12/06/2021
I get asked quite frequently how massage can be beneficial to horses. There are many examples but today I’ll share this one with you.
This is Honey. She isn’t a client’s horse; she’s one of my personal horses. I purchased her a little over a year ago when she was a pasture ornament and long story short we’ve finally got a diagnosis for her soundness issues that presented not long after she was purchased. She has a bone spur in her right hip with mild osteoarthritis. She’s maintained with pentosan IM injections once monthly and massage. She has a hard time collecting due to her arthritis and being unfit so we do exercises to strengthen her hindquarters and to teach her to lift her back and drop her head. These exercises aren’t easy on her body mostly due to the fact she isn’t fit so massage is my go to. I use different massage techniques to work on stress areas associated with collection work in unfit horses such as the splenius muscle (of the neck), the longissiums dorsi (back muscle), and the hamstrings. She also has an over muscled brachiocephalic (neck muscle) due to the fact she’s been used to carrying herself in a hollowed out manner.
For those who may be unfamiliar, when a horse carries it’s self hollowed out it has a high head set which really works that brachiocephalic in the neck and it grows larger. (Think about body builders lifting weights to bulk up) Also when the horse is hollowed out the “abs” , if you will, are having to support the back (which they are not designed to do) and there’s limited reach from the hindquarters. All this creates a horse that is heavy on the forehand and none of this is good for the long term health of the muscles. For example, the muscles that are compensating for the back not being engaged will eventually develop tension/spasms from the stress put on them and other muscles groups will be affected by trying to compensate for them. It’s a chain reaction. The body functions as a unit and when one piece isn’t working properly the whole unit is affected. So how do you fix this??
Well, for Honey, I use massage to work on the tightness in the muscles she’s stressed by carrying herself hollowed out and I’m teaching her to carry herself properly now. It’s important to remember that the muscles she should have been using to properly carry herself are under muscled so it’s a process to get them fit again. They will be uncomfortable and tight after training sessions so I use regular massage sessions to work out the tension in them while we’re getting her in shape. When she’s in shape and fit she should move in a more collected manner that’s more closely aligned with how her body is designed to work. She should then be able to really push off her hindquarters, reach under her self, and lift her back with relative ease thus resulting in less areas of stress and significantly reducing the likelihood of tension/spasms. Even after she’s fit again I will keep her on a maintenance schedule to keep her going due to the osteoarthritis she has in her hip.
Below I have included a picture of a hollowed out frame vs. a collected frame for visual aid courtesy of a google search.
