#74 Restoring the whole horse with osteopath Lorre Mueller

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In this episode, we're talking with Lorre Mueller, a registered equine osteopath and certified Masterson Method practitioner.

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Osteopathy is a way of life because you can use it to look at so many different aspects of life. It doesn't have to just be about the body.

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Welcome to the Equestrian Connection podcast from Wehorse. My name is Danielle Crowell and I'm your host. Lorre Mueller is a registered equine osteopath graduating from the Vlugin Institute for Equine Osteopathy in September 2014. Lorre has also been a certified Masterson Method Practitioner since 2010 and was an instructor, mentor, and coach for the Masterson organization for several years. And she's also trained in myofascial release. Today we'll be chatting about osteopathy, fascia, TMJ, and how imbalances in the mouth can affect movement, as well as the connection between teeth and feet, self-healing, and the importance of relaxation for release. There's a lot to cover, so let's get started. Lorre, welcome to the WeHorse podcast. As I mentioned to you earlier, osteopathy is very near and dear to my heart, so I'm really, really excited to chat with you today. So welcome.

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Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Osteopathy is pretty near and dear to my heart. It really changed my whole thinking in my world. I mean, osteopathy was the big pivot for me when I learned it.

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Yeah. How did you get started with this?

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Well, like so many people, honestly, in this industry, it was a horse of my own and she had lots of physical problems. And I started out with massage, actually. And so I was having somebody come and massage her all the time. And I thought this would kind of be interesting to go learn. And then I could help my own horse. And I mean, she was obviously put in my life for a reason because she got me here. But so I just started doing some of my own stuff and it just, It just piqued my interest. I'm kind of an anatomy nerd. And so I just wanted to keep learning more and more and more. And I went and learned myofascial release. And then I learned the Masterson method and I taught for them for years. And and then osteopathy came. I was having clients that were going to see this osteopath that was in Texas. His name's Yannick Blugen and he had a school. And so once I started going and listening to him and hearing him and seeing the differences and the changes in the horses and most of the horses that were ending up in front of him were horses that they thought there was no hope for. And he made incredible changes. And just by knowing all of the anatomy and the physiology and then, I mean, just to know all the parts just made so much more sense to me. Nothing happens in the body in isolation. And I was just like, hmm, I think I have to learn this osteopathy thing. So I just went full tilt and went to his school. And it was really hard, but I loved every minute of it. And it has just, it changed my life.

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my practice huge like it just made all the sense to be able to put all the pieces together and so can you tell us a little bit about your horse the one that it really pushed you towards this Yeah.

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So she had she was a big Appaloosa and she was probably one of the ugliest horses on the planet. Her parts didn't match like she just didn't have good confirmation. But when I watched her move, it was stunning. And I just thought, oh, my God, I want to ride that horse. And so I ended up buying her and it was probably not the smartest decision, but again, she got me here. But it became so apparent. She went up and down in our whole, I bought her at five and I put her down at 23 and lots of up and downs in that time period where she was really sound and really strong. And we, you know, would show a little bit or trail ride or whatever I wanted to do with her. And then she would crash. And so I could never truly figure out why. But osteopathy helped immensely. Um, and then what really I ended up finding out was when I recovered her skeleton, cause I composted her and retrieved her skeleton. Um, she had ECVM and she was one of the worst cases of it. Um, she, I worked with Pamela Echobarger and Sharon May Davis and, um, she, they had her, her lower neck vertebra for quite some time in her first ribs because she had one of the worst. She had bilateral transposition with a rudimentary first rib. She had 19 thoracic vertebra. Her lumbar really fused. And so I look at her skeleton and I go, how the heck did she move as beautifully as she moved when she was strong? But yeah, Yeah. I mean, it was, it was such a journey, but I got here. I mean, I changed, I tried all kinds of crazy things with her to try to improve her and, you know, all kinds of crazy shoeing and it, it never worked. It was crutches. And so, um, When I could keep her strong, and it's really interesting because with the ECVM, they've really discovered there's a lot of vets that are really doing a lot of good research and rehab with the ECVM horses, and they're really finding the worst of cases like hers, if it's bilateral, They can tend to do still pretty well because even though it's wrong, it's still symmetrical for them. So it's the ones that have the asymmetries that only have the one-sided things that are really difficult to rehab because they just can't build the strength. So I did really well with her for quite a while. Her big thing was she absolutely flat out, she would not go downhill. And even on her own, she would never go downhill. She would transverse it. And you'd think that would have been big red flags, but, you know. You only can see certain things on your own horses. You get kind of blinded on your own horses.

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Absolutely. Absolutely. Can you give a really quick overview for our listeners as to what ECVM is, if anybody isn't sure?

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Yeah. So ECVM is equine complex vertebral malformation. And so it is a malformation of C6 and C7. C6 is the only vertebra in the neck that has these ventral lamina, these ventral processes on the bottom of the vertebra. And there are specific attachments for the longest coli thoracic portion of it, the longest coli muscle. And with ECVM horses, portions of that can be missing only one side, maybe even just a small fraction of one side. um and then you have transposition too where those missing parts might be transposed to the bottom of c7 and so you can have partials you can have you know unilateral side where the whole thing is transposed or just missing you can have bilateral like my horse where she transposed the entire process to the bottom of c7 so now those attachments of that very important muscle because it stabilizes the lower neck um are set back a whole vertebra. And then she had rudimentary first ribs, so little tiny first ribs that then just had a filament that attached to the sternum. So Sharon and Pamela have, you know, identified so many variations. And they've categorized it, like Sharon has a whole, you know, mapping and categorization of the deformity or the malformations. Yeah.

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There's for anybody listening, there's a lot of research that Sharon May Davis has done and some YouTube videos and things like that. And it really opens the eyes towards breeding practices, in my opinion, as well. So it's really important work and it's important for even if you're not breeding, even if you're you know, you have a perfectly healthy horse or anything like that. It's important to learn and to be aware of.

