Top Notch Equine Massage

11/28/2023

06/04/2023

The track at Churchill Downs isn’t breaking [completely sound] horses down, it’s telling on horses who are already broken down.

A horse’s bones are plastic. No, not made of plastic, but plastic by definition in that they are able to remodel to accommodate the stresses they face. When a horse is gradually introduced to higher and higher levels of stress (speed) the cannon bones actually change from the perfectly round (cross section) of a newborn foal to a more oblong shape, becoming quite oval shaped in the case of a mature racehorse.

Horses of yesteryear were trained in such a way to prepare them more thoroughly for the stresses of racing than the horses of today. In the (paraphrased) words of the late great Tom Ivers (author of The Fit Racehorse and many other marvelous works) ‘You can’t get what you don’t train for’...If horses only breeze moderate 1/2s and 5/8s miles, then what you’re left with is a horse who can safely run moderate 1/2s and 5/8 miles. Horses need to see racing speed and racing distances in the morning to prepare them for racing speed and distance in the afternoon. “You’ll break them down training like that” is the battle cry from those already breaking them down...the reason they believe this is because like so many other aspects of this industry, trainers want to count to 100 like this...One, two, skip a few, 99, 100...It is completely true that a horse will break down training like that IF they aren’t adequately prepared to do so (they’re already breaking down regularly because they aren’t) and adequately preparing them takes time and lots of it...something that seems to be in shortage in this industry. A base of conditioning through long (and I mean LONG to the tune of 6 daily miles) slow distance gradually increasing speed as the distance is shortened produces a horse with bones made of iron with muscles and lungs to match (horses trained like this DO NOT BLEED)

Adding injury (pun intended) to insult are the clown feet we ask our woefully unprepared horses to run on. Studies show that the forces on a horse’s SFDT AND DDFT are exponentially increased for every millimeter the breakover moves beyond the natural point located below the tip coffin bone. The epidemic of long toes and low heels seen at the track is the hinge point of a cascade of destruction. Many trainers at the track still hold to the fallacy that longer toes = longer stride. Racetrackers being not much for science ignore the slow motion footage proving that all long toes and low angles do is force the horse to pick his foot up slower and higher with each stride, effectively slowing him down. The added work of getting his snowshoes off the ground causes him to tire earlier, leading to soft tissue failure in epidemic levels.

Add to these travesties the weekly dose of calcium depleting Lasix most horse’s receive so they can breeze their measly 1/2 mile without their underdeveloped lungs hemorrhaging and you’re left with blood which must leach calcium from bones already too fragile to perform the task at hand.

Add to all of this wreckage the breeding of equine beauty queens made for the sales ring and not the racetrack and you’ve got the recipe for the disaster that is modern TB racing.

If you’re ready to see racing REALLY put the horses first, follow this page, The Zen Racehorse. We’re about to change the game from the inside out!

04/28/2023

Touch with intention

Feel your hand on the horse, and feel yourself
Don’t fuss, don’t tickle, don’t rearrange, don’t pick, don’t scratch, don’t correct, just feel -

Feel the inside of you carried to the inside of the horse

Be here- with this horse, right now
clear energy, not muddied by what you want, what the horse is doing, thoughts of something somewhere else

Your feel carried directly to the horse

Touch with intention is the highest discipline there is

Dive into it, and a deeper world of the horse opens up to you

03/07/2023

“How much weight can a horse carry?

In my experience, a horse can carry an infinite amount.

They can carry the weight of broken hearts, broken homes, and broken bodies. Countless tears sometimes comb their tangled manes. Moments when parents and friends cannot be there to help and hold a person, horses embrace and empower. They carry physical, mental, and emotional handicaps. They carry hopes and dreams; and they will carry the stress from your day when you can't carry it anymore.

They carry graduations, they carry new careers, they carry moves away from everything familiar, they carry marriages, they carry divorces, they carry funerals, they carry babys before they are born, and sometimes they carry the mothers who cannot carry their own baby. They carry mistakes, they carry joy, they carry the good and they carry the bad. They carry drugs and addictions, but they also carry the celebrations.

They will carry you to success when all you have felt is failure. They will carry you, never knowing the weight of your burdens and triumphs.

If you let them, they will carry you through life, and life is hard, life is heavy. But a horse will make you feel weightless under it all.”

-Written by Sara Huffman

Photo credit: https://www.facebook.com/DorotaKudybaArt/photos

Good night, God Bless. 🙏🏻💖

01/10/2022

Vous voulez connaitre la raison pourquoi les chevaux ont des trous derrière les épaules?

Les chevaux n'ont pas de clavicule qui permet de retenir leur cage thoracique entre les épaules. Elle est uniquement tenue par des muscles.

Ces muscles peuvent être actifs, c'est le cheval de gauche. Un des principaux groupes de muscles qui tient cette cage thoracique, c'est la ceinture thoracique qui est en bleu, ainsi que le muscles caudaux des cuisses qui permet de bien tendre toute la cage thoracique. La cage thoracique est ''haute'' entre les épaules, les muscles sont remplis, la forme du garrot en coupe est pleine.

Ou si le cheval n'a pas été particulièrement été entrainé ou s'il a une conformation délicate ou une blessure, ce sont les muscles passifs qui retiennent la cage thoracique de tomber entre les épaules. On reconnait sa silhouette typique de cheval en U, l'encolure a un arche vers le bas, c'est le brachiocéphalique qui est surdéveloppé, les pectoraux qui ressortent devant et plus subtil, au niveau des lombaires, des muscles tendus car ils ''retiennent'' tout l'avant main.

La cage thoracique est basse entre les épaules et c'est ce decalage qui crée le trou derrière les épaules.

Dessin de base et pour en savoir plus : https://pferde-gesund-bewegen.de/trageerschoepfung-wenn-der-pferdekoerper-sagt-ich-kann-nicht-mehr