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What is it and how can it help my polo ponies? What is sports physiotherapy and how does this relate to equine physiotherapy? Sports physiotherapy is common practice for all professional and semi-professional human athletes and the benefits are widely known and appreciated. Sports physiotherapists are involved in the prevention and management of injury, restoring optimal function, and contributing to the enhancement comfort and performance. The demands of polo are great on both playe...

Hi, I’m Ken Lyndon-Dykes from Saddleworld, and I want to talk about all-purpose saddles today. Now, that can mean almost anything, say, all-purpose, general purpose, eventing or a saddle you can use for lots of different things. An all-purpose saddle is exactly what it says, you can do a bit of jumping, you can do a bit of flat work, you can do a bit of hacking. But like anything that’s all-purpose it’s sort of alright for everything but not brilliant if you want to be a d...

Hi, I’m Ken Lyndon-Dykes from Saddleworld and today we are going to talk about dressage saddles. Generally speaking, dressage saddles look like this. Sometimes they have skin on the seat and front other times they have soft hide, or not, it really doesn't matter. The thing about a dressage saddle that’s so important is that it’s very straight cut and allows the leg to come a long way back, doesn’t interfere with the horse's shoulder and often they have bars whic...

Haygain sponsored event rider Georgie Spence is fresh from another Badminton Horse Trials completion with one of her leading rides, so it seemed like a good chance to check in with her and find out how her 2019 season has started and what led to her becoming a sponsored rider for us.

The Hesteyri Horses team were lucky to have tickets provided by Horsemart so that we could attend cross country day at Badminton 2019! Emily King and Dargun ~ Fence 1 We left slightly later than intended so the cues into the grounds were very long but we managed to get in before the first horse set off! William Fox-Pitt and Little Fire ~ Fence 33 We headed to the main ring to watch William Fox-Pitt coming home after a great run on Little Fire and also waved Ben Hobday ...

We love to hear about the behind-the-scenes training plans and stable management regimes of our favourite equestrian combinations, and we’ve recently caught up with leading British dressage rider Hannah Biggs to get the inside track on her plans for 2019 and how she gets set for success. Based in beautiful Dorset near the borders of Somerset and Wiltshire, Haygain sponsored rider Hannah has represented Great Britain at all stages of her riding career, in Junior, Young Rider and then Sen...

A 3-year study of over 700 horses has discovered that the type of bedding and forage that a horse is exposed to has a significant effect on their respiratory wellbeing. The research referenced was carried out by Dauvillier et al and was first published in the American Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine (JVIM) in late 2018. It identified a greater incidence of lower airway inflammation in horses who are housed indoors, bedded on straw and fed dry hay. The study concluded that horses who were...

The Hooves & Love Mug (£8.00) is a simple yet meaningful way to say ‘thank you’ or ‘thinking of you’ to a fellow equestrian. The slogan printed on this pretty ceramic mug is ‘Where there are hooves there is love’, something that will certainly ring true for horse lovers who know that they are at their most content when spending time with their favourite equine friends. Hooves and Love is an online treasure trove of carefully-selected gift boxes for h...

An interview with long distance rider Gillian Larson - on the support plans behind her expeditions, the highlights of her trails so far and advice for those wanting to give it a go! Gillian has completed four amazing journeys on horseback, it was impossible to fit it all into one article! Here, we cover what she takes with her on her journeys and get a better insight into what it takes to start (and finish) a long distance ride. If you want to read about how it all began for Gillian an...

You know, when you know things, but suddenly, you understand things?  It’s awesome, isn’t it, when you have an ah-ha moment.  It happened to me recently… When you’re a beginner, in whatever, you tend to move and wobble.  Think of a beginner on a bicycle. A beginner on a slack line. A child beginning to learn to walk.  As your brain tries to figure something out, to keep itself above your feet, and you balanced and upright, to keep that brain on to...

We’re excited to announce our latest addition to the Horsemart Brand Ambassador Team… Isabelle George! Isabelle is competing at World Ranking class level on the British and International show jumping circuit and will be keeping us up to date on all her competitions and progress. She started riding when she was 8 years old and progressed to competing horses in BSJA when she was just 13 and since then has risen through the ranks. Isabelle competed in her first international sh...

Hi Edward here, This time I’m going to be talking about how to maximise your score when competing in dressage. Tips before competing: Make sure that you know your test Practice the test lots, to ensure that both you and the horse can perform each movement correctly. When practicing try to work on certain movements at a time and then once perfected move onto the next. Read the directives next to the movements. This is what the judges will be focussing on as...

Horsemart content writer Hannah Phenix conducted an interview with Gillian Larson, long distance trail rider. In this two part interview you will found out all about Gillian and her experience with trail riding. An interview with Gillian Larson by Hannah Phenix.  When I first came across Gillian I was taken aback by how approachable she was. On her social media channels, she answers everyone who asks something of her which is great with nearly 29 thousand Instagram followers!  ...

Spring is a popular time for new yards to open and established yard owners to review the previous year. This can range from yards based at large equestrian centres to people offering livery at their private yards at home. Competition is fierce for affordable livery; it’s easy to provide competitive livery rates without considering your personal finances or outgoings to run the business. If you don’t correctly price your livery and the services you offer, it may be that you are subsid...

March recap! March has been a bit of a crazy month, following the theme of 2019! We have been completely booked up so far which has been brilliant and exhausting! We still had lovely Ronnie, for the beginning of March, to train him out of leaping every time he hacked and also to show him a little more of the world! This included taking him for some super jumping hacks and taking him to Moores Farm Competition Centre for some training over scarier fences! https://www.youtube.com...

Hi, I'm Ken Lyndon-Dykes from Saddleworld. We will be looking at saddles today and various fittings but before we think about that, why do you need your saddle checked and what effect is it going to have on your horse? Now all of us have seen horses where you go into a stable, with a saddle in your arms and it runs to the back of the stable because it’s thinking ‘oh boy, I don’t want a saddle fitted on me today.’ That’s a fairly good clue there might be a probl...

Hi, I’m Ken Lyndon-Dykes from Saddleworld and today we are looking at jumping saddles, some of which will be close contact which are much favoured nowadays and others that are semi-close contact. What do we mean by that? Well, first of all, if we are to look at perhaps one of the most famous jumping saddles in the world which is the Nelson Pessoa saddle. This has a thin panel of foam and is called a close contact saddle and it gets you, surprise surprise, close to the horse. Almost ...

Police in Somerset had the equine community fooled after posting an article informing the public that horses are now teaming up with the Dog Unit to sniff out drugs hidden in high up places. The article stated that they had discovered horses have a lot better nasal abilities than they had previously realised. They also said that they had released statements saying: "we will today become the first force in the country to launch a unique collaboration between our Mounted Section and Dogs...

Haygain, the leading horse health innovation company, examine the effect of airborne fungi particles on the health of the competition horse, and examine the ways in which owners can limit their presence in the stable environment. If you are producing a horse or pony for competition then you will be well aware of how much attention to detail is needed to ensure they are as healthy, happy and fit as possible. This means selecting the highest quality feed, bedding and supplements, as well as for...

Hi, Edward Chitty here, Horsemart Brand ambassador and this time I have partnered up with AXIWI Communications to provide a review about their communication system, I have had this product for a while now and have been pleased with each aspect, it is not only very practical in windy conditions, it’s also really portable, allowing me to bring it wherever I teach. The charge of the system lasts a long time and it's really easy to set up and use. The sound quality is also great....