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It really is, and it's important to understand that these horses are born with this. They're still working on the genetic component of it. They don't have all that research. It's very expensive to do the research with the genetics, so they haven't finished that. Pam's working on that, but she's used a lot of bloodlines and stuff to see patterns, but you can't say... Absolutely. Yeah, that it's because of that. But I mean, the signs are there. Yeah. But yeah, Sharon May Davis's research is it's just fantastic. And then Pam's website, Equisoma and her. Her place in South Carolina, too, if anybody that's listening has a chance and they're in South Carolina, go visit the bone room because she's got so many specimens of ECVVM. And then just other skeletons that have all kinds of abnormalities that are just interesting. And some of those horses are really in their 20s and 30s and lived their whole lives with these abnormalities and did their jobs and everything. I protested, but we didn't really understand it. Yeah. Yeah. They just kept going. Yeah.

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I say all the time on this podcast, it's like once we know better, we do better. And a lot of times we look back on things and it can bring up feelings of like guilt or shame. And it's like, well, we just didn't know any better. And the thing is that now we're starting to we're starting to learn more. And so therefore we can do better. So it's like the more we learn, the more we're aware of these things, the more we can do better for ourselves and for our horses.

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Absolutely. Spot on.

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One of the things that I loved on your website mentioned about just like allowing nature to be part of the healing. Yeah. And I love that about osteopathy as well. And my mayor... Um, she like seven years ago, we started having some issues. There just started seeming like there was just something off. Um, her personality started changing. Her behavior was different. Her performance was different. It just, it was like, what's going on here? What's what's up. And, um, no one could figure it out. I like you. I tried everything. I hired every professional you could think of. I tried modern medicine. I tried alternative practices, um, I tried everything. And it started to make me feel like I was crazy because no one could find anything. And I actually had one professional who's a health care professional because I was like, maybe it's in her feet. Like maybe her health balance is off.

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Like, you know, like there's got to be something here.

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And he said her only issue is between her ears.

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And I thought, like, come on, we have to do different.

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We have to be doing something different in the industry, both for the horses and also for the amateur horse owners, which I consider myself. You know, like we know our horses and we know if there's something different about them. We know if there's something off. And to just be brushed aside and things like that was really, really hard for me. And, um, I was finally introduced to an osteopath in 2021. And when I say that osteopathy changed everything and it saved my horse's life, um, I don't say that lightly. Um, it, we, she, I say we, as in I did something with it, but I mean, like, I feel like my energy was, was really, you know, going out there to help my horse heal. But, um, she was able to realign her pelvis, which helped her spine, which, you know, as you know, everything is connected to everything. It doesn't mean that it's just the source or it's just like the one thing that we see. It can be something completely different. So combining osteopathy with pasture time to just let my horse be a horse and let nature be heal her as well and let her heal herself, have that autonomy and have that empowerment to also heal herself as well, um, was so impactful. It changed everything for me as a horse person. It changed everything for me as a woman. It changed everything for me as a human being. Um, I just, it was just so cool. And I feel like that doesn't explain it enough, but it's all, it's the words that I can say is that it's just so powerful. Cool.

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I love osteopathy.

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I just think it's so cool.

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Yes, I would have to agree with you. Because honestly, osteopathy is a way of life because you can use it to look at so many different aspects of life. It doesn't have to just be about the body. But I'll tell you what, those phrases, it's between their ears. And I think probably my least favorite is, well, they've always done that. Yeah. OK, so that still doesn't make it right just because they've always done it. So let's get to the root of this. But I think Andrew Taylor still is the founder of osteopathy. And that was during the Civil War, believe it or not. I mean, it was osteopathy has been around for a long time and chiropractic grew out of osteopathy. And one of his, he had a lot of profound sayings. You can just look up Andrew Taylor still quotes and you'll get a bazillion of them. But one of my favorites is find it, fix it, leave it alone, let nature do the rest. And that second, you know, that last part of it is what we forget all the time. And even I feel my owners, trainers, clients, whatever, kind of trapping me in the box of the first part. Because they kind of think I'm a magician and I'm going to come and fix it. I'm going to find it and I'm going to fix it. And then they just get to carry on and do their part, you know, do whatever they want to do with the horse. Well, it doesn't work like that. That's not how the body works. The body has to have time to integrate those changes because an osteopath adjusts. But those adjustments are just an impulse to the body. It's just a little nudge to say, hello, can we change how this is working? That's what a supplement is. That's what medicine is. it's changing the allostatic load in their body. That's what medicine does. So we have, now I'm going to get off on a whole tangent, but we have things that happen in the body that bring up the load in the body. The homeostasis and the allostasis can't respond. So you need to do an impulse. You need to adjust something. You need to add a supplement. You need to add medication because you need to bring that load back down so that homeostasis can be restored. And so we never get to that second part in a lot of cases. People just want to fix it and then not do the rest. And that includes, like you said, giving that horse the ability to move. Motion is the lotion. And so you can restore the mobility, but if you don't give the horse the time to go move and use the new body – They may not implement those changes. So, you know, and that's the other piece, too, that we don't look at these horses as having a choice. We make these changes and we think they're just going to take it and do something good with it. Well, they might not. They might do something bad with it. We might have kicked their crutches out from underneath them. And now they can't adapt to those changes. Or we add a supplement and we get great changes and then we leave them on it for their life. And then the body doesn't do its thing anymore. We're supposed to give the body an impulse. Let it adapt. Let it make the changes. Sometimes it goes wrong. You know, I've had horses that I've tried things with and they get worse. So then I know, oh, they need that crutch. Yeah. So I don't let them put that back in. And then we're going to try something different and see if we can – they might have to keep that adaptation. Maybe it's gotten so bad, you know, they've had structural changes, they need that crutch. And so then I need to leave it alone. But then I can find other ways that I can help that horse adapt so that it doesn't get worse. So there's still things you can do in bad cases, but – That second part is so crucial. And unfortunately, far too many horses live in a box and don't have turnout and don't have a good diet and don't have good feet and teeth. And they don't have all of the pieces that can help them adapt to those new things. So that's one of my absolute favorite things. And we have to really get owners focused and trainers and You know, thinking about that second part of it, give them time. I always, with my clients, I always ask them to give the horse three or four days. No riding. They can move them in a gentle way so that the horse can see, oh, that feels different. Maybe I'm going to use that. Maybe I'm going to start adapting right away. But they can move them in a controlled way so that they can see they can actually move those things. Yeah. And then let them go, yeah, I like this. I'm going to use this. Yeah. But they want to just go right back to riding the next day or they have a show the next weekend and it's Wednesday, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So it can be really tough. I have to reinforce all the time that I'm not a magician. I need their help to achieve the things we really want to achieve.

