Sue Palmer - Horse Massage for Horse Owners: Improve Your Horses Health and Wellbeing

HORSE MASSAGE

FOR HORSE OWNERS

HORSE MASSAGE

FOR HORSE OWNERS

Improve Your Horses Health and Wellbeing

SUE PALMER

CHARTERED VETERINARY PHYSIOTHERAPIST

J. A. ALLEN

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by J.A. Allen, an imprint of

The Crowood Press, Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This impression 2017

This e-book first published in 2017

Sue Palmer 2012

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 90880 966 7

The rights of Sue Palmer to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Edited by Martin Diggle

Line illustrations in by Samantha Elmhurst BA Hons

Photographs and other images by Simon Palmer, Into the Lens, except where otherwise credited.

Disclaimer of Liability

The author and publisher shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book. While the book is as accurate as the author can make it, there may be errors, omissions, and inaccuracies.

Contents

Foreword by Kelly Marks

I FIRST MET S UE P ALMER (then Sue Brown) over fourteen years ago when she attended one of my Intelligent Horsemanship courses. Sue not only stayed strongly in touch with me she also married a fellow student, photographer Simon Palmer! I remember Sues fathers wedding speech when he talked about her endless quest for learning and I can vouch for that. Sue has not only studied on my courses and gone on, in fact, to represent us as an Intelligent Horsemanship Recommended Associate, she also went on to study for seven years to qualify as an equine massage therapist and Chartered Veterinary Physiotherapist.

Sue continues to be on a quest for never-ending improvement in horsemanship. She is a fantastic example to anyone who truly wants to do their best for horses in general, or simply for their own much-loved horse. The need to have your horse physically comfortable cannot be overestimated when it comes to his quality of life, and my own horses have regular treatments from Sue. The owners desire and ability to pay attention to whats happening with their horse, and further, through this book being able to massage him themselves on a regular basis, is an essential element of the respect and understanding that leads to a healthy, happy horse.

Kelly Marks
Intelligent Horsemanship

Preface

M ASSAGE HAS BEEN A PASSION for me as long as I can remember, and my objective is that this book will excite a similar passion in you, the reader. My enthusiasm for massage developed over many years. I was lucky enough to be brought up with horses, and have ridden since I was 3 years old. My ponies carried me safely from lead-rein through Pony Club and on to horses, including competing in affiliated showjumping and eventing.

Deciding initially that university wasnt for me, I followed my love of horses through a variety of jobs, working with a range of breeds from Shetland to Shire, and in diverse areas such as driving and point-to-pointing as well as dressage, showjumping, eventing, hacking and teaching. At one time I had my point-to-point jockeys licence, but unfortunately the horse did a leg the week before I was due to ride in my first race, and by the next season racing wasnt an option.

The majority of my time in my late teens and early twenties was spent with a horse dealer. We visited horse fairs including Appleby, Stowe, and Ballinasloe, and were regulars at Southall and Reading Markets. I met horses from all walks of life, including a spell of selling to the knackerman, and importing top-quality showjumpers from abroad. It was a steep learning curve, one that not many people have the opportunity to experience, and one for which I am forever grateful I truly believe that I would not be where I am now without the knowledge that I gained during that time.

The horses were my teachers, and those at the dealers yard taught me far more than any book, DVD, or instructor could ever teach. I learned very quickly to assess accurately a horses behaviour, both on the ground and ridden, because if I got it wrong then I got hurt which happened on many occasions.

Most of my time in late teens and early twenties was spent with a horse dealer.

One thing I quickly learned to assess was whether or not a horse had been broken-in, and what his ridden behaviour might be. This wasnt something I was conscious of learning, it just happened. I now know that I must have been assessing not only behaviour and attitude, but also muscle tone, reactivity and comfort levels; there was no doubting when I got my assessment wrong I ended up on the floor!

We had hundreds of unbacked youngsters over the years, either home-bred or bought from the sales, and it was part of my job to back them and prepare them for life in a private home. Many were straightforward, calmly accepting saddle, bridle and rider in no time at all. Some were more difficult, perhaps more spooky, difficult to get the bridle on, or over-reactive when the girth was done up.

When it was time to move on, I studied hard to qualify and teach as a BHSAI. Around this time a dear friend of mine took me to see a gentleman called Monty Roberts doing a demonstration at Addington Equestrian Centre in Buckinghamshire. I was fascinated, and I remember commenting that it would be a dream come true to study his methods on the course that was then run at West Oxfordshire College. I am a great believer in following your dreams, and so I applied and was accepted to study for the Monty Roberts Preliminary Certificate in Horsemanship with Kelly Marks. In due course I qualified as an Intelligent Horsemanship Recommended Associate (see the Useful Information section near the end of this book for more information), and the behavioural knowledge that I have gained from this work forms an essential part of my massage and physiotherapy work. How else can you persuade a horse to accept the discomfort that physiotherapy sometimes involves, without understanding his behaviour and working with him rather than against him? Owners are regularly surprised at how accepting the horse is of the work that I and many other practitioners do, and Im sure its because we communicate with the horse, which importantly includes listening to him. At the time of writing, I am the physiotherapist on tour with Monty Roberts and Kelly Marks in the UK, and have been a member of the tour team for several years.