Halter stallion GC Integrity gets a workout on the underwater treadmill ...

Works Water Halter stallion GC Integrity gets a workout on the underwater treadmill at
Whitesboro Equine Therapy. The hydrotherapy can build muscle and bone
strength in a horse without putting undue stress on the joints and limbs. Golden Gunslinger, aka Jesse, is an underwater treadmill
success story. Since (Jesse) was about 12 months old, we started swimming him at Jeff and Lisa Petskas in Whitesboro, Texas, said his
trainer, Don Bell. The 2003 palomino stallion came on the average about three times a week throughout the summer of 2004. We paced him at what we thought was a good starting place for him where he was conditioning, Lisa recalled. Don was still
working him on the ground, also. But by the time of the (2004)
World Show, he was up to 20 minutes on the Aqua-Tred. At that 2004 World Show, Jesse took the amateur world champion yearling stallion and the open world champion yearling
stallion titles. He was probably one of the most fit animals at the World Show because of his conditioning, Lisa said. His heart rate
was great. His lung capacity was great. He was full of himself
up there. He was just fabulous looking. Jesse continued the water therapy in 2005. He was the grand champion stallion at the All American Quarter Horse Congress
under all four judges and the 2005 world champion 2-year-old
stallion under all five judges. After the World Show, the stallion was retired from the show ring. Owned by Kenneth Mills of Fruitland, Maryland,
Jesse will stand his first year at stud this year, at Doug Tallent
Quarter Horses, Whitesboro, Texas. T H E A M E R I C A N Q U A R T E R H O R S E J O U R N A L J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 6 131 Whitesboro Equine Therapy is owned and operated by Jeff and Lisa Petska.
Many of the horses at its facility are there for physical therapy but a few
come in for low-impact and effective conditioning on the underwater treadmill. Underwater treadmills can help create winners in the halter arena. Story and Photos by Tonya Ratliff-Garrison S SOME HORSE TRAINERS HAVE DISCOVERED AN UNCONVENTIONAL method for conditioning halter horses: underwater treadmills. Commonly used for performance and racehorses to help them recover from injuries and gain strength and stamina,
hydrotherapy is now used by trainers like AQHA Professional
Horseman Don Bell to build muscle and stronger bones. Its something we used last year in addition to ground work, and weve had tremendous results, Bell said. The
horses work muscles in the pool that they never work on the
ground. It works more of their total body than it does just
trotting outside on a track. Bell takes his horses to Whitesboro Equine Therapy, about 10 miles from his home. Owned and run by Jeff and Lisa
Petska, the Texas facility mostly sees performance horses
recovering from leg injuries, but there are a few trainers in
the area bringing halter horses in for conditioning. The halter horses using our therapy have been a pleasant sur- prise for us, Jeff said. Its been really an exciting time, because
we are always learning new applications for the treadmill. An underwater treadmill, or Aqua-Tred is one brand name of the product, is different than swimming therapy,
which is usually done in a custom-designed pool that is more
than 10 feet deep. Swimming is more cardiovascular, and
lungs and heart usually get more of a workout than when a
horse is put on an underwater treadmill. The pool is a much more traumatic experience for a horse because they are off the ground with nothing under them to
support their body, Bell said. So it scares a lot of horses
when they cant touch the bottom and can be more stressful. Golden Gunslinger was the 2005 world champion 2-year-old stallion. SUCCESS STORY H E A L T H A N D M A N A G E M E N T 132 J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 6 T H E A M E R I C A N Q U A R T E R H O R S E J O U R N A L Don Bell adjusts a plastic sack around GC Integritys
neck to go under the neck sweat; the halter horses
wear normal workout gear in the underwater
treadmill. The horses are also brushed down and
their hooves are picked before entering the water. Lisa Petska allows Jesse to investigate the water as he
enters the underwater treadmill. Although Jesse has
been on the treadmill several times, the Petskas take
their time when a horse enters it, especially for the first time. Jesse starts his workout. A rope across the front of the
treadmill prevents him from charging ahead. The horse
walks at 3.5 to 5 miles per hour and is not allowed to trot,
while Lisa Petska watches for the regular rise and fall of
his hips. Its not unusual for the horses to play with the
water; Lisas seen them dunk their heads up to their eyes. There are 16 jets in the underwater treadmill,
four for each leg. In the middle of the workout,
the jets will be turned on for a few minutes, and
they massage the leg muscles, much like a Jacuzzi. The Petskas say the workout on the underwater treadmill is
good for building the back muscles. The triangle area on
the back near the hip especially gets more pronounced. Lisa Petska scrapes the water off the horses after each
water workout. Workouts last anywhere from five minutes to
as long as 20 to 25 minutes once they get used to the work. Treadmill Introduction The Petskas are often asked if it is difficult to introduce a horse
to the underwater treadmill. The key to this is like anything else
with horses: patience. Make the first experience a positive one, and
you will have fewer problems from then on out. The first time a horse is introduced to the underwater treadmill, he is led through it several times until he is comfortable with it.