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Absolutely. I love that.

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Yeah.

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I also want to speak about the whole horse. So... A lot of horse people, horse professionals, focus on the impacted area. So, for example, let's say a horse's left hind isn't tracking up fully, and so they're focusing on what's going on in the left hind, as an example. Can you speak to the importance of looking at the whole horse?

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Absolutely. So, first of all, we have to say it could be the left hind. There's no doubt. Absolutely. But it might not be as well. And so when you look at the whole horse, you can just check things off the list. So and you can try to get to, oh, wow, it really is the left hind. But looking at the whole horse gives you the ability to say, hmm, is it someplace further away and they're just showing it in their left hind right now? Because honestly, nothing happens in the body in isolation. Right. I can't have a conversation about osteopathy without talking about fascia. I mean, fascia, fascia, fascia, fascia is truly everything. And so it's the fascial system that could be, you know, making those changes that you're seeing it in the left time, but the anchor or the problem might be somewhere else. And it's just showing in the left time. So, If you don't look at the whole body, you miss all those pieces. And like you said, you just focus on the left side. You know, is it the diagonal pair? Is it something in their feet? Is it something in their teeth? Is it something in the cranial sacral system? Is it an organ? Because organs play a big part in our bodies and we don't, You don't hear, unless you're talking to an osteopath, you don't hear anything about the organs impacting motion. Right. So, you know, I'm trying to think if I can give you an example that would relate to a left hind possibly. So, you know, mare parts, so an ovary. could impact a left hind because the neurology, the information from that ovary is getting reported to the lumbar spine, in particular L1, 2, and 3. But all of your proprioceptive information, all the information from your muscles are all coming into that lumbar spine too, and from your joint capsules are coming into the lumbar spine as well. So, hmm. so can an ovary issue and then the fascia on top of that if that ovary is really stuck and it's pulling that horse into a left bend what how is it going to affect that left hind yeah so you have to think about all those but again it could be the left hind you could have a stifle problem you could have a hip problem you could have a pelvis that's shifted so But it's that whole limb. It's not a stifle joint or a hip joint in isolation. It's going to trickle down or trickle up. I'll just tell you, I was just this past Sunday, I was walking around all day with my husband and my hip really started to kill me. And I could feel my body adjusting to try to compensate. And I was trying to walk straight and I couldn't. It was really amazing. And then by the end of the day, my knee was hurting. My back was hurting. I could feel my neck starting to hurt at the end of the day. I was like, huh. Yeah. Just from my hip joint hurting. Yeah. So it was just trickling up and down, actually. Yeah. And start to impact the whole system. And that's because of the fascia. Yeah. Because it's just going to adjust to compensate for the pressure and for the tension that's being created in my body. Absolutely. And that happens to our horses all the time. And we don't think about... And gravity is not fair to a horse. Because they're longitudinal. It's really not fair to a horse.

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I'm going to give a... like a real-time example as well of the fascia and how it plays an impact. So Mike Gelding, when he was really young, this is before I had him, he got his leg caught in a fence. And he has a gnarly scar, like going all the way around his hock and in the front. It's very ugly, but he's completely sound. And I had him vetted when I first got him. It's fine. And I thought, okay, it's just an ugly leg. That's fine. I'm totally fine with an ugly leg. So that was three years ago. And in that amount of time, I've been noticing him resting the scarred leg a lot. And he'll, like, him and my mare, they live out 24-7. And I'll see them, like, moving around and doing whatever. And then all of a sudden, he'll just stop and rest his leg. And I thought, oh. are you getting arthritic in that leg? You know, you obviously had a really, you know, severe trauma to that leg at one point in your life. Is it starting to affect you? So I had it x-rayed in last winter and it x-rayed completely clean, no issues whatsoever. And my vet was like, yeah, no, good to go. Like he can, he can keep doing whatever. It just must be a habit. And I thought, well, let me explore this a little bit more. And I'm just going to call in my osteopath and just see if there's like anything going on. And right away she was like, oh, it's the fascia around that scarring. It's all like really, really tight and constricted. And she was able to just relax the fascia, release it. And he was able to fluidly move that leg again without issue. Both him and my mare do need fluid. maintenance twice a year with some osteopathy, which I'm more than happy to have them do. And it's just a regular upkeep. But it was really interesting that if I hadn't considered osteopathy or the fascial impact, I would have been like, okay, cool. I'll just keep x-ray clean. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. And it may have been bothering him without my awareness.

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Yes, absolutely. I have exactly one of those horses, too. Got stuck in a barbed wire fence. I mean, we had to cut him out of the fence. So same thing, horrible scars. And you have to remember that that's going to be an anchor his entire life. But you can make it so that he has adaptation possibilities. So, yes, it's going to be an anchor, but you can keep the tissue as soft as you can. All of the fascia it's attached to. Keep it soft and pliable as much as you possibly can so it doesn't become a problem. It doesn't have to be a problem. He will always have the scar. You will always have that scar tissue. But you can do stuff to the rest of the fascial system that will help it adapt easier. And then I will add to that for me with that horse of my own, what became the biggest problem and still is the biggest problem was his other hind limb.

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Yeah. A lot of competition.

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Yeah. Yeah. He stood on that hind limb for four months, not weight bearing at all on the other limb while it healed. And that is once he could weight bear on the injured leg, that's where I actually went to work first was on the other limb and got those joints moving and Because they were getting really stiff, and he was compensating really bad. And I didn't want him to get arthritis in that hip joint, in that hock, and in that stifle, because he had stood on it for months. And so that's where he actually, once he could weight bear, it wasn't so bad on that limb, right? But the other limb was really sore.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I'm so glad that you added that. It's absolutely a great, great point.

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Yep. Absolutely. But that's how the body works. It's what it's built to do. It will protect itself no matter what. Yeah. Yeah. So we have to find all those things. and help them function as best we can so that the whole system functions.

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You've mentioned teeth a few times. I know for me growing up with horses, it was always like, yeah, you just get your horse's teeth done, you know, every year, every two years. And it's the same thing as vaccines. Like, it's just you just do it. Like, it's there wasn't a lot of explanation. It was just something you checked off. There's not a lot of, at least in my opinion. a lot of knowledge and awareness of the impact on the, you know, the teeth can impact on the body. So can you speak about the importance of the balance of the teeth and the TMJ and how that relates to the rest of the body?

