Is Your Horse In Pain?
The likely answer is YES. Most horses will experience some degree of neck, back or hip (SI joint) pain during their lives and a surprising number of horses suffer from some form of chronic pain. Pain can be caused by intense training, ill fitting saddles and tack, imbalanced or inexperienced riders or injury (injury can occur in the stall, turnout or while riding). If the pain is not addressed, it can lead to long lasting postural and gait abnormalities causing chronic pain for the horse.
How do you know if your horse is in pain?
Some common signs of pain include:
Pinning ears back when you brush your horse's back, place a saddle on them, tighten the girth/cinch, ask your horse to move forward under saddle
Biting or kicking out when you tighten the girth or ask for particular movements under saddle
Bucking or rearing when you ask your horse to move forward or increase speed under saddle
Inability to collect while riding
Difficulty bending to one side
Tossing head while working and riding
Inability to pick up one lead while cantering
Reluctance to increase speed when asking for more forward motion
What Can You Do?
To help your horse achieve optimal wellness, it is important to have a team of reliable equine health care providers including a veterinarian, certified equine chiropractor, dentist, massage therapist and saddle fitter.
To personally help your horse in between visits, you can provide your horse with massage, stretches and kinesiology tape.
Equine Massage
Equine Massage utilizes modified human massage techniques to help reduce muscle spasms and pain, increase blood flow and mobilize lactic acid. Massage can be done using the hands or tools. Since there are contraindications to massage (specific conditions when massage could make a situation worse) and specific protocols and techniques, it is important to become trained in equine massage before massaging your horse. |
Stretches
Stretching is a great way to improve your horse's range of motion and keep him or her flexible in between bodywork sessions. When stretching your horse, you want to make sure they are warmed up first and there are specific ways to stretch your horse to decrease the chance of injury. For this reason, it is recommended that you are properly training in stretching. Our Equine Massage for Horse Owners course includes a section on neck and leg stretches for your horse! |
Kinesiology Tape
Kinesiology tape has recently become very popular with human athletes and those suffering from soft tissue injuries. We have found that horses can benefit just as much as people from this revolutionary tape! Our on-line Equine Kinesiology Taping Course teaches both horse owners and professionals (we offer a certification course for professionals) how to tape both horses and riders. Learn pain reduction, support, inflammation reduction and meridian techniques! Kinesiology tape not only can reduce pain in both yourself and your horse, but it can also help prevent injuries from occurring! |
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