The Horse Listener

THE HORSE LISTENER

In cracking good form

Rob Jackson, The Horseback Vet, is sought after around the world. CANDIDA BAKER finds out why.

You have to get up early to catch Rob Jackson. This UKbased veterinarian specialises in horses’ skeletal systems, and his action-packed days start from 6.00am. Fortunately for me his first port of call on his last Australian visit was with a client who lives not far away from me.

Renowned for his assessment of problems in horses, his chiropractic-style treatment, and his personable, calm manner, Rob (BVetMed, DipSurv (RP), MRCVS), comes out to Australia two or three times a year to treat the clients who have been lucky enough to find out about his work.

And this is why I’m here, because his client, Anne McDiarmid was so thrilled with the treatment Rob gave her massive Warmblood George, that she now organizes his visit to Australia and she thought I would like to see his work.

Anne’s story started several years ago when George suffered a soft tissue injury. “He’d been through two rehab programs over 18 months, but he still had a strange gait behind, and he was swinging his hind leg through in an odd way. Both myself and my coach felt there was something not quite right higher up in the sacroiliac or in his back, but we couldn’t pinpoint it, and neither could anybody else.”

In the meantime, Anne, in the search for answers, had been following a UK-based FB group that focussed on soft tissue injury. “There was a lot of discussion in the group of the chicken and egg syndrome,” she says. “Everybody is becoming more and more aware of how skeletal injury can lead to soft tissue problems and vice versa – and who knows which one leads to which one! In the year I’d been following the group one name kept coming up as someone who could solve issues where others had failed, and that was Rob, ‘The Horseback Vet’.”

Any of us – myself included – who have been through the roller coaster of rehabilitating horses from injuries know the days and nights of desperation, and it was in the middle of one of those sleepless nights that Anne took her courage in her hands and tentatively messaged Rob.

“I couldn’t believe that all the way from the UK, I not only got an immediate reply but a request to send video of some very specific movements,” she says.

By the next night she had an answer. George was locked in his lumbar region. “I was so relieved I had a diagnosis that fitted with what I was feeling that I asked Rob if he knew of anyone in Australia who could fix the issue,” she says. “Rob told me that unfortunately he didn’t know anyone who had perfected his

Rob Jackson and George. “I feel better now”.

Rob Jackson giving a shoulder stretch to George.

technique and that it had taken him 19 years as a practising vet to create this particular set of movements.”

But Anne wasn’t going to give up that easily. “I’d bred George myself, put eight years of work into him and I love him to bits, so I set about seeing if I could get Rob out here.”

The long and the short of it was that Rob made his first visit to Australia in August 2017 to treat George and a handful of other horses belonging to Anne’s dressage friends. It wasn’t a cheap session – it couldn’t be, with the money having to cover his flights and accommodation while he was here, but at approximately $300 for the hour or so he spent with George, Anne suddenly had for the first time in two years, a horse that could move freely and was free of pain.

“Since Rob’s first visit I’ve slowly but carefully built George up to full strength,” she says, “and he is now a horse who is working and training at FEI level dressage. Rob comes out to Australia about every six months, and spends 5-6 days in the Northern Rivers and on the Gold Coast treating numerous horses.”

Watching him work, I’m impressed. He gets Jim, Anne’s husband, to walk George out, to trot him out, to turn him in a circle, all the time telling me what he thinks is going on – which at the time of this consultation is a very slight stiffness on the front off-side knee, (often incorrectly referred to as the shoulder in a horse).

Soon some massive stretches take place, and George looks pretty surprised at the idea of his leg moving quite so far away from his body, I’d have to say, but as soon as the release is finished, he drops his head, licks and chews and yawns, showing every sign of a horse that has just had a massive physical release. As I watch Rob gives George some physical movements I’ve never witnessed before, and after each one George is even more a gentle giant than ever.

“What people have to realise about their horses is that they are the athletes in the relationship,” Rob tells me. “Humans can voice the fact that their muscles are stiff and sore, or that something’s ‘out’, but a horse can’t, and it’s our duty to make sure they stay soft and supple.”

Rob believes all horses should have the ability to move freely at the walk and trot, and he likes to see them swing in a small circle around their handler. He qualified from the Royal Veterinary College in London in 1996, he is a former British Endurance Team Vet (including at the World Equestrian Games in Kentucky in 2010); an FEI Official Veterinarian for Eventing and Endurance and has officiated at numerous national and international fixtures in most equine disciplines.

“I’ve always loved horses,” he tells me. “I’m a qualified carriage driver, I’ve competed in polo, dressage, showjumping, eventing and showing – I’ve ridden across Scotland and I’ve even jousted, so for me, the idea that horses should enjoy being ridden, and be happy in their work is paramount. I first got interested in equine manipulation and spinal release in the late 1990s, and since then I’ve been working and studying to increase my knowledge in that area.”

An issue associated with his work that

Rob is passionate about is saddle-fit. “All over the world we are now using saddle-fitting templates which give us a profile of the horse’s back, and we can then make sure that any saddle fitted is not going to impede the horse’s movement,” he says. “It’s imperative to have a perfectly-fitting saddle so that the horse can move freely, if a horse’s rib gets stuck for instance, that contraction will gradually effect the entire skeletal structure.”

We’re getting close to the end of the session when it occurs to me to ask him

how his jetlag is going.

“Oh,” he says, “I don’t get it! I think I’m here for such a short time, usually only a week, that my body doesn’t even have time to suffer from it.”

He’s indefatigable in his work – travelling to Europe, the US and Australia in his quest to improve horses’ lives, typically treating between six to 13 horses in a day.

“It’s not always an easy way of life,” he says. “It’s a lot of travelling and time away from home, but my mission is to make people more aware of the kinds of problems their horses can suffer from, and to assist them in setting up regimes for their horses that will help them become stronger in their bodies, fitter and more able to do their work, so they can enjoy it more.”

Amen to that.

Rob Jackson – The Horseback Vet –will be in Australia doing consultations plus a workshop on diagnosing and treating back issues in late April/May this year. Contact Anne McDiarmid on: admin@rto2go.com or 0400 718 998 or visit the Facebook page: The Horse Back Vet - Australia Visit.