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You are, but that might be a whole podcast.

[SPEAKER 2]
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Yeah, I might have to get you back for that.

[SPEAKER 1]
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So just briefly, and then we can always schedule another. So I'll tell you what, you hear all these years, you've always heard, you know, no foot, no horse. Well, I always say no foot, no teeth, no horse, because teeth have just as big, teeth and TMJ and hyoid have just as big an influence on the body as the feet. And it goes both ways.

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Can you just, for our listeners, explain what the hyoid is?

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Yeah, so the hyoid apparatus is exactly that apparatus. It's seven bones that are all together, little tiny bones that attach to the temporal bones. And it's the base for the tongue. And other things, too, because you have your trachea going through your esophagus. You have the thyroid cartilages that are attached to that hyoid. But it's in your throat latch area in the horse. And so it's the base of your tongue. In any animal, actually, that is longitudinal, they have big, long stylohyoid bones that attach to the skull, that are attached to the temporal bones. In us, we don't have that. We just have the basihyoid part that attaches to our tongue. And then we have ligaments that attach it to C2 and 3. But that's where our Adam's apple is. Our Adam's apple is our thyroid cartilage. And so... Those all have to function properly too and move in the same way as the jaw. So when the tongue's moving in and out, when we're talking, when they're chewing, when they're moving that tongue, that hyoid apparatus is moving. It's little tiny joints that are all moving. But it has to be connected to the skull because it would fall out of the head for any animals that are longitudinal. So it has to be connected. And that's where we get into a lot of problems for the horses is that connection, that joint that articulates with the temporal bones. So that has to be functioning. It sits right on the... medial side of the temporal mandibular joint or our TMJ joint, and that's the joint between your mandible and your temporal bone, that has to be functioning. And there's a disc in there that can get displaced, kind of like our meniscus in our knee. But the most important part that helps balance all that is the teeth themselves. And so... And when I say teeth, I say all the teeth. There's so many dentists out there that don't even touch incisors. And that boggles my mind because the incisors are actually the balance for the mouth, are the balance for the TMJ. So the dentists I work with actually balance the incisors first. And then they decide what they're going to do with the molars because it may change how the molars make contact once they've... you know, leveled those incisors and make them make proper contact. So that's what I struggle with, I think, most. And I'm not a – there's a big debate right now with power floating versus hand floating. If I had my choice, I would probably pick a hand floater. But we have to realize that it's the hands those tools are in. So you might not have access to a good hand floater because they're far and few between. And so your next best option might be your vet, and they do power float. I don't meet very many vets that don't power float. But as long as the hands that are controlling those tools are soft and they know how much they can take off, then they know where to take it off, and they're doing incisors, I'm okay with power tools. Not my first choice, but a good floater, a good veterinarian, or a good equine dentist that knows how to use those tools are effective. And, you know, I think I have to add here, too, that We've kind of put those practitioners in a box by we don't want to spend a lot of money on dentistry. We don't want to. We think that it should only be done once a year and we just want to spend that money once a year. And so when we put our equine dentists or veterinarians or whatever in that box that they're only going to be able to look at that horse once a year, They may be tempted, whether they're hand floaters or power floaters, to take off more tooth than they necessarily would want to because they're not going to see that horse for another year. And so they don't want them to get sharp points and have problems before they can see them again. So if we started to change our thinking as horse owners and whether they need to be done at that six-month mark, at least if we're checking them every six months, To make sure, then maybe all that dentist has to do is knock off a couple points. They don't have to do this huge float. And that horse stays in better function than if they're having these big floats once a year. So it's like your trimming cycle. If you stick more to a four-week cycle... you're just mostly rasping and cleaning things up and you're not taking a lot of that hoof off. But if you're on a six or eight or 10 week cycle, you're taking a lot of foot off. And so then that horse has to adapt to that and it might not be as easy. Yeah. So, um, Did that answer your question?

