The Gelding Scar And Its Drag Effect

Do we know what we are looking at when we see a scar? What is scar tissue?

When tissue is cut, either accidentally or through a carefully vetted operational procedure, it heals itself through defensive means, presenting a harder and tighter composition than before.

Scar tissue remains an overlooked influence in equine massage, myofascial and cranialsacral therapy. Quite often, areas of healed scar tissue create high levels of discomfort.

Scar tissue is an inferior attempt to replicate Mother Nature's original work.

Spreading and binding its fibres together, hard, tight and restrictive scar tissue embarks on a haphazard journey trapping nerves, creating paths of tension and instigating compensatory locomotion.

The Gelding scar is no exception, and has been linked to a variety of conditions including but not limited to:

Pelvic malfunction

Vertebrae problems from the poll to tail

Gait abnormalities

Lack of flexibility

Underdeveloped topline

Overdeveloped underline

Poll tension

Jaw tension

Muscular stress through the stress point circuit

Muscular stress through the compensatory circuit

Lethargy

Napping

Head Shaking

Resistance to work previously performed

The gelding scar tissue journeys through to the horses' abdominal muscles. How?

Muscles that work to lower the horses' testicles are directly related to the oblique abdominal muscles, a muscle group with a direct influence to the horses' ability to gather and extend his body.

Subsequently, the horses' locomotary performance through canter, gallop, jumping, upward transitions and collection becomes compromised.

The horse has no choice but to adopt compensatory locomotion with readjustment of his natural centre of balance with subsequential adjustments to his natural head and neck carriage.

The horse under saddle cannot perform these necessary adjustments, causing him to hollow his back in attempts to relieve tension and restriction, maintain balance and perform his required locomotion.

As this continues, tissue continues to harden with continued loss of elasticity, creating pathways of muscular stress and restriction radiating through up to his lumbar region encompassing the entire cranialsacral system from poll to tail.

Recognising the horses' proprioceptive sense, we can see how the horse living with a gelding scar knows no other method of locomotion. The gelding scar benefits from massage therapy with locomotary re-education, encouraging him it is safe to relax through his body and collect himself naturally with no discomfort as experienced before.

Over time, the physiological drag effect continues, often making itself known when seemingly overnight your horse develops a strange behaviour. Still not sure? Try this experiment.

Take a towel and lay it out flat.

Scrunch up a handful of the towel.

Observe the wrinkles that radiate through the once flat towel.

These wrinkles show the paths and growth of restrictive tissue radiating from the scar that drag tension and stress through the muscles, tendons, skeletal structures, ligaments, neural pathways, cardiovascular and lymphatic vessels and respiratory workings.

Not addressed, the gelding scar and the drag affect naturally creates the psychological drag effect, the subject if your next Ezine article.

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