Benefits of Equine Icing or Cold Therapy

Exercise induced trauma can produce localised inflammation, micro-trauma and micro-tears to the muscles of your performance horse. This causes pain, restriction in range of motion and weakness.

Cold therapy or icing is a non-invasive and non-medicinal approach used to minimise post exercise trauma.  Ice is applied to the horse’s spine, back and other muscles and joints.  Icing has proven to promote recovery after exercise or injury, as well as working to reduce the horse’s heart rate and core temperature.

There are some myths and a variety of opinions on the best way to treat horses post event or training. These include:

• A fear that deploy icing would reduce blood flow and actually slow the speed of healing.
• A lack of information about how safe and effective cold therapy actually is.

The Facts About Equine Cold Therapy or Icing

The facts are that icing or cold therapy is a trusted, non-invasive, non-medicinal treatment that has been shown to improve post exercise recovery on your horse. That’s why it’s used by elite athletes and sports teams around the world.

• Icing constricts the blood vessels: this temporarily decreases the local supply of blood flow to help to reduce swelling, inflammation, pain, and muscle spasm.
• Icing also lowers cell metabolism: this helps to prevent tissue death, which ensures that any subsequent tissue loading that occurs is pain free reducing the risk of injury.
• Icing initiates the part of the nervous system responsible for rest and digestion: after sub-maximal and maximal exertion, cryotherapy helps the horse get back to resting heart rate levels faster than not icing. This is crucial for recovery, especially when you need your horse to perform repeated sets of exercise.

When you use cold therapy post event or training, horses under your care will recover better and faster so they will be able to train better and harder leading into important events.