[SPEAKER 2]
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Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing is the connection between the teeth and the feet, which I mean, like I know for myself, especially learning more and more and more about how big of an impact the feet actually have on the horse's posture. And so I'd love if you could speak to the connection as well between the teeth and the feet.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:35:06-00:42:17]
it's fascia. Um, and so there's superficial fascia, there's deeper fascia, there's, there's a midline fascia. So there's all these, and if you really want, I mean, fascia could be three or four podcasts, my gosh. Um, but, I mean, they're doing fascial research every day, and it's changing every day, honestly. And now they're understanding even more, and it's, you know, the biotensegrity of fascia in the human body, in bodies, is just a different concept. Because when they first started researching fascia, they really, tensegrity was the word, and it was more based on architecture and how mechanical things work. And now they're finding that the biotensegrity is so different and that it's an entire system that can just respond to tension and pressure. And it can respond anywhere in the body. I think fascia is just amazing. It's an organ all on its own. It really is. It's a communication system. And then, you know, by doing dissections, I've learned to see – how different the fascia is. You have really strong fascial connections that are really fibrous. You have other ones that are really loose connective tissue that allow things to really slide and move. You have a lot of fat in the fascia sometimes, which gives even more lubrication and protection, especially in areas like where there's the brachial plexus coming out, so that it can protect those organs. But all the nerves, the vessels, the blood vessels, everything runs in fascia. Our muscles are in fascia. It's not that fascia wraps around everything. It's that fascia is the thing and everything else is just contained within it. So if the fascia is not moving, we have problems. So that's the connection between the feet and the teeth. But then to think about the angles, that's where we start to get in trouble. If you don't have your feet balanced properly, it's going to change the posture and the adaptations are happening in the fascia. But then you're going to have repercussions on joints, on how organs are situated because the postural changes. You're going to have changes on how your jaw sits in your head. So now we're going to have teeth that are changing. Cause if our jaw slides, I mean, we can do simple things right now and just, if you slide your jaw backwards, you feel the changes immediately in your spine. Like your, your neck adapts immediately. If you slide your jaw forward, like a bulldog would be, you feel the changes in your spine immediately. And so it's really a shame that there's not a lot of, um, research being done in these things in horses. Um, There's tons, like you can go, you know, Google TMJ dysfunction and posture, and you will find a bazillion articles on how it changes our posture. But you don't find all that research in horses. And then we have the added complications of putting a metal bar in their mouth and leveraging their jaw. And we don't think that that's going to make changes in the body, in our TMJ. It's just, and how those changes are going to affect the feet. Because that's what it is. It's just adaptation. When they say feet and teeth are connected, it's because of the posture. It's because of the proprioception. So if teeth are not balanced... Oh, we have to get into anatomy lesson here. So we'll just do a quick one. So teeth are, they report all their sensory information through the trigeminal nerve, which is your cranial nerve five. So you can just think about if your teeth make contact, you immediately know the pressure that's being reported to the brainstem. Because of that tension, you can actually your teeth are actually supposed to have movement. So like if you were to grab if you guys are out there listening right now, grab just one tooth in your mouth and just try to wiggle it back and forth. You'll feel little tiny movement at the root of that tooth and you should have that motion. And at that root is where there's fibers that report that sensory information. And so if our teeth are making contact, it's reporting that information. If it's a proper contact, fantastic. But if it's too strong a contact, now those receptors are firing like crazy. That's too much, that's too much, that's too much. But what if horses have grown, their teeth have erupted too much and they're making too much contact or they have sharp points that are affecting their cheeks? And that same sensory information is getting reported through trigeminal And so now we start to adapt and change our posture just because of the pressure on our teeth or because of pain in our cheeks and how we're holding our head and neck. And now that's trickling down through our spine. And now we're changing where we're putting our feet because we can't take that pressure. So that's how the feet and the teeth are connected. It makes total sense. And it's all about our posture. Yeah. And how our body is adapted to, posture is, it's pretty cool. So your proprioception, a big part of our proprioceptive system is to keep our eyes level. We can't operate, and the same thing for a horse. We can't operate if our eyes are not seeing the horizon level. It's very disorienting to us. We can't function like that. So just think if you wake up in the morning and you had a really bad night sleeping, your pillow was not in the right spot, and you have this really bad kink in your neck, and you can't straighten your neck. Well, now your eyes are not level. So you're going to adapt somewhere in your body to get your eyes level. That might be at your hips or your pelvis. That might be at your shoulders. Somewhere else your body is going to adapt to get those eyes level. And that's what happens all the time. If our feet are out of balance, we're changing that input. Now we have to adjust to get our head straight. If our teeth are out of balance, the same things go in the other direction. So... Yeah, we got to get it right. We got to get eaten teeth. And I say all the time, teeth are not just for eating. I think far too many, and I don't want to dish the veterinarians, but I think far too many veterinarians just think teeth are for eating and chewing. And it's so much more than that. And we have to get that part of it correct. Yeah. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:42:18-00:42:31]
Yeah, a lot of our vets around here, they think that horses can just be on a two-year cycle for teeth. Yeah, and it's like, ah! You almost have to request to get their teeth done.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:42:31-00:42:34]
And here I'm telling you that we should go to a six-month.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:42:34-00:43:33]
Right, but again, it's one of those things where, as horse owners, I really believe that we need to learn this so that we advocate for our horses. Because if we have... you know, somebody else just telling us something, then we take that for the word. We take that for the way it should be versus if we really go deep. If everything's on a surface level, then we just see it at surface level. But if we go deep into these topics, then we can understand and then advocate for our horses, which is exactly why I love having people like yourself on the podcast. Speaking of which, not only do I love to empower horse owners with information like what we've discussed, but also with tangible things they can then take away from listening and go and apply it to their horses. So what are some things that we can look at in our horses to see if there are any imbalances, like assessing their posture, to see if there's a postural imbalance or anything like that?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:43:35-00:46:22]
