picture that you love of him that you want us to use for our post, okay?

— Closing: Resources, Lyme Vets & Final Reflections

Okay.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

That's my favorite part.

Thanks, Vanessa.

Have a good one.

You too.

See you guys later.

Bye.

If you or a friend have a topic, story, or case study you want us to cover in an episode, visit our website at theredmareproject.com to leave your submission, or email us at redmareproject.gmail.com.

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Peace.