Holistic horsemanship is really caring for your horse as a whole, when a client contacts me to help with their horse, during the initial consultation I ask many questions, not only about the horse and the presenting problem, but also about the lifestyle.  When therapists treat holistically we look at everything, environment, companionship, feed, work, past health and the current problem etc.

Keeping a horse holisitically is the same, you look at the "whole" situation.  Many years ago my mare had colic almost every other day, the Vet would attend and she would have her buscopan injection and recover, but this kept happening for months.  Eventually she went to Newmarket for tests but no reason was found for the episodes.  On her arrival home within a few hours she had another colic attack!

At this point I took a step back and decided to look at the whole situation, there had to be a reason and I knew the colic started just after we moved to our new home.  Then the penny dropped - I had moved her from a familiar environment, she had no friends apart from sheep, and she was worried, lonely and anxious.  Knowing she was a nervous mare I embarked on the mission of finding a companion. Initially I had a livery horse come and stayed for 4 months - the colic stopped!  The livery horse was only ever temporary whilst her owner was in America, so I found my Palomino mare before the livery left, that way there was time for bonding between my two horses.

I can honestly now say that in the years that have passed my mare has only had a couple of bouts of colic, once due to being greedy on new grass and the next as a complication after being sedated a few times for medical treatment (this one we expected!)

So as you can see from this story - looking at the whole situation and not just the presenting problem I was able to solve the health issue which was really an emotional issue, manifesting physically.

This is my own personal view to what I consider to be holisitic horsemanship.