Rainbow Valley Horsemanship, Equine Bowen, Training & Highland Cattle

14/10/2024

This little girl is for sale and will be available once she is weaned. She's such a confident friendly little girl.

01/11/2022

One of my favourite exercises I get horses to do as a bowen therapist but it must be done under self carriage not by force

Tuesday tip

Backing up is a low-impact exercise with no moment of suspension. It can be done in-hand and ridden. You horse should move his limbs in diagonal pairs.

Performed well, it requires your horse to carry more weight on his hindquarters, and maintain increased hindlimb, lumbosacral and back joint flexion throughout the stride cycle.

Executed correctly with relaxation, impulsion and with the head lowered, the movement increases the throacic vertebral rotation, encourages core recruitment of the abdominals , thoracic sling and hip flexors. It also contributes to back mobility, the ability to collect and good posture.

For maximum benefit ask your horse to back up in-hand daily. Start with 1 or 2 steps and progress to 20 steps. The aim is good quality, long, marching steps.

02/11/2021

I'll be putting another Nungar Knots order in shortly. If anyone is after top quality rope products that will last forever, please let me know.

New halters, leads, lunge reins, split reins or one piece reins. Length can be made to order.

Think of who in your life needs something for Christmas (Yes it is nearly that time of the year again).

Please let me know ASAP

28/05/2021

This is the most amazing footage of a horse cantering in a paddock i have ever seen.

Why you ask? Is he an incredibly beautiful horse? Cute maybe but not incredibly beautiful. So is he amazingly graceful? Definitely not. So maybe he displays amazing athleticism? Nope. Definitely not. So why is the footage so amazing? Because this horse should be dead.

It started in October last year when Takoda went down with severe laminitis in all four feet. The journey has been long, and a roller coaster of emotions. He has severe rotation in his hind feet with pe*******on of his pedal bone. His two front feet had very bad rotation.

Just before Christmas the vet told me there was no hope and I had to make the hard decision to put Takoda to sleep. I booked someone to come and dig his grave and booked the vet to come back and put him down. So why is he still alive?

Because Takoda didn't want to give up therefore I wasn't going to give up either. This meant researching treatment outside of the advice from local vets. Following a lot of different advice, some good, some bad. It involved icing his feet twice a day, including Christmas day, soaking his feet in salt water, in Epsom salts in a child's paddling pool with rubber mats in the base to cushion his feet, spraying them twice a day with iodine and smearing them with sudo cream before putting boots back on with rubber pads for extra comfort that had to be changed every second day. It meant carrying his water and feed over to him when he couldn't get up and trimming and cleaning his feet whilst he lay down because he struggled to stand on four feet and couldn't stand on 3. It meant trimming his feet every few days to try and keep pressure off of the hoof capsule which was ripping off the inner connections. It meant soaking his hay twice a day and then drying it so he wouldn't pick up sand that we had to bring in to make standing a little more comfortable. He went from high doses of bute and ace twice a day to being given devil's claw when i found the bute dispensed twice by a vet is actually contra indicated in cases of laminitis.

Watching him struggle was heart breaking and more than once i questioned if I'd done the right thing or was i being selfish because I wasn't prepared to let him go. But throughout the whole ordeal Takoda kept his cheeky personality and loving nature.

For every day he seemed to be a bit better, the next day he seemed to get worse but over time he has improved.

Letting him back out to graze for very short periods, sourcing low sugar hay, weaning him off pain medication and a lot of hoof trimming.

He's still not out of the woods and he is mostly only allowed to graze overnight when sugars in the grass are at their lowest. His feet probably have another couple of months until the damage hoof capsule grows out but there will still be a way to go trying to realign the inner hoof and the outer hoof.

So, yes this is the most amazing footage of a horse cantering. Anyone who knows me probably knows Takoda and what a special horse he is. He is the horse in most of my business videos, he's the horse i use for demonstrations at clinics and the horse i will lend out and allow other people to use because he has the most amazing temperament but this horse not only has the most amazing temperament but he also has an amazingly strong will to live.

20/04/2021

I'll be up in Perth on Thursday and still have space for one training sessions or two bowen. Will be around the Byford darling downs area. I don't go to Perth very often anymore, so here's your opportunity.

01/12/2020

I know it's close to Christmas but would anyone be interested in a Christmas /end of year clinic on the weekend of the 12th/13th December. We could make it Christmas dress for extra points 😊😊 forecast is looking like high 20s so maybe the last chance before the really hot weather?

17/11/2020

Is anyone interested in a mini agility clinic on Sunday 29th November $60 for the morning.

11/11/2020