Equine Sports Massage

The History

According to Wiki, archaeological evidence of massage has been found in many ancient civilisations including China, India, Japan, Korea, Egypt, Rome, Greece and Mesopotamia, and the first written records were found in China and Egypt. Ancient cultures believed in its medical benefits, and the first known Chinese text “The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine” was written around 2600 BCE (although there seems to be some debate over the exact date). Humans have continued to practice massage throughout the ages, and massage started to gain popularity in the equine world in the early 1990’s.

It is reported that Equine Sports Massage Therapy largely owes itself to Jack Meagher (1925-2005) who is cited as being “the father of equine sports massage”. Through his work as a human physical therapist, Jack developed a technique called “sports massage” which he designed to address the underlying causes of muscular problems before they became injuries. It is also said that Jack became the first professional equine massage therapist quite by accident when a friend asked him (in 1970) to “try his magic” on a broken-down quarter horse described by Jack as being “so old the poor beast couldn’t pick up his hind legs”. Jack discovered that the horse had muscle spasms and, after Jack had “worked his magic”, he is reported to have said “Well, when I got through with that horse, he was as frisky as a colt, and that got me interested enough to study horse anatomy and practice on every backyard nag I could find”!

Jack apparently liked to say “A muscle is a muscle" and in his mind, the primary concerns for any athlete, horse or human, were “to be as good as possible, as safe as possible and last as long as possible”. Thanks to Jack’s pioneering work, and the quarter horse who got another chance at feeling like a colt again, all horses and ponies can enjoy and benefit from Equine Sports Massage Therapy.