Chelsea's Equine Massage and Therapy

  • Home
  • Chelsea's Equine Massage and Therapy

Chelsea's Equine Massage and Therapy Equine massage therapy can help your horse in so many ways, ask me how I might be able to help your

Yessssssssss
08/09/2025

Yessssssssss

Load Transfer: The Invisible System That Keeps Horses Sound (Until We Break It)

(This is probably the most significant blog I have written to date...and I am deadly serious.)

1️⃣ Why We Miss the Point

Most riders and owners look at legs, joints, or hooves when a horse goes lame. We obsess over hock injections, tendon scans, or shoeing tweaks.

But here’s the blind spot: horses aren’t Lego sets where you can just swap out a dodgy block and keep stacking. They’re whole systems where forces - rider weight, ground impact, propulsion - have to be absorbed, stabilised, and passed on like the world’s most complicated game of pass-the-parcel. That process is called load transfer.

If load transfer works, the horse moves fluidly, distributes force safely, and stays sound. If it doesn’t, the wrong bit cops the pressure - joints, tendons, ligaments - until it breaks. Cue “mystery lameness” and your savings account crying into a feed bucket.

2️⃣ What Load Transfer Actually Is

Load transfer is the art of sharing forces across the horse’s whole body:
- Hooves = shock absorbers (your horse’s Nike Airs).
- Tendons and ligaments = springs (boing, boing).
- Core and spine = suspension bridge (though honestly, comparing a living, moving horse to a bridge bolted to the ground is a bit crap - sorry Tami, I’ll get to you in a second and anyone else having a fit over my analogies :P ).
- Hindquarters = the engine room.
- Trunk = the bridge deck, carrying weight forward.
- Nervous system = Wi-Fi (sometimes 5G, sometimes “buffering…”).

It’s not one joint or one leg doing the work - it’s a team effort. And when one player drops the ball, the others cover… until they tear something.

3️⃣ How It Gets Compromised in Domestication

Here’s the catch: our horses don’t live or move the way evolution intended. Instead, we’ve gifted them the equine version of late-stage capitalism:
- Sedentary living → Wild horses walk 20 km a day. Ours do laps of a 20 x 60 and then slouch around on the couch bingeing Netflix. Fascia weakens, cores collapse, proprioception clocks off.
- Gut health issues → Ulcers, acidosis, restricted forage. Imagine doing Pilates with chronic indigestion. Goodbye stabilisers, hello bracing.
- Rider influence → Saddles, weight, wobbly balance. A hollow back under a rider = hocks and forelimbs eating all the force. “Congratulations, you’re now a wheelbarrow.”

And then we act shocked when the “bridge” collapses and the legs file for workers’ comp.

4️⃣ Why This Explains Early Breakdowns

A horse with poor load transfer isn’t just inefficient - it’s a ticking time bomb.
- Hock arthritis by six.
- Suspensory tears that never heal.
- Kissing spine in a horse that never learned to lift.

This isn’t bad luck. It’s physics. And yes, physics is painful. But so is paying vet bills the size of your mortgage repayments.

Once you see it, the endless cycle of injections and rehab isn’t fate — it’s the logical result of pretending your horse is four pogo sticks with ears instead of a system that has to share the damn load.

5️⃣ Why Talking About This Will Probably Annoy You

Here’s the thing: people who really understand the sheer magnitude of load transfer will most likely confuse you… or offend you.

My good friend Tami Elkayam is the one responsible for hammering this into my thick skull. And I’ll be honest: it took four clinics and two years of friendship before the penny really dropped. She will read this and her hair will stand on end, because load transfer and how the body works is far more interconnected and complex than I’ve made it here.

Because here’s the reality: there is a reason your six-year-old has the joints of a 27-year-old, or why your horse developed kissing spine. And while I’m pretty good at spotting when dysfunctional load transfer has already chewed through a part of the horse… my bigger mission now is to spread the word before more horses — and bank accounts — get wrecked.😎

It may sound like physics, and physics isn’t sexy. But this is physics that explains your vet bills, your training plateaus, your horse’s “difficult” behaviour, and that nagging sense of “not quite right.”

