Ros Maindok - Equine Functional Solutions with Biomechanics

16/09/2026

Equine Photonic Therapy Laminated Guide Book (Acupoint guided)

The perfect complement to use with your Red Light Therapy Torch (also know as photobiomodulation).

One of my favourite past times is teaching owners or therapists how to utilise their torches.

Offering free postage on my last 10 or so books.

Link in Comments 👇

Located Bindoon WA 😊

13/09/2026

Humans … horses and all the in between …

Glyphosate causes insulin resistance and metabolic disorders, disrupts the gut microbiome and the effects can be heritable.
(Please note, I am not saying it is the ONLY cause)

Last year I made a post about laminitis that was quite popular. In the post, one of the points I mentioned was the potential roll of the use of herbicides/pesticides in the widespread development of metabolic disorders in our horses for the past few decades.

I want to elaborate on that point, because it's something that people often roll their eyes thinking I'm part of the tinfoil hat brigade.

But my inital statement is not opinion, it is not speculation and it is not even surprising. It is being proven in scientific studies. Wide spread use of Glyphosate is altering our metabolisms, our immune systems and our DNA.

But don't take my word for it.

A study done in 2025 entiled ' Prenatal exposure to dietary levels of glyphosate disrupts metabolic, immune, and behavioral markers across generations in mice' by Barnett JA, Josephson JK, Yuzbashian E, et al.
States:
"Prenatal glyphosate reshapes gut, metabolism and behaviour across multiple mouse generations

Harmful effects arise at 0.01mg/kg/day, a dose far beneath current safety limits.

Gut barrier damage, mucin loss and inflammation persist into the F2 generation.

Glyphosate-linked microbiome shifts disrupt endocrine and tryptophan pathways.

Dose- and generation-based host-microbe rewiring suggests heritable gut-brain-immune dysfunction "

Another study done in 2022,
'Impact of Glyphosate on the Development of Insulin Resistance in Experimental Diabetic Rats' by Monisha Prasad et al states:

"Glyphosate aggravated ROS, altered antioxidant activity, disrupted the glucose homeostasis, altered insulin action in liver via NFκB signaling in liver. As the primary organ for metabolism and detoxification, the liver is affected by oxidative stress caused by glyphosate, which could change crucial regulatory pathways including insulin signalling and JNK, resulting in insulin resistance and inflammation."

There are many more studies out there, and of course, unfortunately they have not been done on horses by if you are curious, The Humble Hoof Podcast did an episode with Elizabeth Hilborn where she discusses the devestating impact the use of pesticides had on her own farm and the animals that lived there and the book she wrote about it called "Restoring Eden". I immediately read the book and it really made me realize what I was noticing in so many horses, and ourselves!

I got into hoofcare because I wanted to know the "Why?" behind so many common hoof problems. When I would ask why, I would only be given answers that were bandaids, not solutions, and definitely not prevention. That spurred my deep dive into all things hoof. That was over 22 years ago, and a lot of things have changed in the world around us, and wide spread use of Glyphosate is one of those things.

I don't know what the solution is now, as it is now so intertwined in all aspects of the food we eat and feed. The desire to have "w**d free" monocrops, roundup ready alfalfa, canola, corn. Oats, wheat and straw etc sprayed for uniformed drying. Our commercial feeds, our hay, our water sources etc are all affected.

I have seen more and more cases where people are feeding hay that should be deemed safe in sugar content, they aren't getting any grass etc and yet they still are metabolic and will tip over the edge into a lamintic episode with even the slightest insult. Horses under the age of 10 being diagnosed with PPID due to sky high acth levels. These things are not normal.

We need to be aware of what could be causing the dramatic uptick in cases of insulin resistance, EMS and other gut microbiome diseases we are seeing so we can stop only treating the symptoms by restricting our horses diets to manage disorders that the very feed we are trying to help them with, may be creating. Yes, there is a web of contributing factors that lead to laminitis, but we are fighting a losing battle if we aren't addressing what may be sending our bodies and the bodies of our horses into this dysfunction in the first place.

So what can we do?

