Rachel massaging
Eve
Mr AJ
Massage Therapy
In todays world of sport, athletes would not be without their massage therapists, osteopaths, physios and chiropractors. Athletes are constantly striving for success. This takes a very strict training programme, and most important prevention of injuries. Injuries slow down fitness levels.
The horse must be treated like an athlete. Remember a horse can not talk. If we have a muscular/vertebrae problem we can make an appointment with a professional therapist. Horses are disadvantaged. They must try to give us signals when ridden. They think if they become naughty enough and have a personality change that they just might get our attention. They are only trying to communicate with us the only way they know how. How else can they tell us that something is painful or not right with their body. Sometimes people are not in tune with the horse enough to know that something is painful. Often people interpret the horses behaviour as being down right naughty, and in a lot of cases they work the horse even harder to try and over come the problem. There fore the extra stress causes more trauma to the injured area, further vertebrae lockings and more compensation problems.
Riders must become more aware of the horses body and learn to identify a potential problem, before it leads to injury. Horses are willing by nature and generally do not misbehave unless man has interfered with them. When a horse is naughty or refuses what you ask, stop and think. Is he in pain or is there a problem with my training system.