Finally, my horse can walk like a normal horse!  This work has had a profound effect on my mare, Madeira, over the last 2 weeks since I purchased your Equine Hanna Somatics - Session 1 video course, and I am eternally grateful...

A bit of history:

I tried for a number of years to use classic dressage in-hand work to help my mare Madeira find straightness, but I never could help her to find straightness or relaxation. I tried the Balance Through Movement Method protocol, religiously, for almost a year and yet was told that my horse has no thoracic sling....I kept trouble-shooting my failures and finally began to see that Madeira was always beginning every exercise/movement with her cheek cocked to the right. At first, I couldn't even see the posture; I just knew that for some reason we weren't getting anywhere in terms of relaxation, topline, or thoracic sling!

Meanwhile this past April Madeira's front shoes were removed as I was getting increasingly concerned that she was uncomfortable, that her feet looked like a TWH and that she might be better off barefoot even though the recommendation for her supposed ailments (navicular & arthritis) was to stay the course with both shoes and injections. Madeira is only going on 8 years old.

After a pretty difficult summer, barefoot wise, on December 1st 2023, she had excess toe taken off her hind feet and the outcome was scary.

While Madeira didn't seem really sore, she would at first refuse to walk and then lift her hind legs up high and slam her feet down....I texted my vet that "it almost seems like she has to relearn to walk."
I was pretty alarmed by her constant contracting of her hind legs and started googling trying to figure out what was going on..."sticky stifle?", "short toes?" and finally I literally googled "horse" and "sensory motor amnesia" and found your work. Also, this past July there was another weird occurrence when my ex-farrier trimmed over 1/2" of Madeira's heel off and it seemed to me that she moved completely differently afterward (negatively) with the front of her toe pointing toward the ground.....I kept thinking that it is like her tendon had contracted...?

UPDATE after 2 weeks of EHS (December 2023)

Anyway, now everything is going pretty well...since we started practicing EHS she can already walk like a normal horse for the first time in years!

UPDATE after 1 month of EHS (January 2024)

The most interesting developments that I attribute to the daily basic exercise and the longer somatic protocol (which I do every 2 - 3 weeks), is that Madeira's tendons have relaxed some, in her pasterns especially.  Even the trimmer noticed that a pastern tendon, that is usually prevalent, was smoother and hard to see. She doesn't look as upright, and Madeira is actually striding and stretching forward at the walk!  The trot is still rather stilted.  Her topline looks much better...you wouldn't think that muscle tension could cause a sunken topline but the only thing I can attribute to her more filled-out topline is the somatic exercises (the only other exercise she gets right now is hand-walking).

UPDATE in March 2024 - We are riding 3x a week!

The appointment with the vet on January 31st went really well.  I was a bit shocked at how well Madeira was moving compared to December when even walking was difficult for her.  The vet too, said that he thought he was going to prescribe joint injections but that she moved so much better than the  video he had seen (from November 28th, 2023) that he recommended just keeping on the same track with the barefoot trimmer "working her magic." ;)

I'm actually riding a bit (3x a week, 25 minutes) along with hand-walking both up hills and over cavalettis!

Alissa,  thank you so much for your enthusiasm as well as your efforts to get Equine Hanna Somatics out into the world.  It has really helped and I am really looking forward to continuing on this journey as well as sharing it with others.

- Kristen Mullen & Madeira