Links to studies etc in the comments

Photo of stretched lamina present in a laminitic miniature horse

12/09/2026

The Hen with the Golden Eggs
Jean Luc Cornille

Jean de La Fontaine told the story of a man who owned a hen that laid a golden egg each day. Wanting all the gold at once, the man killed the hen—and destroyed the very thing that had been giving him treasure.

Sometimes we do something similar with horses.

A horse does not perform as expected, so we assume we have the wrong horse. We sell him and buy another. When the next horse develops difficulties, we begin looking for another one again.

But perhaps the horse was never the problem.

Your horse might already be the golden egg. He may simply be struggling within the physics we have imposed upon him.

Riding Is Physics

Every stride is an interaction of forces.

What we see as a gait or a performance is produced by an extraordinarily sophisticated coordination of muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints and the nervous system.

Muscles do much more than simply contract and relax. Their functions continually change according to the demands of movement. They produce force, stabilize joints, control motion and participate with tendons and other elastic tissues in storing and returning energy.

Research into muscle-tendon mechanics has demonstrated that elastic strain energy is not stored only in tendons. Muscle itself can participate in storing and recovering elastic energy.

This matters enormously to riding.

Efficient locomotion therefore cannot be reduced to the familiar ideas of simply making the horse looser, more relaxed or more stretched.

The horse's body must coordinate forces at the correct moment and in the correct amount.

The system must be tuned.

Every Horse Has a Frequency

Muscle and tendon work together as a mechanical system. For elastic energy to be stored and returned efficiently during locomotion, the properties and timing of that system must correspond to the movement being performed.

Every horse has his own natural coordination, cadence and frequency.

When training repeatedly drives a horse into a cadence faster than the horse can efficiently organize, the horse must compensate.

The rider may see resistance, stiffness, loss of balance, irregularity or reluctance to go forward.

These responses are often interpreted as attitude or disobedience.

They may instead be the horse's attempt to protect himself.

The heart of the horse may be gold while his nervous system is simply trying to protect his body.

The Rider Must Be Tuned Too

The same principle applies to the rider.

Riders are commonly taught what aids to use and how strongly to use them. Far less attention is given to something equally important:

How quickly is the aid applied?

Muscle force does not instantaneously switch from “off” to “on.” Force develops and diminishes progressively.

The rider's muscular actions should reflect this reality.

An aid may be appropriate in location and even appropriate in intensity, yet still create resistance because it is delivered too abruptly.

This is why sophisticated riding requires something that initially sounds contradictory:

React early, but slowly.

Early does not mean fast.

The rider perceives the beginning of a change and responds before the problem becomes large. But the change in muscular tone is progressive rather than abrupt.

This allows a dialogue instead of a collision.

More Pressure Is Not Necessarily More Communication

The horse has considerable tactile sensitivity in the area beneath the rider's legs.

When the rider's legs become excessively strong, unstable or repeatedly rapid, increasing pressure may not produce increasing understanding.

It can produce the opposite.

The sensory system can become overloaded, and the horse may reduce his response as a form of protection.

The rider then feels that the horse is “not listening” and applies an even stronger aid.

Horse and rider enter an escalating cycle:

The horse responds less.

The rider asks harder.

The horse protects himself more.

The rider concludes that the horse is lazy, resistant or unwilling.

Yet the original problem may not have been insufficient pressure at all.

It may have been the timing and frequency of the rider's actions.

Before You Kill the Hen

Before deciding that your horse lacks ability, willingness or talent, ask another question:

Have we given his body the conditions in which his ability can actually emerge?

The horse standing in front of you may already possess far more potential than conventional training allows him to express.

His difficulties may not be evidence that he is the wrong horse.

They may be information.

Listen to them.

Study the physics.

Refine the timing.

Allow the horse to organize movement rather than forcing him through it.

Before killing the hen, wait for the daily egg.

Because sometimes the search for a better horse ends when we finally learn how to understand the one we already have.

Your horse might have been golden all along.

Jean Luc Cornille
Science of Motion

12/09/2026

Equestic Saddle Clip

Never opened (I had a spare) although been in cupboard for a few years.

“The Equestic SaddleClip is a wearable motion sensor that clips onto a horse's saddle to track and analyze movement during training.”

RRP over $500

$250 located Bindoon, West Aust

06/09/2026

01/09/2026

The podcast is available on youtube too !