"Beating Muscle Injuries for Horses" by Jack Meagher is a wonderful instructional book and reference manual for equine sports massage therapy aka. equine stress point therapy.

Jack Meagher is the pioneer in Equine Sports Massage. I believe he is the one that actually coined the phrase "sports massage". He was the sports massage therapist for two United States Equestrian Teams as well as many other professional athletes. He served the USET at the Montreal Olympics as well as many other World Championships here and abroad.

Jack has attended two massage therapy schools as well as a physical therapy school. He received the USET Certificate of Acheivement and was the first recipient of the Dr. Marty Simensen award.

---

The following is taken from the back of the book:

25 Common Muscular Problems
Their Cause, Correction, Prevention
Including:

• Refusing or resisting leads
• Head and neck discomfort
• Shortened Strides
• Hind leg scuffing
• Improper tracking
• Hip and shoulder lameness
• Girthing problems
• Muscular and "cold" back
• Loss of performing ability
• and many more......

The amazing, single pressure point therapy,
developed by sports therapist Jack Meagher,
that has helped hundreds of athletes in virtually every sport.

---

I really like this book. It is straight forward and easy to follow. I will sometimes use this book to show my clients what is bothering their horse. I also use the stess point chart along with my photonic (LED) light to help loosen tissue prior to therapy.

I think Jack Meagher does a good job of explaining equine movement and compensation patterns. Since this book is basically equine sports massage, he only describes how to apply two massage techniques: Compression and Cross-Fiber Friction. He discusses the various equine stress points and provides a chart of the 25 points that he considers the most problematic.

He then goes through the stress points one by one providing a drawing of each one and how to locate it. He gives examples of how your horse may react to palpating the stress point, the movement problems your horse may be exhibiting, as well as how it will feel to the therapist. He then gives detailed instructions on how to treat the stress point and also lists the muscle action for each of the muscles addressed.

I think this is a book that just about any horse person would benefit from reading. You would be able to help your horse with just the information in this book. However, if you are looking for a more in-depth study of the various equine massage techniques or more information on equine anatomy and physiology, you would probably want to get this book in addition to a more thorough equine massage book.

To learn more about or to purchase this book, please choose one of the links below:

• United States

• Canada (coming soon)

• United Kingdom (coming soon)