Artorius, all 1,200-pound, dressage-performing hunk of him, is the proverbial limp rag. The handsome bay has the distant gaze of someone visiting a pleasant memory. His tongue lolls. Under the capable hands of massage therapist Elliot Abhau, this hard-working athlete is the most relaxed animal in Carroll County.
Using a combination of body work techniques, Ms. Abhau presses certain spots on Artorius, a k a Tori, talks to him companionably, leans against him like an old friend. They are standing in a stall in Pam and Bill McKnight's barn, a place redolent with the slightly salty smells of earth and horse and the dampness of Chesapeake Bay retrievers.
Equestrian Pam McKnight met Ms. Abhau four years ago at the Eastern States Dressage Team Championships. First, Ms.Abhau worked on Mrs. McKnight, then she began massaging Tori.
Ms. Abhau and her partner, Bruce Henn of Baltimore Holistic Health Associates in Woodlawn, work with both human and animal clients. Trained in human massage therapy, they are part of an expanding field of massage therapy for animals, a practice centuries old but only "re-discovered" in the United States during the past 25 years.
Throughout the country, equine massage therapists -- mostly schooled in human massage -- work to release tension, to eliminate chronic pain by re-balancing the body and to improve the disposition of "problem" horses for competition. They usually work on the show horses and jumpers prized by equestrians rather than on the Thoroughbreds bred for races such as the Preakness.
Because the field is so new, there is no regulation of practitioners -- or their training -- even though equine massage schools are beginning to appear. Many clients seek recommendations from a veterinarian or look for therapists with certification in human massage, a field that requires students to pass several hundred hours in classroom study and hands- on practice.
A step ahead of injuries
When a veterinarian said an injury of Tori's might bar him from competition, Mrs. McKnight decided to try massage therapy as part of a rehabilitation program.
Now, Tori performs better than ever, she says. And he has earned himself a monthly regimen of massage. So has Demetra, one of the McKnights' other horses.
"Massage relaxes them, releases tension in tight areas," Mrs. McKnight says. "If you don't keep releasing things regularly, they will get tighter and tighter and end up pulling muscles and getting injuries. Keeping the animals looser as you go along makes them healthier and sounder and, hopefully, adds to the years you can ride them."
Jack Meagher, a massage therapist in Rowley, Mass., is credited with developing the field of equine massage through his efforts to convince humans of the benefits of sports massage, an injury-preventing technique that prepares muscles for exertion before competition.
"I thought it was ridiculous that athletes had to be hurt before something [massage therapy] was done for them," he says. "But with the doctors and trainers, I found I was up against a double 'E' whammy: Economics and Ego. They were saying if an athlete was performing better after a massage, he did better because he thought he would do better.
"But no one said a horse would do that."
In the 1976 Olympics, Mr. Meagher proved the validity of sports massage by working on horses ridden by members of the U.S. equestrian team. The team won two gold medals and a silver in Montreal. He went on to work on many amateur and professional athletes including football players Jim Nance and Freddy Steinfort, hockey player Jean Ratelle, tennis player Bob Hewitt and marathon runner Peter Pfitzinger.
These days, however, he prefers to work on horses.
"At first, my main interest with them was in proving my point," he says. "What I enjoy most about this work now is it allows me to be out in the country, in the open air, working in barns."
Stressful workweek
For most other equine massage therapists, however, the vocation's attraction is working with animals. Ms. Abhau, who has a deep love and respect for horses, says she can trust the feedback she gets from her equine clients.
"When I'm working on Tori, he will stop what he's doing," she says. "I can see the sensation take over and he goes inward, like people do when they're eating a hot fudge sundae. You know if the treatment is working with horses. They either feel good or they don't."
Ms. Abhau finds a sensitive spot on Tori's neck and presses against it, as if she were probing a sore subject, until the animal relaxes. It seems she has found just the right way to relieve some of the week's stresses.
