by Margret Henkels

Clients often ask me how I got into horse myofascial bodywork. A passion for horses, and my own personal experience of being completely healed, brought me to this work—Conformation Balancing. A riding fall at 28 brought chronic injuries lasting years. I knew nothing about fascia (connective tissue) and its role in organizing the entire body. A synchronicity at a horse show introduced me to Steve Evans, a Heller Work practitioner. Heller Work is an offshoot of Rolfing and trains people in its particular approach to fascia. The weekly myofascial-release sessions transformed me into fitness. Each week, for 15 weeks, I drove to Taos where Steve lived and returned feeling better. I loved the changes I felt and the work itself. My experience is that Heller Work is much less strenuous tissue work and is comfortable for the patient, even in the first session, unlike Rolfing, which is known to be strenuous.

On his table, I talked about my horses often and told him stories of my rides. Steve suggested I consider getting into the horse bodywork field. “Just what I need, another startup,” I said with a laugh. His suggestion seed grew. The changes I felt transformed my goals. Paperwork and financial data of the business world lost their charm. I felt amazingly better and fit enough to work with horses. He referred me to Equine Natural Movement, Heller for Horses, in Battle Ground, Washington, where I took a module of training, before certifying.

In myofascial-release training, I heard the call of the physical world. And, I learned something completely new: how hidden feelings surface when myofascial cells open as they release compression, and in the process, release trauma that has been held in the body. The emotional and spiritual transformations that occurred during myofascial change fascinated me: this clearing of trauma by bodywork is part of the amazing miracle of myofascial change. In sessions with horses, I watched horses change emotionally and trust me. Horses in pain wanted help.

Read more: How Myofascial Bodywork Helps Horses

Timing is everything. Nowhere is this more relevant than when preparing an elite equine athlete for a race.

Thoroughbred trainers are critically aware of the importance of fine-tuning the feeding and exercise regimes of their charges in the months, weeks and days before a big event. Timing is also critical for the smooth functioning of a horse’s musculo-skeletal system for optimal performance.

Understanding how the horse’s muscle physiology works in synchrony with its environment and reacts to the exercise regimes that we subject it to in our daily management has been the focus of much research at University College Dublin by Dr. Barbara Murphy and her team.

All animals possess an internal body clock that ensures functions such as muscle metabolism, digestion and tissue regeneration and repair peak at the most suitable time of day to ensure survival in the wild. This important system, called the circadian system, uses the continuous 24-hour transitions from night to day to generate rhythms in physiology and behavior that allow a horse to stay in harmony with its environment.

Each organ in the horse’s body undergoes rhythmical 24-hour changes that respond to the environmental cues provided by the changing light-dark cycle, food availability and exercise. How we time feeding, and in particular, exercise, has important implications for equine performance and will be explored here.

Domestication has changed many aspects of a horse’s daily life. To understand the impact human intervention has had on the horse’s body clock we must first consider their natural behavior. As migrating herd animals bound by tight social bonds, horses evolved to spend up to 18 hours a day grazing as a group constantly on the move, covering anywhere from 40 -100 km in a day.

Now consider the lifestyle of today’s thoroughbreds in training – stabled for up to 23 hours a day, isolated from a herd, fed concentrated feed at set intervals and often only exercised once per day at the same time each day. Each of these factors is accompanied by impacts on a horse’s health and performance.

Gastric ulcers, respiratory disorders and stereotypic behaviors are some of the common challenges faced by trainers and are often a direct consequence of an intensive indoor management regime – a necessary evil in the business of training elite athletes.

Read more: The Effects of Routine Morning Exercise on Muscle Response