Equine Physical Therapy

[K S Swigart <katswig@deltanet.com>]

I've been meaning to say something about this since I first saw the post 
about physical therapists for horses and especially after I saw many of 
the responses which spoke of massage therapy rather than physical 
therapy.

When I first heard the question, my immediate answer would have been, 
"any truly competent dressage trainer could be described as an equine 
physical therapist."

I don't know if the person who asked the original question was asking 
about physical therapy or massage therapy, but as any human physical 
therapy practitioner (and anybody who has been subjected to their 
ministrations :)) knows, massage therapy is a very small part of 
physical therapy.  Physical therapy is what you undergo to recover from 
an injury that has caused a loss of use of some of your muscles, joints, 
limbs, etc.  It is, generally, exercises that you are made to do in 
order to rebuild the portion of your anatomy that has atrophied as a 
result of an injury.  

Massage therapy is used as a part of this to loosen up and relax muscles 
that are being asked to work that haven't been asked to work properly in 
a long time, but it is only a very small part of it.  The bulk of the 
therapy is asking the muscles to work properly.

Additionally, physical therapy is not a therapy that can be implemented 
overnight or at a vet check (massage therapy is and is very useful in 
these situations).  Physical therapy is about slowly bringing muscles 
back to work, and doing so 'properly' (in the words of Elise, a dressage 
trainer down in Rancho Santa Fe who was asked by Deb Bennett "How do you 
get such wonderful musculature on your horses, do you longe them over 
cavaletti?"  Elise responded, "No, I work my horses...properly.")

In the words of Alois Podajhsky (for those of you that know me, you know 
that as far as I am concerned, Podajhsky is the god of horsemanship), 
you can tell whether your training program has been successful and 
whether you have been training your horses properly by looking at your 
horse.  Proper training of a horse will always make the horse more 
beautiful.  (Here I am paraphrasing, because I have loaned out my book. 
No doubt Podajhsky's words were better, but I don't have them to hand.)

As I said originally:  any competent dressage trainer could be 
considered an equine physical therapist.  However, note that I did not 
say 'any dressage trainer.'  IMNSHO very few dressage riders and very 
few dressage trainers understand this about dressage, that the purpose 
of dressage is "to train the horse through gymnastic exercises to use 
himself properly at all gaits and through all transistions on the 
straight away, on the turn, and laterally." (My definition of dressage.)  
But rather think that it is a competition where you buy an expensive 
horse with naturally brilliant gaits and then cram the horse into a 
frame that is beyond its capabilities and call the chiropracter out once 
a month to undo the ravages of your training.  (And here I am going to 
go WAY out on a limb and say, if you need a chiropracter for your horse, 
that is pretty much confirmation that you haven't been working your 
horse properly.  Not to say that this doesn't happen even to the best of 
riders, just that it is an indication of overuse of the horse, breaking 
it down rather than building it up.)  Proper dressage should always 
build up the horse.

To find a good equine physical therapist then requires more that just 
going out and hiring your local dressage trainer (not saying that the 
local dressage trainer is NOT a good physical therapist, but rather that 
you need to ask a lot more questions than just "Are you a dressage 
trainer?").  It requires that person to have a thorough understanding of 
how a horse moves, the muscles it uses to get that kind of movement, the 
kind of exercises it takes to build up the muscles that need building 
up, AND knowing how to school the horse in such a way that it can be 
asked to do the necessary exercises.

I have found that there are three books that provide all the information 
anybody needs to understand the first three of these requirements.  The 
fourth requirement can only be learned from the horses themselves.  
Those three books are:

_The Complete Training of Horse and Rider_ by Alois Podajhsky for a 
general understanding of how a horse and rider work together to get 
proper movement from a horse and a general philosophy of correct 
horsemanship.  It is a philosophy book, not a how to manual.

_The Lame Horse:  Its causes, symptoms, and treatments_ by James Rooney 
for a good understanding of the mechanics of movement in horses.  The 
sections of the normal foreleg, rearleg, etc. are much more useful in 
general, before he starts talking about pathologies, but the pathologies 
are interesting as well.

_Effective Horsemanship_ by Noel Jackson, which is, indeed, a 'how to' 
manual.  It details specific exercises that can be done to properly 
build a horse, what to do with an asymetrical horse, the exact cues to 
give and where to give them in order to get a specific movement from a 
horse, etc.  This book, however, is not for the faint of heart, and I 
wouldn't recommend trying to use it unless you have been riding for 
quite a while because he details SO MUCH about what you have to do to 
ride a horse 'properly' that if you didn't already do much of it without 
thinking, it would be easy to become discouraged by thinking, "I could 
NEVER do all of that while riding the horse at the same time."

Sorry to go on for so long, and I don't know if I have helped the 
original poster, or anybody else for that matter, to find an equine 
physical therapist.  But, hopefully, it will give you some idea of what 
you are looking for so you can at least interview a 'trainer' 
competently to find out if this is what they may be able to do for your 
horse (or to help you to do for your horse--since ultimately, it is the 
person that is going to be riding the horse all of the time that needs 
to be able to ride it 'properly').

kat
Orange County, Calif.

p.s.  I hesitate to comment on this, but ... the best way to get the 
list to stop talking about a subject is to stop talking about it.  Don't 
post to the list on the said topic and delete all posts about said 
topic.  Sending posts that say "let's not talk about this anymore" is 
just adding to the noise about that topic.  As far as I am concerned, 
Steph is the only one who is allowed to say, "This subject is now 
closed, everybody stop talking about it."