A horse can benefit from therapeutic massage at practically any age, so therapists may see their subjects' ages range from 1 to 20 years. Find out why age matters in this video on equine kinesiology.
Hello, my name is Jennifer Oliver, and I'm an equine massage therapist and the question is what are the best ages to start equine massage therapy. That definitely varies depending on the sport, and depending on what you're doing with the horse at certain ages, and you know, just depending on overall age of the horse. The thoroughbred industry for instance starts their horses at such a young age, and you know, I'll get clients that are going you know taking their yearlings into the sales because they want those horses you know to look their best, be their best, you know, those young horses, and then you know all through the thoroughbred industry you're going to see the young horses racing, the two-year-old races, the three-year-old races, so in that aspect, you're starting really young. A lot of other horse communities don't start working their horses until they're about three. And then they'll go, you know, till they're 20. So it kind of varies depending on the discipline, but at the same time, you know, the younger you start, the better your horse is going to kind of grow up through, and the less tension that they have, the more effective your training sessions are going to be, because they're not going to be distracted by you know, ouch this hurts, I don't like doing this because this is sore, so you're going to get a lot better training out of your young horses, and the older horses are just have so much tension and their muscles get so much you know more use because you know, they're getting older in their age, and you see such a big difference with the therapy with them.
