Equine Massage Therapist Brings Relief To Horses In Pain
Story and Photos by Art Petrosemolo
Joy Gamache is about as tall as a jockey and she can’t see over the back of most horses she treats. The Middletown resident also doesn’t have particularly large hands or bulging biceps but she makes up for it in hand strength and feel.
To the countless thoroughbreds, show and riding horses who have felt her healing touch in the past two decades, it has been a literal “joy”….and for both parties.
Gamache didn’t decide in the mid-1990s that she wanted to be an equine massage therapist. It just happened. She says, “I was volunteering for Monmouth County Parks SPUR program – helping individual with physical and cognitive disabilities achieve personal goals through riding – and could see that a number of horses were in pain and discomfort with arthritis or carrying an unbalanced load (rider). I wanted to help.”
Gamache found one of the few programs at the time – Equisage – that taught basic equine massage techniques. “I started working on SPUR horses in 1995,” she says, “and learned by doing.” Suddenly instructors and staff were seeing results. “The horses were not as stiff or sore,” she says, “and began to perform better in the program.”
As with any good thing, word got around and Gamache began working on a variety of riding and show horses and came under the guidance of Monmouth County veterinarian and friend Kathy Schappel-Lackey, who was beginning to do acupuncture and chiropractic treatments for horses, also something new in the field at the time. Gamache and Lackey worked together and suddenly the massage therapist had almost more calls than she could handle.
“Between the vets and word-of-mouth references, at times, I was doing up to 40 horses a week,” said Gamache, who never even posted a sign on her truck. With each session lasting 45-60 minutes and a minimum of 10 pounds of pressure (test that on your supermarket check-out scale), just for Gamache to get through a horse’s hide to muscle area, it could be exhausting.
Gamache’s success with horses brought her to the attention of more owners and trainers and her reputation grew. She spent seven years working with veterinarian doctor Patty Hogan at the highly regarded New Jersey Equine Clinic in Millstone, which has been providing medical, surgical and rehabilitative care for horses for the past 40 years.
Each horse can exhibit different issues depending on what they do,” Gamache explains. “They are athletes,” she says, “and can get a strain, a bruise or need help recovering from a more serious injury or surgery.” Gamache explains race horses tend to get sore on their right side from training and competing while running clockwise around a track. Show horses can have different issues, she explains. “Hunter-Jumpers need work at the withers (saddle area and balance point) or pole (head) while highly trained dressage horses are treated for shoulder and neck issues from continued lateral movement.”
Although equine massage and cranial-sacral therapy (gentle manipulation of the skull and sacrum area to help relieve pain and tension by harmonizing with rhythm of central nervous system) are accepted today as part of the training regimen for many horses, it was brand new when Gamache came to Monmouth Park with Lackey in 2000. “I needed to be licensed by Monmouth Park to practice at on the backstretch,” she says, “and it was something brand new to racing officials.”
Gamache’s work soon saw results at the track and she has been in demand for years by trainers like Holly Crest Farm’s John Mazza to help horses recover from injury or even to avoid them. This spring, Gamache spent seven days in Lexington, Kentucky, working at Keenland Race Track on the horses of trainers Vicki and Phil Oliver (Oliver Racing Stable).
Besides massage therapy for injury recovery, thoroughbreds can be massaged a couple of days before they race, Gamache believes, so they can recover fully and reap the benefits of her work. Also, many trainers and owners schedule regular (monthly) sessions with Gamache as their horses feel better and perform at a higher level.
Today, a number of schools and even community colleges train equine massage therapists and Gamache no longer is the only therapist working in horse country in Monmouth County.
To begin a therapy session, Gamache must gain the trust of the 1200 pound thoroughbreds who can be skittish even at the best of times. “These horses-athletes that are bred and train to expand an enormous amount of energy racing,” she says, “and other than workouts or races, they spend most of the time confined in a stall, eating high protein food. They can get very tense.”
Gamache may work alone with a horse that she knows and trusts her by attaching the bridle to a stall wall. “With a new or skittish horse,” says Gamache, “I like to have someone hold the head while I work.”
Horses being massaged, unlike human counterparts who can express verbally pleasure or pain, show signs usually through their head and mouth with a nod, expelling air or licking. “I know when I am getting to them,” Gamache says, as she works her hands over the withers of Amigo, a jumper recovering from surgery stabled at Highland Farms in Atlantic Highlands.
Gamache talks to the horses while she works her hands and fists in rhythm to find and release the areas of stress and hurt. She also uses “bongers,” rubber balls about the size of tennis balls on short handles, that can help her set a rhythm in the massage treatment.
Gamache’s work can be categorized three ways. She works with veterinarians to help horses recover from surgery and serious injury. For thoroughbreds and show horses, her work centers on performance while for older horses she focuses on circulation and balance.
At 54, Gamache has no plans on early retirement and that pleases horse owners and trainers. “I try to schedule a little better now,” she says, “and limit my work to two or three horses a day, five days a week.” With the success of equine massage, Gamache is now working with veterinarian doctor Penelope Rochelle, and expanding her practice to small animals – dogs and cats – at a new pet wellness clinic called THRIVE in Little Silver. “It’s new for me,” Gamache says, “and an exciting challenge. And they are a lot easier to handle and less chance of getting kicked or stepped on.”