There's some really simple, easy things you can do to see. As soon as I walk up to a horse, I'm already assessing all of that. I will ask them to move their horse so that I can see how they're loading different limbs. One really simple thing that owners can do, if they're by themselves, they can do it by themselves. They may have to walk backwards sometimes. But just ask the horse to walk. I don't know. I do odd numbers. So maybe five or seven times, something like that. So walk the horse, you know, a few steps, whatever. Ask them to stop. Observe how do they load their feet? Are they stopping square? Are they stopping out of balance? Where are those limbs? Are their diagonal pairs out of balance? Are... you know, are both right limbs underneath them on the right side so that they're supporting that right side? How do they stop and support themselves? And do that five or seven times, however many times you want. I do it in odd numbers so that you can see if there's a pattern. And if you do it even number of times, you're going to have an even number of patterns sometimes. So the odd number. And if they stop square, fantastic. If they stop square three or four times, awesome. But if they're not stopping in patterns, you have to keep going until you see a pattern emerge. And so how does that horse feel best to support itself when it stops? So that's a really easy way to see how they're loading their limbs. It will give you an idea of where the pole is because they're going to be pulled in the direction where there's most tension. That's how they're going to be loading. So if they stop like with that example of both right hinds underneath, they're more bent to the right and they have to support that. So that's a really simple way to do it. Then just actually ask your horse to square up. and let them stand square for a minute or so, do they actually stay square? Because far too many horses want to move a foot or two feet. They have to find their balance. Square is not balanced for them. So that's another pattern you can see emerge, is if they just rearrange themselves automatically, It's not comfortable to stand square. It's not normal to their body. If they will stand square, then look how they're standing on those limbs. A really easy way to do it is to see, are their cannon bones perpendicular to the ground? A lot of horses stand like goats on a rock. They'll stand square with all four feet under themselves, but they're not in a good position. So they might be like a goat on a rock.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:46:23-00:46:43]
And I just want to give the visual because I remember when I first heard the goat on a rock, I was like, what? And then once you see it, you can't unsee it. So it's like if their legs are tucked under themselves. If you think of your horse and yeah, their front legs are tucked in behind their shoulder line and their back legs are tucked in behind their hip line.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:46:44-00:46:50]
Correct. Yep. Or you can visualize, like, you go to the circus and you see an elephant balancing on a ball.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:46:50-00:46:51]
Yes. Yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:46:52-00:49:03]
That's goat on a rock. Like, they have all their limbs underneath themselves. And it can be in different variations. Like, they can be really underneath themselves, or they can just be slightly underneath themselves. But... That's still going to give you an indication that something's not right. Something's not balanced because they should be able to stand square with their cannon bones perpendicular to the ground. And so the other thing I look at, too, is their hairline on their at their coronary band. Is it really angled? It should be somewhat. There's always going to be an angle more lower in the back of the coronary band where it's attaching to the heel bulbs. There should be a slight angle, but it shouldn't be really angled. So if those angles of those coronary bands are really sloped, then the angle of that foot is probably not correct. Okay. And those ones tend to be really the only way you could truly know if there's something going on in that foot. If there's negative plantar angles or negative palmar angles is to x-ray the feet. But that could give you a little indication that I might need to talk to my farrier, to my veterinarian. This doesn't look good. And then I always look at where are they placing their head. Do they want to just hang their head neutral? And when I visualize neutral, I think about the top of the head being level with the top of the withers. That to me is natural posture. Just relaxed posture. They're just hanging. If their head's way too low or way too high, they're using that neck and head to counterbalance whatever's going on in their body. Yeah. So those are some really simple things that you can observe naturally. And then start to talk to your body worker or osteopath or. Yeah, there's other ways, too. We can talk about a little bit more if they come up in some of the other questions or whatever about looking at their teeth for them. You know, owners, there's really simple ways you can look at some of the things in the mouth.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:49:05-00:50:19]
I think I want to have you on and do a whole podcast on the teeth. uh, but those are, those are also helpful. And, um, keeping like a log book as well. So it's like, it's one thing I know myself, I'm, I'm guilty of this is that you look at your horse and you're like, Oh, I'll remember this. Like you just, you just assume, Oh yeah, I'll just keep note of this. And then life happens and you just get distracted with other things. And you're trying to remember exactly when or exactly how, um, So keeping like a little log book at the burn or, you know, snapping photos, things like that. Those are all really helpful as well. So that you do have, it's like you have the receipts to show your vet or to show your farrier, to show a body worker and to say, here's how my horse stands a lot. You know, I've taken some photos or I've made these notes to say that these are the things that I've observed after exercise, before exercise, after they've come out of the stall, you it's all really helpful so that it's not just going, um, let me, let me remember. And then you're maybe not fully being able to give your body worker, vet, farrier, et cetera, all the information that could really help your horse.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:50:20-00:51:09]
I agree. That's such a really good idea. And then, you know, as me as an osteopath coming and I'm getting that information all up front, it's just so refreshing. I love to have owners like that that are so accurate with their observations because they're Oftentimes I start feeling the body and feeling different restrictions and I start asking more questions and then they go, oh, yeah, right. He fell last year. And yeah, exactly. You know, it just doesn't even come on the radar because you don't think it's an issue because they pop right up and they keep going and you don't think it's an issue. but yet I can feel it in the tension in the body. And so, yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's a great way. And it just, then you don't, it holds us all accountable.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:51:11-00:52:29]
Absolutely. My husband, he has a chiropractor appointment today and he's never done a single form of body work in his entire life. And, um, He's a carpenter by trade and he works, he's a service technician. So he goes and he does warranty for like people's windows and doors. So he's using his body all the time and he's never had any form of body work. And this past fall he actually fell off a ladder and he ended up getting a ton of stitches in his hand and he had this huge bruise going all the way down his rib cage. But he wasn't, he was like, Oh, I was like, my ribs are fine. Like it doesn't hurt at all. It just looks gross, but it's fine. His concern was his hand. And the other day he was like, oh, yeah, I'm kind of feeling like this weird feeling in my neck and shoulders that I've never really felt before. And so when he was filling out his pre-evaluation, like to go to the Cairo, I said, make sure you tell her about your fall. And he was like, why? Like, it doesn't matter. I was fine. I was like, you had a really bad bruise. Like, you don't know that that didn't do something. It's important to give them all the information. It might be nothing. And she's like, okay, cool, whatever. But at least she knows. Like, just give her all the information.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:52:31-00:52:38]
That was a good idea. Yeah, I learned so much more than I've learned in real life. Yep.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:52:39-00:52:45]
I'm just treating my husband like the horses. I'm like, okay, I'm keeping a running diary of all of your falls and all of your things.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:52:46-00:54:07]
Great idea. It definitely had an impact because that, again, comes back to the fascia. Immediately, as soon as he made impact with the ground, his fascial system adjusted. Yep. To protect his body from worse damage. It adjusts instantaneously. And now it might have to stay there to protect that injury. And then we get better and we think we're fine. But your fascial system didn't go back to where it needed to be. It thinks it still needs to protect all that. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, body work is super important to help. I tell people if your horses take a fall, I tell my clients all the time, if they take a fall or an impact or anything, As long as it's not like injuries like our horses had with scarring and all that stuff, they have to first get well before I can really make changes. But I've had lots of horses that have taken falls, and I want to get to it as soon as I possibly can because I don't want that fascial system. Within reason, it might need to protect something, so I might not want to take it all away right away. But I might be able to take some of it away so that it doesn't become a problem, a worse problem further down the road. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:54:08-00:54:10]
Yeah. It's an acute injury. You don't want it to become chronic.