The next step is to walk him through again and stop on the actual treadmill, which is in the middle of the water walkway. The
horse is then walked on the treadmill for five minutes and is
allowed to get used to it. The next time the horse is brought to the treadmill, the steps are repeated, adding the jets. The Petskas said the horses in the underwater treadmill often appear relaxed, as if they are truly enjoying themselves. The underwater treadmill still helps a horses cardiovascular system to some degree, but its greatest advantage is building
muscle and bone strength without the horse putting undue
stress on his joints and limbs. A lot of these halter horses now are big horses, and a lot of pounding on the ground every day is not real good for them,
Bell said. Anything we can do to help our exercise program
and reduce the stress on these animals is a good thing. When a horse is exercised on an underwater treadmill, the water takes 40 percent to 60 percent of the horses body
weight off his legs. The buoyancy of the water supports the
body when walking, yet allows enough concussion to maintain
bone density and develop tensile strength in tendons, ligaments
and muscles, Jeff Petska said. When a horse is getting most of its conditioning while swimming alone, it loses bone density over time because T H E A M E R I C A N Q U A R T E R H O R S E J O U R N A L J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 6 133 there is no concussion, he explained. In the Aqua-Tred, the
horse gets resistance when pushing backward as well as when
he pulls each leg forward. The horse ends up using all kinds
of muscles that normally are not strengthened. Whitesboro Equine Therapys underwater treadmill is 46 1 / 2 feet long with a sloping walking surface covered with rubber
mats at both ends. The actual tread is 12 feet long, and at the
deepest point, the pool is 4 feet. The Petskas keep the water
at 85 degrees, but they can raise it to as much as 100 degrees
for heat therapy. The Petskas treadmill also has 16 jets, four
for each leg, that massage and relax the muscles. On the treadmill, the horse will use a full range of motion that will strengthen the muscle groups that might be otherwise
hard to work while increasing their bone density, too, Jeff
said. Many horse owners and trainers notice the extra muscle
in their horses back when they return home after completing
their therapy. Bell combines the water therapy with conventional ground conditioning. Depending on the horse, Bell might
swim the horse very little or as much as three to four times
a week. By doing this and working them on the ground, you get a real healthy mix, he said. The treadmill helps strengthen
their legs and bodies while the ground work helps to sweat
their neck and get the real hard work out of them that we
need to get the fat off ofthem. But the real advantage of the underwater treadmill for Bell is the ability to work young or injured horses that are unable
to do strenuous ground work. The Aqua-Tred takes all the weight off the legs, he said. For a young horse that needs a slow start or a horse that is
sore or has some kind of suspensory or soft tissue injury, its
great, because you are able to get them ready and keep them
fit without putting a lot of stress on their limbs. We can work one harder on the Aqua-Tred than you can on the ground a lot of times, Jeff added. You can ride them
light at home one day and then bring them the next day for
their hard workouts here. We work them hard, but we dont
have that wear and tear on those joints. It also gives the halter horses a change in their routines, Bell said. It gives us somewhere else to go and something else to do than the same old thing every day, he said. Its also good for
young horses, like yearlings, just to get the life experience of
getting in the trailer and going and doing something different.
They oftentimes then do better at the shows. But the icing on the cake are the results. Bells horses who went through the underwater treadmill program won four
world championships in 2004. Its satisfying when someone brings a horse that they dont think would be able to go the World Show, and we work with
them, and they do get there and do end up doing well, Jeff
said. Its just really wonderful to know we had something to
do with it. Tonya Ratliff-Garrison is the Internet manager/staff writer for
The American Quarter Horse Journal. She can be reached at tonyag@aqha.org. JEFF AND LISA PETSKA have had strong ties in the horse industry for many years. Jeff grew up in Nebraska where he became involved in the equine indus- try on the college rodeo team at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. He then started with performance horses at the Pitzer Ranch in Nebraska. His career continued under the employment of Carol Rose from 1990 to 1996. In 1997, he started his own business at his facility in Whitesboro. Lisa grew up in Bartlett, Nebraska, where she showed horses as a youth in 4- H and was Miss Rodeo Nebraska in 1985. She met Jeff while working at the Pitzer Ranch, and they have been married for 14 years. They have a daughter, Chelsea, and a son, Tanner. When Jeff served as Chef dEquipe for Team USA Reining at the 2002 World Equestrian Games in Jerez, Spain, he met the therapist for the United States Equestrian Team, Doug Hannum. Jeff and Lisa noticed that the horses led by the best U.S. driving team were 24 and 27 years old. Some of the top jumping and dressage horses are in their teens. Jeff asked Hannum about a horse that had already had stifle surgery and was getting injections every 30 days but was still crippled. Hannum said he could fix the horse at his facility in Pennsylvania. After three months there, the horse was totally sound. Using the underwater treadmill and biomagnetic pulse therapy, Hannum had basically gotten the horse to heal himself. After researching it, Jeff and Lisa decided to build an underwater treadmill at their facility in Whitesboro, Texas. The Whitesboro Equine Therapy facility, which opened in October 2003, has developed a physical therapy program by combining the benefits of the treadmill and the biopulse magnetic blanket. DON BELL At 30 years old, AQHA Professional Horseman DON BELL has won multiple world championships and is an AQHA Judge and a member of the AQHA Show Committee. Growing up in Tennessee as the son of a walking horse trainer, Bell has been intertwined with horses most of his life. In 2001, Don Bell Quarter Horses was formed as a professional training facility in Whitesboro, Texas, where he and his wife, Joetta Leeanne, reside. Bell specializes in halter horses and has trained and exhibited several horses to AQHA and Palomino Horse Breeders of America world championships as well as class winners at the All American Quarter Horse Congress in Columbus, Ohio. BIO There are a number of places that offer underwater treadmills.
Here are a few: Whitesboro Equine Therapy Jeff and Lisa Petska
Whitesboro, Texas
(903) 564-9210
(903) 814-0525 Equine Sports Therapy Doug Hannum
Camden, South Carolina
(803) 432-3388 KESMARC Kirsten and Hub Johnson
Versailles, Kentucky
(859) 873-9955 Lazy E Ranch Matt Witman
Guthrie, Oklahoma
(405) 282-3437 HYDROTHERAPY

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