Donnis Thran rode her fi rst horse at the age of fi ve, and 60 years later, her love and passion for horses has only grown through the years. She competed in the sport of endurance riding for 10 years, and has worked as an equine physical therapist for the past 25 years. Donnis is an expert on the biomechanics of horses and has used her knowledge to help hundreds of horses in many disciplines rehabilitate and achieve top performance in the show ring and on the trail. I sat down recently with Donnis to have her share some of her enlightened knowledge with our trailBLAZER readers.
“Open the door” Q
When did you fi rst start doing physical therapy and training on horses?
Around 1982 I had a rehab barn where
people would send “problem horses” who would buck, rear, bite, strike, you can’t load them, they lay down when you put the saddle on. I was the “last ditch” at empt to try to do some magic with these horses, so every horse I worked with was a challenge. I took courses from Linda Tellington-Jones, and her work remains the basis for my work today. I took a lot of trips to the dirt trying to work with these horses, and then Linda helped me focus on the fact that so many behavioral problems have their root in discomfort or pain in the horse’s body. I also studied with several veterinarians, chiropractors and kinesiolo- gists to broaden my knowledge base. Another person I trained with who helped me so much was Peggy Cum- mings of Connected Riding; from Peggy I learned the
concept of correct biomechanical function while riding. You feel it come through (or not); you can’t enhance performance until you feel performance. T e rider’s body can block or it can enhance the horse’s ability to function correctly.
I found that horses are hardwired in their genetics to be a herd
Q Q
animal, and in most cases they do what the alpha leader tells them. As long as they believe you are the leader, they want to please you. So if your horse doesn’t have that desire to please you, you need to look at the possibility of a structural problem.
What part did kinesiology play in your work? I learned applied kinesiology from a brilliant man named Michel Kaplan. Applied kinesiology utilizes
particular muscles by pressing or moving them in a certain way, which allows them to release. I was helping horses toward bet er health in days instead of weeks and months. However, I never felt totally convinced that I saw everything or felt everything. T ere was a missing link.
Where did you go to fi nd that missing link? In 1990 I had the great fortune to meet Nadine Dona- hue, a brilliant inventor who had developed a scanning
system called Bioscan™ that could fi nd tension or pain in a horse’s
to the brain where the skull joins the vertebrae at the
occiput by working
this entire area with a pair of Groom-
Lights. T is is where you want to start to unlock the spine.
body. I remember the fi rst time she came to my barn, I had a horse named Benjamin who was this neurotic, 100-mile-an-hour, feet- moving, head-moving all the time horse, and he had this coat that was just ragged, nasty hair. It didn’t mat er nutritionally what I did or tried, I couldn’t seem to reach any sort of resolution with this guy. Nadine came to my barn the fi rst time to demonstrate the Bioscan™, and Benjamin was one of the horses she scanned. T e next morning Benjamin’s stall was knee-deep in hair. All that nasty hair had just fallen out! Seriously, I remember saying “NO way!” but it is true. What I learned then and know now is that the scan found the problems and then a therapy of red lights used over his entire body, including the endocrine system, fi xed the hair problem. Since the early 1980s, Red Light T erapy has been used in the
horse world for treating equine health concerns. T e tissues and cells of the body readily absorb visible red light at specifi c wave- lengths. Visible red light is absorbed by the skin very effi ciently and is quite safe to use to stimulate acupuncture points, trigger points and for the accelerated healing of wounds. T ese red lights are not lasers, nor infrared. T ere are no known reports of adverse
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