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:54:11-00:54:12]
Exactly.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:54:13-00:54:19]
You also mentioned dissections. And this is something I feel like a lot of people are like, what?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:54:19-00:54:20]
Whoa.

[SPEAKER 2]
[00:54:21-00:54:40]
But it's so important. So in your dissections, participants are able to observe, touch and move the different tissues and joints. So what knowledge or understanding do the participants of these dissections generally take away from them? And what was your inspiration behind the decision to host them?

[SPEAKER 1]
[00:54:42-01:03:17]
So I'll tackle the last part first. So I was doing a lot of dissections with fellow osteopaths when we were going through osteopathy school because we wanted to have a tangible way to learn it. And learning it from a book is not feasible for me. I'm a visual, hands-on kind of girl. That's how I needed to get it into my system. I needed to feel it. I needed to touch it. I needed to see it for real. I needed to see the relationships of the rest of the body. How did the fascia connect? How did the organs relate to things? And so learning all that in osteopathy school and then trying to see that in a book, it just wasn't working. Yeah. And so just when it would come available, we do do in at the Vlugan Institute where I went to school for the, for osteopathy, you're required to do dissections. So they do them in the school so that they can show you certain things, show you all the joints, show you how things show you all the organs. But, um, I wanted to see the fashion, look at it on a different level. And so as we were doing it, um, the gals i was with just said god lord your knowledge is just you're such an anatomy geek like you need to start teaching this stuff and i was like no no and we just kind of kept going on our path and they just kept poking me like no you really need to do this like people need to see this especially other body workers and horse owners and trainers and dentists and farriers and veterinarians honestly because i have a lot of vets that come to my dissections And they've just never looked at it through the lens of an osteopath or through the lens of the whole body concept. And so it's just that's how it started. And then there's other people like Sharon May Davis does great dissections. Yvonne Erotic Lang does amazing dissections. There's Bex Narn out there doing dissections. There's a lot of, I think Lindsay Fields does dissections. So there's a lot of people doing dissections. But I'm not quite sure if they're doing them like I am. I know that Sharon Mae Davis and Ivana are not because they prepared the horse the day before and all the organs are removed, the diaphragm's removed. You know, the horse is... Sorry to get graphic, but the horses all bled out really well so that you don't have bloody specimens that you're looking at. And I don't do that. The horses put down the morning of the first day of the dissection. And then we go through... The participants are a part of that whole process of taking all the organs out. They can see how actually thin the abdominal muscles are. They're so thin and that you can... To see that and understand that it's the fascia because the fascia of those abdominal muscles is incredibly strong and fibrous. And that's what's doing the most of the job is that fascia. But when people see how thin those muscles are, they're just like, oh, my gosh. and then to think about abdominal surgery like colic surgery or something and then when they start to see the organs come out and see how big they are how heavy they are now at that point the horse has been down a while they start to get gaseous because we're having decay already happening so they're much larger than they would be if you saw them right from the beginning but still it's a concept that they get to see them coming out where they are in the abdominal cavity And then the huge part of that for me as an osteopath is to look at the relationship of those organs to the rest of the body. So how do those organs attach to the diaphragm? Because the liver in particular is really strongly attached, but then you have the esophagus coming through the diaphragm. So it's It's attached through that hiatus, you know, and then onto the stomach. And so your stomach is very connected to the diaphragm. You have a ligament coming from the spleen that's very connected to the diaphragm. The spleen lays right up against the diaphragm. And then, of course, all the intestines. Holy cow. I mean, it's really, it's a lot. All the organs they estimate are about 300 pounds. Oh, my gosh. There's a third of your average horse's weight. is organs so to see all that and comprehend it is just phenomenal for people um and then we open up every joint capsule they get to see what the inside of joints look like they get to see what arthritis looks like they get to see if there's any kind of damage in the joints um we do a really cool experiment we do a couple really cool experiments so The very first thing we do that first morning while there's still, you know, not as much rigor setting in is we move a hind limb. And we just, I call it rowing. Somebody row that hind limb. And so we're just moving it into protraction and retraction. And we're, you know, moving the hip joint. And you get to see what the rest of the body's doing. I have people put their hands all over the horse's body and feel what they can feel when that motion's happening. And you actually see the head and the neck moving. when you're moving the hind limb so think you can see that motion happening in a dead animal think about what's happening in a live animal and um and then we actually play around we put a bit in the horse's mouth and we just put the bit in we don't do anything we just put the bit in but it's a snapple and so people are holding the ring on either side to just hold it in there And somebody moves the hind limb and you just ask the person, can you feel that motion in the bit? Well, sure they can. Cause you saw the head and the neck moving before we ever put a bit in there. They can absolutely feel that motion. And then we'll put pressure on that bit and ask the person moving the hind limb. Can you feel a difference in the motion of that hind limb with bit pressure? And then we go really extreme and we put a lot of pressure on, And we put the pole in a hyperflexion. And we ask that person a row, and what does that change? And these are just observations. I'm not drawing any conclusions, but they're pretty strong observations. So... And then one of my favorites is when we remove the hind limb, we've got most of the muscles off and we'll demonstrate what the stay apparatus does. And we stand the hind limb up on its hoof and then we just lock the stay apparatus into place. And then we ask somebody to try to flex the stifle and the hock. And you can't. Yeah. But then you just let that medial patella ligament slide over. There's a little tiny notch on the trochlea of the femur. You just let that slide back off of that notch, and then the whole limb just collapses in deflection. So for people to feel that in their own hands and that it takes very little pressure to lock that medial patella ligament into place, But it's a really good experiment to see when you have horses that have locking patellas or upward fixation of the patella, how that impacts the horse and what it feels like and looks like. And then we talk a lot about how you can make changes to that without surgeries and whatnot. But that's just a few of the things we do in the dissection. We do a whole lot of other things, too. But that real-world... look inside their bodies just gives people knowledge that they're never going to forget. My focus is really body workers. So they have a clearer picture of what they're putting their hands on, what they're moving, how it's all connected. And oh my God, when they see the fascia and the fascia and the fascia and the fascia and all the different layers of the fascia and the different types of fascia, that's a big, eye-opener too for a lot of people that participate.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:03:18-01:04:18]
Yeah, I can only imagine. I only have a few more questions for you because I want to be mindful of your time. But saying that the body workers is the main part of the dissection and like really helping them gain a deeper understanding. I personally have gathered from speaking with others that work within the body work industry that the industry can feel disheartening at times. And I can only imagine going to the dissections and gaining this deeper understanding of, you know, look how, you know, over flexing through, you know, the, the neck and pole can affect the rest of the body and all of these different things that we see in these ridden horses that nobody really considers. There are so many horses with imbalances physically, emotionally, energetically, and, um, so much stuff just going on within the industry. What keeps you feeling inspired in this line of work?

