You know your horse’s strengths, his weaknesses, how to get the best performance out of him, which treat he prefers and even that he likes to be scratched right behind his withers. But when lameness strikes, are you able to communicate well with your vet? Or if you had to point to your horse’s lumbodorsal fascia, could you do it?
Writer Rachelle Wilhelm recently detailed a new APP called Horse 360°:
The more you know about your horse, including his anatomy and how his body works, the better partnership you’ll have no matter if you compete or expect him to carry you safely down the trail. Unfortunately, the majority of horse owners around the world are clueless when it comes to the anatomy of their horse, something clinician Clinton Anderson knows.
“That’s a problem because in order to take care of your horse properly, and even get the most of out of his performance, knowing the makeup of his body is vital,” Clinton Anderson says. “Being a true horseman isn’t just about riding well, but understanding how your horse thinks, why he does the things that he does and caring for him properly.”
Australians Danny Cook and Gary Wells, who run the Queensland-based company Horse 360°, have a remedy. Both men have backgrounds in equine muscle therapy, working with the horse’s muscles to prevent injury or helping horses reach peak performance. A little over a year ago, they put their minds together to create the Horse 360° app, an interactive tool to help horse owners not only learn the anatomy of a horse, but also make it easier for them to communicate with their veterinarian.
The Horse 360° app is the brainchild of Danny, who came about the idea for the app when studying equine massage therapy. A professional horse trainer for years, Danny saw a need to study muscle therapy in an effort to improve the quality of his horses and reduce injury and lameness. In pursuit of his degree, he found himself relentlessly studying textbooks.
“Of course a big part of the curriculum was anatomy and I just couldn’t work it out of the book,” Danny says. “I couldn’t remember the information and not because I’m not intelligent; my mind just didn’t work that way.”
Looking for another way to learn the horse’s anatomy, Danny turned to the internet in hopes of finding an interactive tool or even a game he could use to study.
“It just didn’t exist,” he says matter of fact, and that’s when the idea to design an interactive learning tool of his own came to him.
“If I couldn’t find it, why not create it?” he remembers asking himself, and approached Gary, a colleague and friend, with his idea. A well-respected equine therapist in the country, Gary immediately liked Danny’s idea and even thought an interactive tool could benefit himself—someone with years of experience working with the horse’s body.
Since the Horse 360° app’s release on iTunes in May it has sold to over 50 countries, and is quickly catching on in the horse community not only because of its learning functionality, but its entertainment value. The interactive learning tool has two elements—a game-like learning feature and an innovative vet talk feature.
Visit Horse 360° on the web at www.horse360.com.au to learn more about the app, where to purchase it and even to see it in action. The website also features a weekly blog discussing commonsense horsemanship advice, horse keeping tips and words of encouragement.
Horse 360° can also be found on Facebook at Horse360 and on Twitter at Horse360app.