6️⃣ What We Need to Do About It

Instead of obsessing over the parts, we need to step back and care for the system:
- Movement lifestyle → Turnout, hills, hacking, grazing posture. (Not “arena prison with cardio punishment.”)
- Gut health → Forage first, low starch, fewer ulcers. (Because no one engages their core mid-stomach cramp...and that's not even mentioning how digestion impacts the whole things - that blog is for another day)
- Training for posture → Lift the back, wake up the core, balance the bridge. (“More forward” and "rounder" isn’t a strategy, in fact saying those things can be part of the problem...)
Rider responsibility → Balanced seat, good saddle fit, some self-awareness. (Yes, because we have a massive impact on load transfer and how dysfunctional we make it...but let's get the idea in our heads before we beat ourselves up.)
Preventive care → Conditioning, fascia release, thoughtful management. (“Wait for it to break, then panic” is not a plan.)

7️⃣. Closing

Load transfer is the invisible system that keeps horses sound. When it fails, the legs, joints, and tendons take the hit - and horses “mysteriously” break down.

The tragedy isn’t that we can’t prevent it. It’s that we’re too busy staring at hooves or arguing on social media about everything from bits to barefoot to notice the actual system collapsing under our noses.

Once you understand load transfer, you can’t unsee it. And once you can’t unsee it, you’ll never settle for patching symptoms again. You’ll start caring for the whole horse - because that’s the only way to keep the bridge standing, the system working, and your horse sound.

This is Collectable Advice 17/365 of my notebook challenge.

❤Please share this if it made you think. But don’t copy-paste it and slap your name on it - that’s the intellectual equivalent of turning up to an office party with a packet of Tim Tams and calling it “homemade.” This is my work, my study, my sweat, and my own years of training horses (and myself) before figuring this out (well with Tami Elkayam's patience too). Share it, spread it, argue with it - but don’t steal it.

A couple cute butt rubs and some fancy new kicks 💕 It was a good day! Oh yeah and shorts with a homeless hair do cuz it ...
08/08/2025

A couple cute butt rubs and some fancy new kicks 💕 It was a good day! Oh yeah and shorts with a homeless hair do cuz it was too hot to care 🤣 🙈

This was a first for me! I had the pleasure of helping a lamb who had a very sensitive back. He would jump straight up i...
29/07/2025

This was a first for me! I had the pleasure of helping a lamb who had a very sensitive back. He would jump straight up if you even tried to touch it. He has to be in tip top shape for showing at the fair soon. I found he had very tight muscles in his back. I didn't get videos but his gait improved and he was happy to get more back rubs after the massage with no more jumping away 🥰

Good Morning! Here is a Wow Wednesday for you. This is my neice's horse Finn. He came to live with me for one month befo...
23/07/2025

Good Morning! Here is a Wow Wednesday for you. This is my neice's horse Finn. He came to live with me for one month before going to my sister's new home. He came with metal shoes on very upright feet both with a clubby look and a broken back hoof pastern axis. You can see his pastern angles in the before photos are very steep and he is loading his weight on his toes. This caused so much tension and discomfort in his whole body. He has been this way for years landing toe first and has some irreversable coffin bone damage as a result. He was getting injections and other bandaids to hold him together. Bodywork is my first and foremost job but I am passionate about the feet as well because the whole body needs to be in balance in order to have a comfortable horse. I kept him barefoot and slowly lowered his heels. Taking small amounts weekly and keeping a close eye on his movement. The before and after full body photos are 2 trims and 2 weeks apart. I wanted to see just how much his feet were bothering him so I didn't do any bodywork during this time. ALL of these photos are just from making his feet more comfortable. He has since been getting regular trims, bodywork and on a forage only diet and is doing wonderful.
***Side note*** I do not trim for a living and I do not want to trim for a living lol Its a passionate side gig.
Maybe rehab is in my future 🤔 More updates to come on this handsome fella 💙

Come join us at the Otsego County Fairgrounds!
17/07/2025

Come join us at the Otsego County Fairgrounds!

Fun and educational clinic coming up!! $300 per person. Message Chelsea's Equine Massage and Therapy to reserve your spot!!

Another happy customer! He was having a hard time engaging his hind end and lateral flexion of his atlas. He was very re...
10/07/2025

Another happy customer! He was having a hard time engaging his hind end and lateral flexion of his atlas. He was very restricted in the poll and sacrum. Top is before bottom is after one session. His body is freed up and ready to learn with Phil Oakes 🥰☀️

My office was beautiful today ☀️
09/07/2025

My office was beautiful today ☀️

Diet and environment are KEY factors! Start there! I get asked a lot about diet and I plan to make a post soon to elabor...
14/05/2025

Diet and environment are KEY factors! Start there! I get asked a lot about diet and I plan to make a post soon to elaborate. Not every horse is an easy fix but I have seen a diet change transform horses bodies, hooves and minds! This a good read. Highly recommend Mad Barn!

