A Day At The Spa For A Race Horse

Racehorses are athletes, and like all athletes, they sometimes get sore backs, muscles, and other strains that need attention. And so, like a human athlete, racehorses are treated with many different modalities. Today in racing, some people specialize in helping the horse using everything from herbs and liniments to jacuzzi-type spas to microcurrents and lasers.

One such person who helps horses is Tyler Cerin of Equine Body Works. Tyler is the son of a racehorse trainer, Vladimir Cerin, who received a Master's Degree in Kinesiology in his college days. He became a personal trainer and physical therapist to such esteemed athletes as Kareem Abdul Jabar and other great Laker players. He helped the human athletes so much that a friend of the racehorses asked Vladimir to see if he could help his horses. So Vladimir Cerin started in the thoroughbred industry as a physical therapist. He then transitioned into training horses and doing the therapy on horses he was training. This is another story in itself, as the time frame was the 1980s.

Fast forward to Tyler – as a child, he would go to the barn in the mornings with his father – to Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, and Del Mar Racetracks. They owned a 2.5-acre farm in Bradbury, California, which is located in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and just 15 minutes to Santa Anita. Growing up on the family farm allowed Tyler to be around horses all day. His stepmother, Kelly, rode hunter jumper horses, so horses were at home for Tyler to get his education on handling the animal at a young age. After high school, Tyler started college courses at Citrus Junior College but decided he wanted to go to work with the thoroughbreds. On the racetracks, he started his career with Equine Body Works in 2007. Tyler took many seminars on bodywork to further his education on how to help the horse. Stretch and Release, Range of Motion, Chiropractic cover the horse. Tyler's father had a friend in the Holistic approach to healing, and he guided Tyler in the direction he took with physical therapy.

Today Tyler has the Equine Spa, which is transported to the different racetracks where horseracing is live. It is a large machine that a horse walks into. Before the horse goes into the machine, a plastic bag is attached to the animal under its tail, so the bag catches any manure. The horse's feet are hosed off and cleaned to minimize dirt going into the machine. The door in front is open as the horse walks in from behind. It is then closed, and water will begin to fill the machine. The Spa is a cold water spa, so the water is 35-37 Degrees. It is an approximately 300-gallon tank with a 2-ton chiller to keep the water cold. There are both regular salt and Epsom salts in the water. The turbulator jets are turned on, and the horse is monitored for how the animal is handled in the Spa. Most trainers will use the spa post workouts or races. In the old days of Del Mar, trainers took horses to the beach and let them stand and walk through the ocean waters. A bit of a biblical feel to natural methods of using Mother Nature to cure our ills. It's been many years since the horses have been down to the ocean. This author was told the elephants would also go to the sea when they were here for the Del Mar Fair, but I never had the pleasure of seeing them.

There are other forms of therapy Tyler Cerin uses on the horses. Cryotherapy, another cold therapy used to relieve muscle pain, sprains, and swelling treats soft tissue damage or tissue damage after surgery. For decades it has been used on human athletes. There is Magna Wave, which sends a pulsating charge through tissues to treat large muscle groups. This author has used the Magna Wave on me and could feel it in my hip, which sometimes bothers me. Micro-current therapy with an Equi Scope is also part

of Tyler's healing modalities. The Electro-Equiscope is a non-invasive, non-chemical, micro-current electrotherapeutic technology proven to rapidly reduce inflammation in every body area and is available for human use.

The world of Kinesiology has expanded in many ways over the years with new methods and improvements for human and animal athletes. There is a broad range of careers for people to go into if they so choose. And how wonderful a career to spend helping beautiful animals such as thoroughbred racehorses.