23/05/2026
THIS
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1KvdcZBoY3/
7 months ago this horse could not be ridden.
Barb had known something was wrong. She had been riding this horse for years on the trails they both loved, and things had quietly stopped working.
The body had not broken down overnight. It rarely does. The horse doesn’t object at the first sign of discomfort. He finds a workaround, a small adjustment in how he moves that takes the load away from what hurts. Then another. The workarounds accumulate until the system is so far from its original organisation that what was once a quiet signal has become a structural problem. By the time the owner sees it clearly, many parts of the body are already under significant stress. Every practitioner will find something different because they are each finding a piece of the same picture.
This is why I encourage every horse owner to look up Sue Dyson’s ridden horse pain ethogram. The signs are there earlier than we think, and they are worth reading. Does your horse react when you brush certain areas? When the saddle goes on, do the nostrils tighten, the eyes close, the body shift away? When the girth comes up? These are not quirks. They are the only language available to your horse, and the earlier they are heard, the simpler the path forward.
The first sign that a saddle has become a problem is often the imprint it leaves after a ride. The body has begun fitting itself around the saddle rather than the saddle fitting the horse. By the time that shape is clearly visible, the damage is already accumulating. In combination with poor posture or movement imbalances, an ill fitting saddle can contribute to conditions like kissing spine and sacroiliac dysfunction. Part of the commitment I asked Barb to make was that she would not ride him until his body was ready to carry her comfortably again. She committed immediately.
That was the start of a twelve session rehab pathway over seven months.
Rehabilitation of back issues starts from the ground, always. The smallest adjustments and incremental restoration of oscillation and healthy organisation come before anything else. The body releases in stages. The topline begins to return. The hind legs find their way back under the horse rather than swinging or stumbling around the dysfunction. When the saddle finally came out, we spent a session understanding exactly what had happened and why. Barb found a fitting saddle within a week, I loved that! Riding was added incrementally from there.
Barb is not a dressage trainer. She told me in our first session that she’d never liked arena work. Not one of our sessions was focused on dressage training or complicated manoeuvres. The exercises were simple, grounded in how the living system actually works, and Barb felt confident doing all of them. From a horse that needed constant pushing to stay forward and was nearly impossible to move with any enthusiasm, he became a horse that walks, trots, and canters on the lightest aid. Now they’re back on the trails with a maintenance structure to keep building his body.
I have never met Barb or her horse in person. Every session has been online. That still makes me quietly excited, that through a screen, this kind of support is possible.
If your horse has been diagnosed with kissing spine, sacroiliac dysfunction, a suspensory injury, or any of the conditions that seem to close the door on normal work, it doesn’t have to stay closed. And it doesn’t have to take years.
Barbara Douglas, thank you for your trust and your dedication. And Katja Mueller, thank you for seeing what needed to be seen and knowing what to do with it. This is what a horse community built on good knowledge looks like. ❤️
