In order to speed up the recovery of Soap’s sore muscle I called out Mel Gurdon NAVP. She is a top physiotherapist who has worked wonders on other horses I have owned in the past. Mel gave him a quick once over to asses him, and he seems to have already improved as he exhibited much less reaction to having the sore muscle manipulated than he did for the vet’s visit on Friday 3 days earlier, which hopefully points to a quick recovery! Mel then proceeded to set up what basically looked like a horsey Slendertone on Soap! It is in fact a ‘Muscle-Stim’ machine which sends a small electrical pulse through the muscle creating a rhythmic muscle contraction which increases blood flow, prevents adhesion forming and helps to maintain good elasticity in the muscle fibre. You can see in the video below how much the muscles are pinging! Soap was very well behaved and seemed almost oblivious to the treatment!
I am trying my hardest to hack him out in walk as the vet suggested for the next 2 weeks, but it’s hard to convince a fit tb that walking is a good idea! I am using distraction techniques like throwing in the odd halt, rein back, and a bit of leg yielding to occupy his brain, but he is still on springs. It can only be a good thing that he feels well, but leaping and shooting off are not exactly part of his ‘careful muscle rehabilitation’ To date we have been on 5 walking hacks all of which I have managed to keep the lid on any major outbursts, just! So I wasn’t surprised to arrive at the yard this morning to find him being a complete fruit loop hooning about the field! Something tells me he might be feeling better!…