The bad news is, I missed it. I had lessons I had to go teach (which ended up being canceled due to the rain) but The Girl was there and had her horse done, too. She reported that Lex flipped her head the entire time so it was hard to tell if she liked it. I'm guessing she was sick of being on the cross-ties, because I'd been working on her skin all morning, giving her a bath and stuff. She also said she hated having her right stifle touched, but she has a cut on the inside of her gaskin (how...?) which I think is why. Apparently she didn't mind having her left stifle messed with at all, which is great, since that's where she had her surgery. She also told me that the lady said Lex has a very strong neck, which is definitely true.
The massage therapist gave me a sheet with some more information on it. I'm trying not to be all "whaaaaat" about the spelling, I really am. But I do kinda think that if you want to do something for a living, you should be able to spell the basic vocabulary of your trade.
Anyway, the take-home point is that she's tight through her back and her left trapezius muscle. I'm not surprised at all. She has a harder time bending to the right, which is when that left trap has to stretch more, and I've always thought she was tight through the back. The lady said that she would really benefit from monthly massages, which is probably true, but I'm guessing I can learn to do this myself instead of paying someone else to do it. I think Lex would respond better to me doing it anyway.
Have any of you had success with equine massage? How long did it take for you to tell a difference?
I've had body work done on both the boys--it's not quite massage and it falls short of chiropractic. It was a bit of a stop gap for Cuna last year, but I don't think I'll do it again for him. He has bigger issues. I'm on the fence with Courage. I really think that the magical (not even kidding) chiro who used to come to our area could have done him a lot of good, but I haven't been impressed with the replacements since the magic guy retired.
ReplyDeleteBesides, for any of those things to be effective, the horse needs to be building muscle to support the structures that were worked on. C-rage is standing around trying not to die in the ice. We'll get back to this at a time that makes more sense.
Really good point about the muscle-building! You're a smartie.
DeleteTucker received monthly massages for most of his eventing career. They started when he was consistently landing off his fences and firing off a couple of high-quality bucks. We theorized that he was tight over his topline and that he was hitting that tightness when he went to bascule and bucking as a result. Don't know if that assessment was entirely accurate, but the bucking all but vanished. (It's still in there! But very, very rare.) I do feel it was useful in keeping his body in reasonably good working order and that it can be a really useful tool for rehab and maintenance both, but also that, absent a physical issue, correct riding will do most of the same work. Since we made some changes to how we do our dressage, I haven't felt the need to start the massages back up.
ReplyDeleteI can certainly see how back soreness would result in bucking, and absolutely agree on the value of correct riding.
DeleteI haven't gotten a massage for Simon, but I'd be curious. He had one chiro session and I'm kinda meh about that although my trainer is a big fan.
ReplyDeleteMy trainer likes chiro and acupuncture and stuff like that, too. He thinks research is dumb. I think research saves me from spending tons of money on stuff that is shown not to be effective.
DeleteI've never gotten a massage for Henry but have done the Chiro and he loves it! I might have to look into see if there are any massage horse ppl around here :)
ReplyDeleteIf your area is anything like my neck of the woods, you'll have wanna-be massage therapists crawling out yr ears, so find someone to do it for free! :)
DeleteI've done massage once with Visa, and he seemed to be okay with it... but I felt like I had better (and more immediate!) results with chiropractor.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling that the grammar police isn't very happy about the punctuation either. Ugh. Most of the barns up here in NorCal have a preferred massage therapist that they use so it's a challenging market to break into. I'm surprised by the lack of professionalism in the diagnostic report! I don't do a whole lot of buy in when it comes to chiro or massage- unless there's an obvious issue that could be corrected. I did treat my half leased horse, Ben, to a massage after each show but did it more as a "thank you" than expecting to get measurable benefits.
ReplyDeleteI don't really expect to see measurable benefits either. If I do it again, I want to be there so I can see if I think she's enjoying herself or not. If she likes it, fine. If it's torture, I don't think it's worth it.
DeleteBased upon my experience with people (and I believe horses are the same) its most influential to do 2 massages, then a chiro and then more massages. The muscles pull the skeleton out of place, not the other way around :)
ReplyDelete