Has anyone tried any liniments? What have you been successful with?
It depends on the back pain. . . a little body sore while coming back into work or upping a fitness level, and I do liniment rub downs or baths. If it is recovering from a poorly fit saddle, I might also use liniment.
Other back pain, I would consult my vet or chiro. …
As far as the type of liniment, I always use Sore No More.
From personal experience, if your horse has a sore back please have the back xrayed. If you have had a vet eval already and there is no bony issue with spine than I personally find Back on Track products to be worth their money. Perhaps with some Sore No More linament. Also I find acupuncture to be an effective pain management tool.
Instead of spending $$ on liniments that really only affect surface areas (skin level), I would recommend finding a local, certified bodyworker (massage therapist) to work on your horse, as well as aid in pinpointing why your horse has a sore back to begin with, and fix the problem. Horses should not have chronically sore backs.
Aren’t chiros really expensive. My horse recently recovered from an injruy and I’ve been riding him consistently now. He was out for almost 2 months. I mean what would you recommend I try first? I’d rather start with something simple before I have to spend tons of money
A massage therapist would be the first place I would start. If it’s just muscle soreness, they’ll be able to help. If it’s something more, they may recommend to follow up with a vet. I may use liniment on my horse’s back after a hard ride, but it definitely isn’t what I rely on if he’s truly sore.
My guy has back issues. We were able to chiro it for a year or two and then it got so bad we had his SI joint injected. We did it twice over about 2 years. This year he was off again but his hocks were in terrible shape (just wear and tear) and his hocks had not been done in probably 7-8 years. We did those in Aug and he has been 100 percent since then. So it’s been 18 months now since we worked on his back. So I suspect it was his hocks all along. Not sure if linaments will help a bad back.
Working in conjunction with a chiro/massage therapist, I use either Sore No More, Or Cox Vet Lab’s N’Ice n Cool. I use both on the withers/back and on sore muscles and all legs with no issue. My horse LOVES getting a liniment rubdown. His most favorite thing!
If the back is sore, the first step is to figure out why. It may be a primary problem, like a poorly fitting saddle, or off balance rider, poor equine posture during exercise (inverted, not tracking up well) or paddock injury (muscle pull or strain, or blow from another horse, or ?). Or it may be a secondary problem, starting with problems elsewhere, often hocks, or feet, causing the horse to carry himself differently, and causing the soreness in the back as a result of that. Or it may be due to conformational weakness or problem that makes it difficult to treat effectively.
Treating the symptoms without first identifying the cause is next to useless, because the problem will only re manifest itself if the root is not first corrected. Often, once the root problem IS corrected, the sore back resolves itself without further intervention.
