Shay.Tactile.Therapy

From reactive to relaxed ✨

A beautiful response while releasing tension through the brachiocephalicus, followed by a much more comfortable reassessment

Slow doesn’t always mean gentler.

For some horses, slow and sustained pressure can feel more intense because it gives them more time to focus on and guard against the sensation. Faster, rhythmic techniques can provide clearer, more predictable input that their body finds easier to accept.

What stood out here wasn’t only the visible response, it was how deeply he stayed within it. For almost five minutes, he remained soft and absorbed in processing the treatment rather than quickly returning to alertness.

Every horse receives touch differently. The skill isn’t simply knowing which techniques to use, it’s recognising when the horse is asking you to change them🥰

Too often, support only becomes important once they’re sore, resistant or no longer performing the way we want.

Massage isn’t the only part of caring for an equine athlete, but recovery should never be an afterthought.

You expect an athlete. Start caring for one.

Tired of feeling limited by lower back pain?

You don’t have to simply live with it.

Sometimes, where you feel the pain isn’t where the problem begins.

Let me help🤍

I’ll never get over the feeling of starting with a nervous system on high alert, then watching their whole demeanour change as I find the little spots where they’ve been holding tension🥹

If you feel as though you’re doing everything right but your horse’s progression has stalled, this may be for you.

If you’re lacking purpose or direction in your training, massage may be the missing piece of the puzzle.

During treatment, areas may be found that are tight, sore, overloaded or compensating. Massage can help relieve this accumulated tension, while the findings provide valuable information about what your horse’s body may need next.

Muscles don’t work in isolation.

If one area lacks strength, stability or mobility, another may begin working harder to compensate. Over time, that muscle can become tight, fatigued or overloaded, limiting its ability to move through its full range and function effectively.

This means the tightest area isn’t always the source of the pattern, it may be working overtime because another area needs greater support.

These findings can bring more direction to your training by helping you ask:

Does this area need greater mobility?
Is another area lacking strength or stability?
Does my horse need improved balance or straightness?
Would core engagement or hind-end strengthening help support this pattern?

Having a clearer understanding of how your horse’s muscles are functioning together allows you to select exercises, such as pole work, transitions or lateral work with greater intention.

Massage is more than just a reward.

When used as a genuine training tool, myotherapy can help you better understand your horse’s body, monitor how it adapts over time and train with greater purpose. Supporting progression, performance and long-term wellbeing. 💛

Trigger pointing is so much more than simply finding a sore spot and pressing on it.

A trigger point is a hypersensitive area within a muscle. When I apply pressure to that area, it can initially increase discomfort and create a strong sensory input to the nervous system.

But I don’t keep increasing the pressure. I hold.

With sustained, tolerable pressure, the sensation can begin to change and the sensitivity beneath my fingers can decrease. This is what I’m waiting and feeling for before releasing the trigger point.

And the horse is communicating with me throughout that entire process.

In this video, you can see her turn and look back at me as she feels that initial discomfort. She’s letting me know that she can feel what I’m doing, but she isn’t moving away from the pressure or showing me that it has become too much.

So I stay. We wait there together.

Once I feel that change, I release the pressure and return to my slow, broad “sorry strokes” 😂 taking the input from something very focused and intense back to something gentle and calming.

And this is when we begin to see a change in the whole horse.

Her head lowers. She licks and chews. Her blinking slows. Her posture begins to soften.

I don’t take any one of these behaviours on its own as proof of exactly what she’s feeling. What interests me is the contrast in the whole horse before, during and after the technique.

This is one of the horses I’ve had the privilege of treating and I think this little moment captures something I absolutely love about working with animals.

They can’t tell me in words what they’re feeling, so our conversation looks different.

I feel. They respond. I listen. I adapt.

Treatment isn’t something I simply do to a horse. It’s a conversation I have with them through touch🤍

Why incorporate kinesiology taping for a horse with kissing spine?

For this horse, direct pressure through the affected area produces a significant pain response. Because of this, treatment isn’t about applying deeper pressure directly over the spine, instead, I work with the surrounding musculature and use gentler techniques through the sensitive areas.

This is where kinesiology taping can be a really useful addition.

Rather than relying on direct pressure, the tape provides ongoing sensory input through the skin. As the horse moves, this cutaneous stimulation provides continuous sensory information to the nervous system, which may help influence pain perception, proprioceptive awareness and muscular response.

In this application, the longitudinal strips provide sensory input along the thoracolumbar region and surrounding musculature, while the crossing strips create more localised sensory input around the area of concern.

For a horse where hands on treatment through the back needs to remain gentle, taping gives me another way to provide input to the area without adding further manual pressure.

It’s not about physically correcting the kissing spine, it’s another supportive tool within a much bigger treatment and rehabilitation picture