Her name is Ashley Truman, but most people know her as “Acuscope by Ashley” or simply “Ashley Acuscope.”
A California native, she was first introduced to the acuscope and myopulse therapy modalities in 2011 when she began riding barrel horses with mother-daughter duo Mary Scott and Jandee Smart in Red Bluff, California.
“Once a week, Mary and Jandee would load me down with six horses, and I would go sit with an acuscope tech for the afternoon and watch all the horses get worked on,” Truman recalled. “It was amazing watching her move around the same horses I was riding every day. I knew what they were like to sit on, but not what they were like behind the scenes.”
Learning about alternative therapies such as acuscope opened up a new world for Truman in an area of the country where she says performance veterinary services aren’t as readily available as in other regions.
“Good veterinary medicine in Northern California is scarce, and the acuscope provided so much valuable information about what the horse was feeling,” Truman said. “It intrigued me, and I saw how useful it could be. As I learned more, I thought, ‘This is something I could be really good at.’”
In 2016, with the tip money she saved during her nine years of waitressing at a small California café and the profits she earned from selling a handful of project horses, Truman invested $25,000 in equipment and acuscope training with Karen Richter to jumpstart her new career. She made another leap of faith in 2018 when she decided to relocate to the hub of horse country — Texas.
“I knew if I wanted my acuscope business to take off, I was going to have to pick up and move,” Truman explained. “I had no idea how I was going to be received in Texas, but I had to try. I knew I had to work to make contacts, get my foot in the door and reach out to other professionals like vets, chiropractors and farriers.
“My goal was to be recognized in a good way and grow from there,” she continued. “Texas is full of the best of the best, and it only takes one hiccup for people to move on.”
Truman says she worked especially hard to develop good working relationships with local veterinarians.
“I wanted them to know that even though my approach is holistic, I’m on their side. Taking the time to make those connections was important, and it helped my business in the long run,” Truman said. “Fast forward to now, and the vets I work with trust me — I have vet reports handed to me left and right. Some of the best in the business leave their horses with me for months at a time, and I will even have vets calling me firsthand to ask my opinion about a horse. It’s really rewarding.”
Truman’s acuscope and myopulse therapies work together to provide a wide variety of benefits, ranging from a pre-performance boost, to identifying potential problem areas, to decreasing healing time for soft tissue injuries and wounds.
“My acuscope has biofeedback capabilities that help me locate where cellular dysfunction is within the body,”Truman explained. “Using digital readings, the acuscope develops a treatment plan for the individual horse so I can target specific areas for pain relief, improvement of soft tissue function, nerve damage and range of motion. The myopulse relaxes the muscles to increase local blood circulation, giving us direct access to tendons, ligaments and muscles. The acuscope and myopulse only generate the level of current required to gently encourage nerves and muscle fibers to return to conduction of normal electrical impulses. It won’t allow me to over stimulate.”
Simply put, Truman says the acuscope and myopulse read inflammation and re-teach the body how to function correctly on a cellular level, and her ever-growing client list serves as a testament to the efficacy of the treatments.
In 2018, the Stephenville, Texas, transplant’s career reached new heights when she was contacted by a Wrangler National Finals Rodeo barrel racing qualifier about the possibility of working on her horse during the Finals.
“That was the first time I realized I might be on a new level,” Truman said with a laugh. “She called me and asked if I was going to Las Vegas for the NFR. I remember telling her, ‘Yes, I’ll go.’ She asked me, ‘For how long?’ I asked her how long she needed me for, and she said, ‘If you can be there all 15 days, I’ll have you work on my mare every day.’”
For Truman, that fateful phone call was the beginning of a journey that led to an annual trip to Las Vegas, chock full of top-tier horses that run the gamut. From team ropers to tiedown ropers, from breakaway ropers to barrel racers, Truman works on them all.
“It is a crazy 15 days,” Truman confessed. “I rarely see the jockeys or owners — they’re busy running around and doing signings. I have a good working relationship with the gate guys, they have a list of who I’m supposed to work on, and they let me roll. It’s a lot of me showing up at random Las Vegas addresses, working on horses from sunup until 4:00 p.m. and making sure they’re ready to go by performance time. It’s become a big part of my year-end success.”
For Truman, that success is measured by more than the dollar signs.
“Anyone can write the check, take the course and learn to run an acuscope,” Truman explained. “But if you don’t know how to move around the horses, you’re not going to get too far. They come with more quirks and needs than I can count. You have to have horsemanship to make it all work.
“When I moved to Texas, I thought even if I worked a full-time job and ran my business on the side, that would be OK,” she continued. “Now, not only am I able to do this full time, but I have the best in the business walking into my barn. The journey has been incredible.”
This article was originally published in the June 2023 issue of Barrel Horse News.