The “Secret Sauce” to Healthy Hooves

I got you there, didn’t I?

I wish there was a powder or magic pill that allowed for perfect feet. It would make my job as a hoofcare pro and owner of a hoof rehab facility SO much easier. “Just add in this supplement and everything will be great!”

Some cases are trickier. While most who follow this platform know that I always advocate for movement and a forage-based mineral balanced diet, some cases don’t seem to respond 100% to that. There may be underlying issues, like undiagnosed metabolic problems (PPID isn’t controlled by diet, my peeps!), PSSM/MIM (muscle myopathies can be tricky), chronic Lyme issue, chronic gut issues (how can they absorb their nutrients if their gut is grumpy??), or even genetic malformations like ECVM that can lead to a host of discomfort or neurological type problems.

It’s not always movement and diet. But for so many, those two things can cover a multitude of other equine management “sins.”

So where do we even begin in knowing what to feed and when?

I am a HUGE ADVOCATE for hay testing. You absolutely cannot know what your diet is lacking in if you don’t know what is even in the bulk of your horse’s diet. I personally take a hay sample every time a hay trailer is dropped at my farm, send it off to Equi-Analytical, and get the results within days, which allows me to adjust their diet and supplements for the 2-3 months I have that trailer. I’ve seen a huge change in their hoof quality and even their coat, topline, etc this way.

But let’s say you don’t have a consistent supply of hay. What do you do if it doesn’t make sense to test?
There are a few databases of forage averages based on region- they’re not always completely accurate, but it’s a start. Dairy One and Mad Barn, for example, both have some databases of hay averages by region.

There are also plenty of “starting points” for good feet - like we know forage is notoriously high in iron and deficient in copper and zinc. So we can avoid feeds or supplements with added iron, and feed supplements with good amounts of copper and zinc. The safe upper limits for copper and zinc are over 2000mg per day for a 1000lb horse, and we feed significantly less than that even for horses in rehab (for example, my rehab horses right now get about 350mg copper and about 1000mg zinc per day, based on my hay tests).

Some other complaints I’ve had from owners is “well my horse won’t eat supplements high in copper and zinc!!”. One option I had used here for some “picky eaters” is Mad Barn’s Amino Trace Plus. If you’d want to use something else, I’d honestly glance at the guaranteed analysis and compare the copper and zinc levels to something like Amino Trace Plus, because just because something says it has copper and zinc in it doesn’t mean it has any meaningful amount! Right now I am using a different supplement mix based on my hay test, but my guys are on Mad Barn’s manganese based on my hay test, and extra magnesium oxide also from Mad Barn.

Also note that the iron listed on any Mad Barn labels is not from added iron, but intrinsic iron naturally found in basically all feed and supplements. (The U.S. does not require intrinsic iron to be listed on the label, but Canada does!! I promise even your favorite supplement has intrinsic iron even if not on the label).

I know it’s a minefield, so Mad Barn is also coming out with a FREE education hub to help owners and professionals (yes, some organizations accept it for CE credit!) learn more about how to feed and what to feed.

I want to give a huge shout out to Mad Barn for sponsoring our SOLD OUT Podiatry Clinic this fall in Amesbury, MA with Celeste Lazaris, Dr. Jenny Hagen, Pat Reilly, and Ula Krzanowska! We do have a Livestream/Video Recording option available at https://thehumblehoof.com/product/october-25-26-2025-livestream/

Mad Barn did take one of our last sponsorship options that allows for clinic attendance! If you would be interested in sponsoring the clinic, please reach out to see what options may be left ☺️

I love my job 🥰🐴 Thank you Marie McPhee Photography
13/05/2025

I love my job 🥰🐴 Thank you Marie McPhee Photography

Mares. They’re great mentors I think. O’Connor

Chelsea's Equine Massage and Therapy

Address


49727

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Chelsea's Equine Massage and Therapy posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

  • Want your business to be the top-listed Pet Store/pet Service?

Share