Many people are certainly wondering whether massage horses is a forward-looking therapeutic approach or just a fashionable invention. Far from there! Already in ancient Egypt veterinarians were accompanied by animal massagers.
In ancient Greece it was common to massage dogs. Likewise, Galenus, a gladiator physician in ancient Greece, describes the use and the positive effect of classical massage at athletes. In his famous standard work “Handbuch der Massage und Heilgymnastik”, published in 1926 by Gerg Thieme publisher in Leipzig, Frank Kirchberg talks about massage as a natural reaction of man to body pain: “Just like every person instinctively knees or pushes a swollen and therefore painful or supportive part of his body and then trying to reduce the pain caused by tension, this instinctive agent has also been used as a drug at all times.
” The horse reacts in a similar way: by getting used to colic, squeezing and tearing against the wall when itching, freaking at muscle tension, it tries to get rid of the unpleasant feelings. A massage will help our friend. Massage as it is practiced today in humans began with Swedish Henrik Ling.
He further developed the massage techniques and created the so-called “Swedish massage”, whose basic techniques still apply today. Jack Meagher has successfully developed and established massage for horses.
He acts as the forerunner of the modern horse massage. His technicians are used and spread by horse massagers throughout the world. Especially the stress point massage is the foundation stone for sports massage in the horse world of our time.