How does Osteopathic Manual Therapy (OMT) support and improve sport horse performance?

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The demands placed on an elite sport horse are extraordinary. Whether jumping combinations at speed, performing collected dressage movements, or racing under load, these animals are required to operate at the edge of their physical capacity — often day after day, season after season. It is no surprise that managing their health requires more than a single discipline. Josephine Jansen's thesis makes a careful and well-supported argument for why Osteopathic Manual Therapy should occupy a central role in that broader care picture. Jansen opens with a clear articulation of what osteopathic treatment actually means in the equine context — not symptom management, but whole-body assessment aimed at identifying the primary cause of dysfunction and restoring homeostasis. She draws on Still's founding principles to frame OAB (Osteopathic Articular Balancing) not as a technique in isolation, but as a neurophysiological intervention: one that alters signals within the central nervous system, influences sensory processing, and can interrupt chronic pain cycles that persist long after the clinical signs of injury have resolved. The concept of 'traumatic muscle memory' — neural activity that continues reverberating in the CNS even when tissue has healed — is introduced with precision and practical relevance. Two significant studies form the evidentiary backbone of Jansen's argument. A French study of 26 sport horses found measurable improvements in propulsion, symmetry, and regularity of gait following a single osteopathic treatment, with younger horses showing the most immediate response and older horses benefiting from repeated sessions. A larger study by Thoresen, examining 374 horses with suspected sacroiliac, hip, and back dysfunction, found positive outcomes in approximately 80% of cases — including horses that had not responded to intra-articular injections. The final section on integrative medicine is where the thesis becomes most forward-looking. Jansen draws on research from equine sports medicine to argue that the best outcomes for performance horses emerge not from any single modality but from a coordinated team — veterinarian, osteopath, farrier — each contributing their specialist lens to the same problem. The hoof's relationship to upper musculoskeletal health, the limitations of traditional diagnostics in subclinical cases, the role of preventive care in extending a horse's competitive career: all are addressed with clarity and practical grounding. This is a thoughtful, well-researched thesis with a strong clinical voice. It neither overclaims nor undersells, and for practitioners working in or adjacent to performance horse care, it provides both the evidence and the rationale to advocate for OMT as a serious, integrated tool in sport horse practice.