Hayley Burton Sports and Rehabilitation Massage for Human and Horse

22/08/2023

03/07/2022

Winner performance for Havana Angel 😇

04/06/2022

23/05/2022

Retraining of racehorses doesn’t happen over night! Here we see an Amy Murphy Racing horse enjoying his canter on the beach!

🏋️‍♀️Strength Training 🏋️‍♀️

Direct comparisons are made from the Racing photos to ‘the transformation’, which is brilliant to see and to celebrate, but what about the stages in between?

I think, especially in a age where the potential stress, desire and pressure that social media can cause, it is imperative that we not only appreciate what our ex racehorses can achieve but WHAT they’re managing to achieve despite what their conformation is/put together.

Bottom line; our ex racehorses are not built, naturally, ‘to sit’. It’s not a case of they can’t, but it’s how we start that conversation and journey without breaking them both mentally and physically. It is also an absolute testament to their trainable natures and their want to try, because as you can see int be top image, their ‘natural way’ is to be downhill in their movement.

The ‘downhill’ movement isn’t a negative thing. The dynamics of the way they move allow them to be effect AS A RACEHORSE! As a riding horse, we are looking for the PROGRESSION towards the ‘IDEAL’ movement, which is to become uphill and in self carriage.

The ‘transition’ from ‘downhill to uphill’ is showing not only in the ‘obvious’ of the direction of travel but also by;

🏋️‍♀️ The position of the rider
🏋️‍♀️The balance of the rider directly on the horses back (ability to ‘sit up’ etc)
🏋️‍♀️ The development of muscular structure
🏋️‍♀️ Increased range of movement shown by the horse
🏋️‍♀️ The range and reach of limbs shown by the horse

The highlight from this is TIME! In an ideal scenario I would have used an image of Greg racing; however, I don’t have said image (so the top one is very kindly from Amy Murphy racing of her horses enjoying time at the beach🥰) The reality is that from ‘racing Greg’ to bottom image Greg is three years and counting, we are still NO WHERE NEAR fully balanced in the canter, which then also becomes super fragile when we start to take that canter and put it into a 10m circle/half pass etc etc. muscle fibres don’t just ‘let go’ or ‘develop and grow’ overnight/within days/weeks, we are talking MONTHS AND YEARS. We also have to bear in mind that we have to quietly and continuously work on developing and supporting this muscle structure as their ‘natural way of being’ will always try and slightly ‘pull them back.’

A brilliant team of physio, saddlers, trainers, farrier etc will help you develop your ex racehorse and keep them sound both mentally and physically, but ultimately, it is you, as the Trainer, who needs to allow the time, keep focused on the end result and work with the horse you’ve got rather than trying to make them something they’re not ❤️🥰

www.thoroughbreddressage.com

10/05/2022

Another great read!!

06/05/2022

Good read!!

02/05/2022

02/05/2022

22/04/2022

Sometime human analogy can really help you understand what’s going on with your horse.

As illustrated in this picture you can see how important keeping pelvic alignment really is. A combination of skeletal & muscular therapies on a maintenance programme will help keep your horses correct & able to perform at their best.

When things start to go wrong, bare this in mind & have your horses checked by a recognised & qualified therapist.

www.equi-therapyuk.com

20/04/2022

Great pictures evidence!