Curious to hear what sorts of body work professionals everyone uses for their horses. Do they offer more than one type of body work or service? Also how did you find out about them?
I ask as I am recently finished my Equine Sports Therapy Certificate. This covers a broad spectrum of body work, and I’m looking into what direction I would like to go with it, and how to build my business more.
TIA
I really love getting chiropractic work done on my horses- they always seem much happier and more flexible afterward! That is the only type of bodywork that I have had done consistently, and my entire barn swears by it!
I see Chiro as a maintenance aspect of my horses care, acupuncture for the tense/upper level ones, magna waves as a show bonus for the hard workers, and don’t really care for massage as they have such large muscles and it is hard to really work those (in my opinion).
This is all supplemented with lots of walking, theraplates, icing, and magnetic blankets.
Horses are athletes and I believe in treating them as such!
I"ve always done chiropractic either thru a vet or now with a lady who does chiropractic and Acupuncture. Crazy seeing some of the needles after they come out… one mare with a lot of neck issues had one that looked almost like a corks crew. Needless to say she felt much better after. I also will do trigger point/Masterson touch type manage on the horses myself. I’m not certified or anything but i definitely notice a difference when i do work on them. so i try to do it before rides and at shows, and when i can’t get the Chiropractor out.
Also something i think people forget is getting yourself adjusted and its not just about self care… if your tight and out of whack your horses have to compensate. So i try to get adjusted regularly but sadly my work hours make it hard to do.
Chiro and REM needling have always given the best results for my horses.
I use my vet who is a chiro/acupuncture person (and also incorporates things like shockwave, electroacupuncture, etc.), and a lady who is…well, I don’t know what I would call her. She is a little out there, but has made insanely dramatic differences in both my horses and myself. She was my vet’s mentor for many years and she still refers her to any horses that have pelvis issues. She does hands on work, but not massage. Tough to describe, but boy do the horses love it!
I had a horse (since sold) that needed a lot of regular maintenance to stay happy. I tried PEMF- I couldn’t see any results post-treatment. I also tried chiro- this horse showed massive improvement, he moved like a whole different horse- more forward, body swinging freely, etc. However, the catch was that this only lasted about a week. I have a friend who also did chiro on her high maintenance horse and experienced the same thing. She switched to massage, and saw more long-term results. She says that massage is the only thing that keeps her horse happy, forward and moving really nicely. My plan was to switch to massage as well, but ended up selling the horse before I could book an appointment. I liked the way the friend put it- you can align the bones and make everything correct, but if the horse has tight muscles, those big muscles are just going to move things back out of alignment! I think it’s important to have a really good, well-educated massage therapist, but a good one can make all the difference.
To your point kiwihill3000 - chiro AND massage together works wonders! My chiro does a fair amount of massage in her work for that reason. Same story with incorporating acupuncture into the chiro/massage.
I’ve often said, and will say again, that the modality of work matters less than the skill of the worker to really understand all of the different parts involved, and the really good people often do more than “just” their named area of focus.
Chiro has done incredible things for my horse - but finding one that is thoroughly trained can be a challenge. I’ve had 2 great chiropractors work on him and they both held DVMs. The third was not a vet, and my horse was NOT happy about the work she did. I have also done bi-monthly PEMF sessions which the horse enjoyed but didn’t see lasting results. Day of and next day he’d feel amazing and by day 3 it was back to normal. And I did bi-monthly PEMF for nearly 6 months so I was disappointed to see the same trouble areas had no improvement. Massage is great too, horse LOVED it, but again did not have lasting results. The most recent chiropractor to work on him is also an osteopath and acupuncturist. I’m also curious about KT tape paired with massage. Haven’t had it done on my horse only because I don’t think anyone in my area knows how to use KT tape.
I use a chiropractor; I found her when she posted on a FB group and offered a free intro session to one lucky winner. I won 
The initial session was an evaluation of the horse, starting with tacking up and watching both of us ride. She then adjusted the horse and adjusted me. It was awesome. It was effective marketing, I certainly did my part by becoming a client and spreading the word to others, who also use her.
For other therapies like PEMF I use the vet, he is very reasonable. I tried massage for one horse, it didn’t really seem to do much, but have no way to compare the lady’s skills to anyone else.
Personally, I would like to have one person who could offer a range of services. Especially helpful for those with more than one horse since they might need different treatments.
Cudo LOFFFS Pemf.
Like to an unholy degree. He gets it between 1-2x a month.
Em
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