Thundering Hooves Performance Massage

05/21/2023

Do you still love your horse if he no longer meets your expectations?

Loving, is without expectations, otherwise it is attachment.

Let this sink in.....

If you are being very honest with yourself, what does your horse need to comply with to be self-satisfied? Does he have to perform certain achievements? To what purpose? What does it bring you? What does it bring to your horse? What are you attached to?

Are you also very happy with your horse, and do you still love him just as much when he is no longer as healthy, and no longer accomplishes what you want with him? Or do you sell him and move on with another horse?

Will you take care of the cost for your animal until death do you part? Does he have 4 legs or 3 legs? Big ears, a hanging belly, a messy coat?

Your horse accepts you just as you are. Even when you don’t have your day, and sometimes it affects you. When he gets punched because he cant stand still. When he has to walk through a badly fitted saddle with back pain. He still loves you just as much.

Even in the harshest of circumstances, he sees the good in you, and wants harmony, even if it costs his health and his life. He takes you just as you are.

And even when he's all up, and it's not going well, he wants before you, to be well. These are the horses that are shining in the barn and broken inside.

Saw this picture passing by, it is so fitting for how I feel about horses, had to share it. For all our loyal four-legged friends, I hope for more awareness.

Team-life

05/07/2023

Here’s your yearly PSA about loose salt Vs salt blocks!!

Did you know that salt blocks were designed for cattle? Cattle have rough washcloth type tongues like a cat. They can lick those blocks and get enough salt. Especially in a herd situation there are enough cows to actually USE up the blocks.

Did you know that horses have a smooth tongue? Much like a dog or even us! Horses on average need 2-3 tablespoons of salt daily for all the bodily functions that require salt!!

It would take a horse hours on a salt block to get enough. Many horses have actually learned to give up on the blocks and will ignore them. Never even trying to get enough salt. You know what getting a salt burn on your tongue feels like right???

So consider choosing loose salt for your equine buddies! It’s SUPER cheap! I was at TSC yesterday and priced a 50 lbs bag for less than $10!

05/07/2023

Pretty cool stuff!!

This is an original 1956 photo of a drawing by artist Eric Miller who visited Swaps’ stall at Garden State Park to sketch the special sling sent by Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons to trainer Mesh Tenney holding the 1955 Kentucky Derby winner’s left hind leg off the ground.

In October, while training for the Washington, D.C. International at Garden State Park, Swaps fractured his leg in two places: in his left rear cannon bone, then a week later banged his leg in his stall, breaking his cast, and extending the fractures into his pastern joint.

Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons, the trainer of Nashua, sent him a special sling from Belmont Park. He initially had to be raised and lowered every 45 minutes and trainer Mesh Tenney stayed with the horse and performed the function for the first 36 hours.

In November 1956, despite losing 300 pounds during the ordeal, Swaps beat the odds and jogged away from his ordeal and was saved for stud duty.

05/19/2022

Interesting and educational read for all my horse owners.

I’ve said this for many many years. It’s starting to get more science behind it now. I personally only use boots on the fronts unless a horse has shoes. I try and put them on right before my run and as soon as I come out of the arena those boots come right off. Seeing a horse stand at the trailer booted up for an hour makes me cringe 😬
“I'm actually studying to be an equine rehab practitioner. I normally don't even share on fb because most don't even care, but the science is really that boots can only protect the leg so much. The horse is a very large animal with a lot of force and impact so the amount of protection they provide is less than we would like to think. The real thing we need to look at is the amount of heat that is being applied to the tendons in a work out, the length and intensity of the workout. Once the tendons reach 118 degrees the tendons cells start to die and continue to die until the leg drops under that temp, and this overheating is what can attribute to strain of the leg, as when a tendon cell dies its immediately scar tissue, there is no other option so with extreme use of these boots over time youre actually building up scar tissue along the tendons which break easier. Neoprene in general is a material that traps heat and doesn't wick sweat, so this is why I will never use cinches or pads with Neoprene. However, the boots brands like PC Ventech Elite have technology with the Neoprene that creates more air flow and allows more wicking of sweat, and the 2xcools have cooling minerals inside the material that keep the leg at a certain temperature and also help keep the leg dry. When I removed mine from the package before even putting them on the horse, you could feel the coolness of the boot, it was really cool! Ortho equine states they use cooling technologies as well, however I have all the boots I need, so I have yet to try them myself and I can't speak to how well they work. The science also talks about the importance of cooling down the leg after the workout, as studies showed that just removing a boot does not cool down the leg, and it could still be 118 degrees even a half hour later. So the big thing to be looking at aside from the technology of the boot is how hot it is when you are working the horse, how long you are working them in the boot, and the intensity of which your workout is, which will contribute to how much heat it is creating on the leg. Also how soon you are getting the leg back to a good temperature, so cold hosing for a good ten minutes at least. A lot of people invest in ice boots as well but having a cooler to put them in while I'm working the horses since I live 20 minutes out of town, is hard for me especially because it would be super pricey to have 4 sets of ice boots for each horse so I opt for the cold hose 😆 I know it was a lot but hopefully it made sense and helps 😁This article substantiates most of what I said here and is a recent article from a vet who has been studying the efficiency ans effects of boots on horsws over time for many years and its a short read with grear information 😁”- Nicole Williams
https://www.facebook.com/480874062305559/posts/1654119201647700/

05/18/2022

Congratulations Jessica Jones! You are the winner of the full body equine massage!

And the winners of the gift cards from the Stone County Event Center Arena NFR style barrel race on Saturday were:

⚡️Skylar Campbell gets a $35 and a $25

⚡️Josie Rost gets a $35

⚡️Amy Ruggeri gets a $35

⚡️Emma Morrison gets a $35

⚡️Haley Kusnetz gets a $25

⚡️Klaire Young gets a $25

05/09/2022

Owner: Tayler Fultz

Licensed Equine Massage Therapist offering full body, target area, corrective stretching, kinesiology taping, and more!

“Tayler-ing to your horses needs.”