Beaumoor Sentire - Equine Posture & Performance Solutions

Repair work on the barn going on, right next to the groundwork arena... lots of big machines, noise and giant flappy metal sheets.

Bal & Lu - Time for a snooze then! 🤣

Yes my horses really are that chilled which makes me very happy. 🥰❤️🙏🏻

As a forager myself I can vouch for this fabulous herb.

Knowing how to recognise the poisonous Hemlock look alike though is super important.

The main stem and the leaf stems of hemlock are circular, smooth, pale green with reddish purples spots and blotches. The main stem of cow parsley is also circular but has longitudinal grooves. The leaf stems of the cow parsley have the characteristic celery-like groove and are slightly hairy.

Cow Parsley/Queen Anne’s Lace
Really good to see the young fronds of this short-lived tall perennial, appearing on the verges and in the fields, though the flowers don’t appear until April. It is universally loved by most horses and for good reason.
Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) contains high levels of a potent anti-viral plant chemical called apigenin.
Horses can be affected by several well-known viruses and an increasing number of new ones, easier to detect now using metagenomics.
Veterinary treatments include fever control, immunostimulants, antiviral medications, and antibiotics to prevent or treat secondary bacterial infections.
Though horses generally recover the journey back to full health can be a long one.
Adding plants to the diet throughout the year that contain plant phytochemicals to both help prevent viruses and act against them is a good idea.
There are several look alike plants that don’t contain high level of apigenin these include
Fool’s Parsley (Aethusa cynapium), has leaf-like structures bracteoles found underneath the flower head. Hedge Parsley (Torilis japonica) smaller and later flowering July to September,
Wild Carrot (Daucus carota) looks very similar to cow parsley but has an umbel that is made up of multiple florets, often with a purple one in the middle.
The poisonous Hemlock (Conium maculatum) which has leaves like cow parsley but is much bigger and has a distinguishing purple spotted stem.

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The horse is a hind gut fermenter, which means he is designed to eat fibrous material, fermented in a holding chamber called the cecum, home to trillions of bacteria, archaea, protozoa, and fungi. Working in synergy to break down poor quality and largely indigestible food material (woody- stalky material, seed heads) into energy. He is of course, also designed to process rapidly degradable starch (grains, the leaves of grass and hay, alfalfa) in the stomach and small intestine.
The fermenting process is slower, compared to the rapid release of energy from easily degradable starch. Fermented energy takes time to produce, but this method allows him to survive the winters in the wild, when food (especially starch) may be hard to come by.
Therefore, he has two existing systems one designed to consume large amounts of highly degradable starch, especially in the spring as he emerges thinner from a winter of scarcity and in the summer when he needs the energy for mating, feeding foals, and storing up fat stores for the coming winter.
We always used to provide the harsh (semi harsh) winter experience; it was called being ‘turned away’ or ‘being roughed off’.
Does anyone still practice this management system, is it even possible and how now do we cater for the two differing seasonal nutritional needs of the horse?

Well the weather is still pants so I'm cracking on with sprucing up some of the old rooms in the barn to create a nice new office, plus a bigger study room/livery lounge which will hopefully house a real, standing skeleton of a wonderful pony! ✨️

For those of you who need it today. ❤️

The horse world is yet again attacking each other from all sides in response to a recent highly scored dressage test where the horse really didn’t look like they were having a very nice time.

‘Professional’ riders are claiming that they’re being bullied and trolled, and I’m sure some feelings of humans have been hurt along with those of the horses.

This is what I believe is happening.

There IS a ground swell of change occurring and the voice of lowly people without the wealth and status of the equine elite are being heard. Without a doubt there is a class and hierarchy issue sitting behind this. The aristocracy don’t like it when the peasants revolt, we’re a messy and annoying bunch.

AND, more importantly than this, and the part that gives me hope is this. Those riders who are feeling criticised and coming back all guns blazing, are in their teeny tiny heart of hearts, scared we might be right. And the scariest thing for our ego is the realisation that it may have hung it’s hat on the wrong stand.

I’m holding on to the belief that all of us - when we plopped into the world - didn’t want to do things which were hurtful or harmful to others. That in our souls we know we are all interconnected and each of us - horse, human, tree, spider, star, lichen - are all equally worthy of love and respect. And that this growing voice of ‘Hey, this doesn’t look like you’re being very nice to your horse’ is tweaking that bit right in the middle of them, and it’s making them feel uncomfortable.

And as we’ve been trained to look for comfort wherever we can, we will do whatever it takes not to feel uncomfortable. And right now that’s being expressed as a big fat ‘F**k off’ from the equestrian elite. They’ve gone into full scale defensive mode which includes both claiming victimhood and shaming and mocking everyone else,

My great golden hope is that the reason they’re so rattled is because a bit of them they can’t quite remember, maybe the part of them which as a 2 year old exploded with giggling delight at the sight of a horse, also doesn’t want to make their sides bleed or stop them being able to breathe properly or have to use a huge amount of painful traction on their jaw to ‘ride a medium trot’. That it’s that tiny child right in there who’s saying, ‘Hey grown up me, is this really what we wanted to do to horses?’

At the moment, it’s all coming out as vitriol or self pity, but maybe one day they too will stand up to the system which has caused this and say ‘Let’s not do this to our friends anymore….’