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:04:21-01:07:49]
That's a great question. So I would have to say, especially in the dissections, it's people's aha moments when they get to make those connections and they just, it's going to change their thinking forever. Yeah. And so we can start to impact this industry and make the changes we need to make and be advocates for these horses. Because so many of us know that things that are going on are not the right things for the horse. And it's hard to make those changes. So when you can see it in that realm and understand it, I tell people a lot, like, you have to put your chest up. You've got to walk into the wind. You've got to put your chest up, and we have got to start protecting these horses. And you've got to be brave and challenge the static quo because it's not fair what these horses are having to endure. And so and it it's hard. That's probably one of the biggest inspirational parts. But I just recently went through like I had this whole thing come crashing down on me like it was it was. I felt like I was starting to get jaded and I was not having an impact and I was not doing the work I was set out to do. And so I had to do a lot of soul searching. I really felt defeated. And why do I even bother to do this? And what I, the conclusion I had to make was that I had to call the herd. Like I had to get rid of the clients that were not willing to do their part. that were working with dentists possibly that I don't necessarily respect and that are doing harm to the horse or farriers or trainers. That's the, I think for me, that's a big challenge. Um, and I, I understand their perspective and that they have to show results to those people are hiring them and paying them to get the horse where they want to be because they have goals. But again, I don't care about that aspect of it. It has to be the horse first. And if owners and trainers are not willing to listen to that, then I had to make changes. And unfortunately, it breaks my heart because I had to give up on horses that I didn't want to give up on. But the human aspect of it was going to keep them in a bad place so I kind of felt like it was almost fairer to the horse to leave them in their dysfunction because at least they could brace against it at least they knew what to expect and they could you know tune it out and and get through it but when I constantly adjust things and make things better and they can go oh that's terrific But then they get ridden in the same bad way again. I feel like it's almost detrimental to them. I had to make really hard choices. And that was to work with people that want to put the horse first. And that's a hard place to be. But again, it's putting your chest forward and advocating for them because they don't have a voice.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:07:52-01:08:00]
I got chills so many times in that. Put your chest forward. Pick your chest up. I love that so much. So much.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:08:02-01:08:07]
We have to be brave. Yeah. They sure are. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:08:08-01:08:20]
Yeah, you're right. I've been asking a lot of people, what is your hope for the future of the equestrian industry? And I think you summarized it perfectly right there is that it's putting the horse first.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:08:20-01:08:33]
Yes, listening to the horses. In every aspect, like you said, physically, energetically, emotionally, mentally, like it's not just the physical part of it.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:08:34-01:08:34]
Yeah.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:08:36-01:08:41]
It has to be the whole horse, and that takes into account all those other aspects. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:08:42-01:09:20]
We just had, um, a guest on Stephanie Spielhopter. Um, she has, um, her company is science for soundness and, um, she has the saying that it's, it's working with soundness for your horse, but soundness isn't just physical. Soundness is the whole horse. Your whole horse has to be sound. And I just thought it was such a, a good way to summarize it. And, um, in a way that a lot of horse people can really understand, you know, we seek soundness from a physical perspective, but it's soundness and in all of the perspectives, emotionally, spiritually, energetically, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:09:20-01:09:25]
That's beautiful. It really is. Yeah.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:09:27-01:09:36]
Lori, we have four rapid fire questions that we ask every podcast guest. It's just like the first thing that pops to your mind. And the first one is, do you have a motto or favorite saying?

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:09:38-01:09:46]
I probably would have to say the find it, fix it, leave it alone, let nature do the rest. So good. It sums osteopathy up in a nutshell.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:09:48-01:09:51]
Who has been the most influential person in your equestrian journey?

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:09:53-01:11:18]
I can have two. Yeah. So I would have to absolutely say Yannick Lugin because he introduced me to osteopathy and it it changed my entire world and my career. And then I would have to say, because now I started doing the dissections, it's probably Yvonne Erotic Lang, who she just has this. I don't know, just this unrestrained curiosity to investigate the mysteries of the body. And she's just so inspiring. I follow her on her Patreon page. And she's very objective with it. And that's what I like. Because I like to try to be as objective as possible and keep my emotions out of it. Because we can get a little tainted. But it's hard to do that because you see some of the damage that the horse is... Yeah, I've endured and it makes you angry, but you still have to be objective because you can't, you know, it's that old. You can attract more honeys with or more bees with honey than vinegar. So you have to keep a really good outlook and objective when you're teaching. You can't you can't bring in those negative. You can point them out. But if we start just bashing the industry as a whole instead of lifting up the people that are trying to make changes. we're going to just turn people off. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:11:20-01:11:23]
If you could give equestrians one piece of advice, what would it be? I

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:11:27-01:11:39]
would probably have to say slow down, slow down. We just, we want everything so quick. And if we just slow down, we would go faster.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:11:41-01:11:42]
In so many ways.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:11:43-01:11:43]
Yep.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:11:44-01:11:47]
The last one. Please complete this sentence.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:11:47-01:11:52]
For me, horses are doing their very best.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:11:53-01:11:55]
Oh, I love that one.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:11:55-01:11:59]
And we have to accept their very best.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:12:00-01:12:12]
Oh, gosh. I loved that one. People give all sorts of different answers on this. And that one, as soon as you said it, just... Got me right in the heart. I love that.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:12:13-01:13:38]
I try to implement that when I'm doing my body work too. Like if I'm asking them a question and when I say I'm asking them a question, I'm saying, can you flex your neck to the left? And they immediately brace and go, oh, I don't know if I can do that. I have started to learn to accept that and just soften. And these were all principles I learned years ago with Masterson. But if I soften my then they immediately soften and go, oh, okay, maybe I do have more, you know. I can't do that. I can do that. But just having that willingness to accept that moment when they go, oh, I don't know if I can do that. Yeah. You know, I think it's Karen Rolfe that says we have to love the horse more than we love the sport. Yeah. Yeah. And that has always resonated with me too. And it's, you know, it's just meeting them where they are, just accepting them. Yeah. They're incredible beings and they'll just give and give and give until they break. And I see the broken ones all the time and it's heartbreaking and they still give and then still give in my dissections. They teach when they're gone. So they're just, yeah, they're just incredible beings.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:13:41-01:14:10]
Lori, I can't thank you enough for this podcast interview. Um, I've taken so much away from it. Um, every single question, there was so much within that in your answers. Um, thank you so much on behalf of me and my horses and everything that I've learned from this. And, um, And then speaking on behalf of our audience who I have a feeling is going to take a lot away from this. Thank you so much for your time.

[SPEAKER 1]
[01:14:10-01:14:12]
Thank you for inviting me. It was a pleasure.

[SPEAKER 2]
[01:14:14-01:14:47]
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Equestrian Connection podcast by WeHorse. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a rating and review as well as share us on social media. You can find us on Instagram at WeHorse underscore USA and check out our free seven-day trial on WeHorse.com where you can access over 175 courses with top trainers from around the world in a variety of topics and disciplines. Until next time, be kind to yourself, your horses, and others.

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