The Soundness System
You don't need a PhD in biomechanics to track your horse's soundness. Rather, you need to know how to assess your horse's readiness for work, design effective strength and conditioning programs, and gauge his response to work in an organized and systematic way. Let’s work together and I’ll show you how!
When you enroll in The Soundness System, you get access to course materials and a private Facebook group. In that group, Shelley will share case studies to help you apply this information to best support your horse. You can also ask questions and post pictures/videos of your horse to get help from Shelley.
Enrolling in the course gives you lifetime access to the course materials and Facebook group.
This course is for you if:
You want to help your horse regulate his nervous system and train without excessive stress.
You need to improve your horse’s fitness.
You want to understand how horses move so you can monitor changes in your horse's gaits.
You feel like your rides are random. You're not sure what to work on to get you and your horse stronger.
You have a goal with your horse and want to increase the odds of achieving it with a sound and happy horse.
You want to communicate more clearly with your vet and farrier so they can help you manage subtle problems when you catch things early.
I invite you to learn the soundness system methodology and start using it in your program. I promise you will lower your horse’s risk of injury, lessen your horse’s anxiety, catch issues quickly, and have better data for your vet and farrier.
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Module 1
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Lesson 1: The Connection Between Posture, Soundness, & Performance
Learn how to look at a horse and get insight into its performance, movement, and signs of potential problems.
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Lesson 2: How Horses Communicate Success & Struggle
Horses might not speak your language, but they talk to you all the time. This class is all about learning to listen.
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Lesson 3: The Big 3 Foundations of Soundness
The Big 3 Foundations of Soundness are critical to get right in your program. Everything builds on these. This class guides you through what actions to take to get your horse ready for work.
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Module 2
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Lesson 1: Dream & Scheme Goal Setting Session
Let’s dream and scheme together and set some goals!
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Lesson 2: Design Training Blocks that Build Toward Your Goals
One of the best skills I ever learned was how to design my training programs in 12-week blocks. That’s long enough to have an impact on you and your horse’s strength and skill set and make progress towards your goals, but not so far out that you need a crystal ball. There’s an art to building the training blocks to respect your horse, yourself, and reach your goals.
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Module 3
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Lesson 1: The Science of Getting Your Horse Fit
If you want to reduce your horse’s risk of injury, get them properly fit for the demands of their job. There’s a lot of knowledge that goes into creating a fitness program. This class teaches you the science of equine fitness.
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Lesson 2: The Art of Equine Fitness Programming
In this class, you learn about designing fitness programs. They will enjoy their job much more because they are physically and mentally fit to do their work.
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Lesson 3: How to Pick the Right Exercises for Your Horse
One of the most important things you can do to keep your horse sound is to evaluate their movement and learn how to identify movement restrictions and weakness, then design a therapeutic exercise program to address the limitations you observed. This is incredibly powerful information to understand and will help you keep your horse sound.
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Module 4
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Lesson 1: Equine Biomechanics - The Walk
To detect small movement changes that can lead to major soundness issues, you first need to understand how horse’s move. This class teaches you the basics of equine biomechanics.
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Lesson 2: Equine Biomechanics - The Trot
To detect small movement changes that can lead to major soundness issues, you first need to understand how horse’s move. This class teaches you the basics of equine biomechanics.
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Lesson 3: Equine Biomechanics - The Canter
To detect small movement changes that can lead to major soundness issues, you first need to understand how horse’s move. This class teaches you the basics of equine biomechanics.
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Lesson 4: Equine Biomechanics - The Jump
To detect small movement changes that can lead to major soundness issues, you first need to understand how horse’s move. This class teaches you the basics of equine biomechanics.
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Lesson 5: Typical Movement Compensations and What They Might Mean
Each horse is unique, but we do see some patterns with movement restrictions. This class reviews typical compensations patterns noted, including how horses compensate for asymmetrical or unbalanced riders.
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Module 5
Meet your instructor
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Meet your instructor ✳
Hi, I’m Shelley.
I’m a physical therapist and competitive rider. I’ve had horses my entire life and love taking care of them, working with them, and I actively compete in eventing and show jumping.
I pivoted from working in a traditional physical therapy practice to focusing on equestrian sports in honor of my horse, Intrepid, aka “Trep” in 2017.
Trep had always been such a fun horse to ride. He loved to jump and made me feel like we could do anything together. Around 2013, things started to change. He had some minor health issues and became trickier to ride. I worked with vets, farriers, and saddle fitters. Everyone thought he was okay, so I told myself it was my fault and I needed to be a better rider. I really took responsibility for “ruining” such a fun, amazing jumper and turning him into a horse that didn’t love his job.
Fast forward to 2017 and Trep got very sick. He got diagnosed with cholangiohepatitis (a liver disease). My vet went back through all his records and thinks signs of it started showing up in 2013.
Boom.
Hindsight is 20/20. It was like suddenly I could see the ways he had tried to tell me he didn’t feel great. To be fair, I tried to listen, but I just didn’t have a good system in place to see the patterns.
What Trep taught me is that horses have tremendous try. They show up and do their very best for us, and when they don’t feel good, they often communicate their discomfort or challenges in subtle ways, while still trying to do their job.
When Trep got sick, I suddenly had clarity on how I could help horses and riders. My mission is to help horses and riders move and perform better, and help riders listen to their horses.
Can I count you in on The Soundness System? I’d be honored if you would trust me to teach you how to monitor your horse for pain, discomfort, and movement restrictions. You’ll use information from this course almost every single day. I really hope to see you in the course!
What you’ll learn
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Develop your eye so you can see movement compensations.
Detect soundness issues quickly.
Identify the difference between training issues and pain
Assess your horse's current fitness level and ability to handle his workload.
Develop a safe and effective strength & conditioning program
Understand how a crooked rider impacts a horse.
Understand how poorly fitted tack impacts movement, and how to properly fit tack on your horse.
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Learn how to set goals with your horse that have a solid plan to achieve them.
Learn how to design 12-week training cycles that target skill acquisition, movement restrictions, and the right amount of rest and recovery.
Use therapeutic exercise in your program to strengthen weak areas.
Use exercises and warm up drills to improve nervous system function.
Strategically use different types of rest and recovery to improve your horse's motor control and posture.
Help your horse become a more resilient athlete.
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Improve your communication with your vet and farrier so they can better treat your horse.
Learn how horses talk to us, and how they communicate stress and anxiety, pain, or that they are doing great and handling their workload well.
Course FAQ
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You have lifetime access to the course and Facebook group.
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Yes! It will give you an excellent foundation for training and managing your horse.
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Yes! It will give you a new perspective and some additional tools to use in your program.
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Yes, no matter your sport, this information is useful. You can apply this to any sport or training program.
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Absolutely not! Veterinary care is critical to your horse's health and success. This course will help you have better conversations with your vet, but does not replace veterinary care in any way.
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Yes, there is a 14-day money back guarantee. If you purchase the course and feel it isn't a good fit, please email Shelley at shelley@intrepidwellness.com for a refund.