The magic of stretching

Have you ever looked at your horse and suddenly saw something you've never seen before that's been there the whole time? I had that moment over the winter, when the funkiness of Coriander's left shoulder suddenly appeared before my eyes. His left foot looks clubbed compared to his right and he nearly always stands with the left leg back, that's something I already knew- but I finally noticed that his left scapula and the muscles around it are much more prominent than on the right.

His typical stance, note the left leg back

A left leg forward miracle! Notice the funkiness in the shoulder up by the withers

See how the right shoulder looks different?

It made me wonder if it might be the muscles in his shoulder causing the club foot more than an issue with the actual bone (haven't gotten that foot x-rayed yet, that'll get done this spring). Maybe he's been in that habitual posture so long, possibly by copying his mother- Gwen does the same thing, that the muscles have knotted and shrunk until they pulled his left leg shorter than his right?

I felt that theory was worth testing, fortunately my Mom got me Jim Masterson's book of horse massage for Christmas so I had a place to start. I started out with the simplest exercises of dropping the knee down and back and pulling the leg forward and down to stretch the shoulder. Was I doing it quite right? I doubt it- yet after diligently doing the stretches every day for a week he started standing with his left leg straight down instead of angled back. Sometimes he even stood for minutes at a time with his left leg forward! Amazing.

It's much too soon to tell what the long-term benefits are going to be, I've only been doing these stretches for about two weeks, but so far it looks worthwhile. It certainly won't hurt him to do the stretches even if they don't smooth out his funky shoulder.

Here's another massage therapist to look at: This is April Battles, her technique is slightly different from the Masterson Method but I've been able to mix in a few of her stretches to my routine as well. Particularly the shoulder stretch forward and across.

Has anyone else incorporated stretching routines for their horses? Have you had any good results from it?