As always, a thought provoking post from Steph Bloom Specialist Saddle Fitter

There's only one Floss 😄🥰

Great post from Steph Bloom Specialist Saddle Fitter
Although im relatively petite at 5"4, I have long legs and I always struggled with knee room. I would often be put into a bigger seat to try and combat this.
The bigger seat was not the answer.

The Search for Knee Room - My Blog - Stephanie Bloom Saddle Fitter Knee space chair seat and in saddles, causes, and how to improve how the rider sits.

❤ her.

💛✨️

*Article by Josepha Guillaume*

THE FAMOUS MODEL, THAT BECAME A WARRIOR FOR HER HORSE

Like many horse lovers, including myself decades ago, we bought the ‘happy athletes’ lie and looked up to the high-ranking professionals in the sport.
So did famous Dutch model and my friend Lonneke Engel . She therefore placed her horse U2, in the - what she thought - to be the loving care, of Academy Bartels. U2 was to be educated for competition, while Lonneke worked in the US.

Lonneke asked about her horse U2 all the time and visited when she could.
3,5 years had passed and Lonneke went and picked U2 up. Alas, immediately she noticed he was not well. The once happy vibrant horses was just a shadow of his former self.
She discovered through veterinary examination that U2’s mouth and jaw were severely damaged, he had spur marks and wounds, and was in very bad shape, both physically as well as mentally. At Academy Bartels, no one cared to give Lonneke an explanation as to why and how this happened.

I myself, in over two decades of being an equine rehab trainer can attest to the fact that many FEI prospects, ‘leave the backdoor’ of these high-end stables, very much in the same condition.
They have become physical and mental wracks, that need an enormous amount of rehabilitation, to be at least somewhat comfortable again.
These horses suffer lifelong damage from the so called ‘happy athlete’ treatment.

I did not know what else to do, then to educate people in a ‘horse first’ approach and how to recognize when horse are actually suffering, instead of being the ‘Happy Athlete’ they are portrayed to be by the (equine) press and the governing bodies such as the FEI.

Once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

It is my hope that enough people will stop supporting competition riders, with horses who are suffering. Empty stadiums, shall end the heavy sponsorship and with no large sums of money to be gained, there is no point in forcing and abusing horses, is there?

But Lonneke, she did what all horse caring people with the same experience should have done:
She took legal action!

Weirdly enough, the MSM turned against her. They never interviewed her, never asked for the evidence she presented. No, instead they attacked her and choose Bartels’ side, without question.

Why would that be?

Many fans of Bartels attacked her online. No one ever bothered to ask her what happened to U2 and why she was spending all this energy, time, and money, if not for good reason. No one bothered to ask her how U2 was doing. Lonneke had to endure a long journey of vitriol and bad press, constantly, for almost a decade!

The first judge took the same approach, completely ignoring the evidence.

But warrior Lonneke never gave up!

She appealed.

Finally, after 9 years, she was vindicated, that indeed U2 suffered lifelong injury, due to the way he was handled and trained at Bartels.
Three judges had taken part of the evidence in account, all though they did not want to hear any witnesses or appraiser, which is not in accordance with the law. Therefore, Lonneke was not compensated for the huge financial loss she suffered. Nevertheless, she is satisfied with the ruling, as now, she has legal proof that U2 suffered his injuries at the hands of so called professional and widely celebrated equestrian sport establishments and trainers.

So why do it? And why is it important?

It is important because this is the first court case which delivers legal proof, that a horse in the presumed best high end equestrian sport care, has suffered lifelong damage, as a result of that care and that the so-called training establishment, dismissed as nothing abnormal.

This now opens the possibility to other equine victims and their humans to go to court and present their evidence in the same manner.
However, that is not all, what is even more important, is that Lonneke was able to present her case at the Dutch House of Representatives. Member Dion Graus has taken the evidence from U2’s court case as cause, to open up an investigation into harmful practices and training aids, used on sport horses. This means that the Dutch government is now investigating animal welfare, or rather the lack there off within professional and amateur equestrian sports.

This can mean that in the future, animal welfare laws will be applied to Equestrian sport and horse training. Cases like that of U2 can then be brought to the DA and perpetrators such as Academy Bartels can be formerly charged with animal cruelty. I will keep you posted on this.

The Netherlands is not the only country where things are stirring!
This is why I follow up closely on the Helgstrand case. When the undercover video that is made at Helgstrand’s will be allowed as evidence in court. That establishment too, can be charged with many cases of animal cruelty. The first judge ruled that the undercover footage may be uses for showing on television. Helgstrand appealed. Hopefully the next judge will again rule in favour of the undercover journalist.
Furthermore, Blue Horse, is sizing down notably and Viegaard Stutteri has gone bankrupt. During the curator raid, many dead equine bodies were dug up from the grounds. What horrors have gone on here? Sadly, the remaining horses are sold off as commodities, and exactly this has got to change. Horses are not commodities, they are living, breathing beings with intelligence and self-awareness. They form close family bond, and they can suffer both mentally as physically. Investigation such as are going on within the Dutch Government can change this!

I hereby call everyone who has witnessed any forms of cruelty and has evidence as such, to file a police report. If enough of us start doing this, things will start to change.
Let us all take action and no longer allow our beloved, innocent horses to be abused and damaged. We owe it to them! They have serviced us with their lives for thousands of years.

You are not alone, we are legion and we are the

I let Lonneke tell the rest of her story via the link below.
Please drop her social media a visit and thank her for her relentless fight for U2 and for all the horses in the future!

More info links in comments