"More than dogs or cats, horses work for a living," she says. "Whether they are professional athletes, weekend or amateur athletes. They not only do what you ask them to do, but they also carry a person on them, too."
A horse lover and equestrian since she was a child, Ms. Abhau graduated from Hollins College with a degree in English and received her master's degree in communications from the University of Pennsylvania before working as an administrator, teacher and trainer at Meredith Manor School of Horsemanship in Parkersburg, W.Va.
Zero balancing
Her successful "hands-on" method of teaching eventually led her into massage classes at the Baltimore School of Massage. Later, she and Mr. Henn developed a technique called Soft Touch, which relaxes and relieves soft tissue while re-patterning the body's movement.
Soft Touch uses aspects of zero balancing, a branch of massage developed in the 1970s by osteopath Fritz Smith.
"Zero balancing does not just treat one area as a problem, but handles the whole body as a mechanism designed to operate in synchronous flow. If you treat the body as if that's the way it can work, there's more likelihood it will work that way."
Horse sense
So far, equine massage therapy is a field dominated by women. Roughly three-quarters of the new students at Equissage, a school in Middleburg, Va., are female.
"Most show horses and race horses can continue their careers because there are young women taking care of them," Ms. Abhau says. "Most of the barn service people are young women: Teen-age girls, college girls who haven't figured out what else there is but horses.
"I've watched these women talk to the horses and touch them and pet them. I think that's what keeps the horses sane and secure. . . . A lot of them get through the stresses of their jobs because some young woman falls passionately in love with them and is always grooming them and patting them."
A recent issue of Equus magazine estimates the average cost of a massage session (which can last up to 1 1/2 hours) ranges from $40 to $100, depending on the area of the country and the practitioner's travel expenses.
Ms. Abhau says the rewards of her work are relieving suffering and building trusting relationships. She also appreciates the fact that animals automatically work at staying healthy.
"Human beings don't consider that health and comfort are normally possible," Ms. Abhau notes. "They think that pain is a bad thing rather than a signal that something has to be changed. They try to stop the pain rather than figure out how where it's coming from.
"A human can explain the complexities of his life and present a portrait of why he isn't feeling good. And then he can go back and continue to do all the things that made him feel bad -- as if he had no choice.
"However, you give a horse a comfortable place, and he won't go back to the uncomfortable place," she says. "Animals seem to understand that health is normal and that feeling good is OK."
HOLISTIC HEALING FOR ANIMALS
As the field of alternative medicine blossoms for humans, more veterinarians and animal care workers are also using holistic therapies to relieve pain and speed healing.
Interest in acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic, herbal treatments and other holistic therapies is growing, according to Carvel Tiekert, a holistic veterinarian in Bel Air who is founder and executive director of the 12-year-old American Veterinary Holistic Medical Association.
Dr. Tiekert, like many holistic practitioners, uses conventional therapies as well as alternative treatments on patients. Some of his therapies include acupuncture, homeopathy, electromagnetic therapy and chiropractic. All treatments for animals are similar to those for humans and are used to treat similar health problems.
After practicing conventional veterinary medicine for the first 10 years of his career, Dr. Tiekert became particularly interested in alternative therapies after he visited a chiropractor to treat years of chronic pain. He was able to avoid surgery -- and find dramatic relief from pain -- in only two treatments.
Dr. Tiekert estimates that a dozen veterinarians in Maryland -- there are about 425 veterinarians who are members of AVHMA -- practice various blends of holistic modalities.
Although many of his clients seek alternative medicine because they have exhausted conventional therapies for their pets -- "I'm the last stop before a plastic bag, as someone put it" -- an increasing number seek his services because similar treatments have worked for them.
"They are shunning the antibiotics and steroids that will treat the symptoms of a problem in favor of treating the problem itself," he says.
"There is only one healer -- and that's the body. Our job is to put the body into a frame of reference so that it can heal itself."
For more information, write the American Veterinary Holistic Medical Association, 2214 Old Emmorton Road, Bel Air 21015.