A horse requires no special care after a massage session, but trainers should realize that the horse might prefer a gradual warm-up into its normal exercise routine. Let your horse loosen up after its massage with the advice in this video on equine kinesiology.
Hello, my name is Jennifer Oliver, and I'm an equine massage therapist, and the question is, how does an owner care for his horse after a massage? Well normally, you know it doesn't matter, the horse could go out, the horse could stay in the stall, the horse could be worked, Casper has not been worked yet today, so after his massage today he'll go out and be worked and normally, what I ask of the owners is not to expect a whole lot from him because they might be a little bit you know tired because all their muscles just got worked really good, and so they just go out and have a good ride, you know, just kind of let it be a relaxed ride, let those muscles continue to loosen up, get the blood flowing, that's the best thing for him. Owners can do many things after the massage, I don't put any riding restrictions on them, normally I just kind of tell them just to listen to their horse if they're going to ride him after I work on them. You know, just do a nice little easy walk trot type thing, don't do anything crazy, because you know you wouldn't want to go run a marathon after getting a massage, just the same that a horse would. Now I do have different kinds of massage that I do before events that are different from the full body sports massage, so we're talking just the sports massage here. And you know, normally there isn't a whole lot you need to do other than a nice little hand walk will sometimes help loosen them up after the massage but if you know, that's not available, then that's perfectly OK as well.
