The property has everything to please a thoroughbred, irrespective of age, experience or veterinary history. Horses can recover from injury or surgery at HSP or undergo a full rehabilitation program individually designed to get each horse home in much better shape.
State-of-the-art equipment such as a chilled saltwater treadmill, chilled saltwater spa and even a red-light solarium are available for rehabilitation, relaxation or muscle building.
Horse Shepherd Park Advanced Equine manager Troy Best, who runs the farm with owner Anne Yong, calls the team’s work ‘active spelling’.
Best, the grandson of a South Australian trainer who has been around horses since before he could walk, said horses shed any mental tension soon after arriving at Horse Shepherd Park.
The residents are free to waltz around the paddocks alongside a random collection of pigs, geese and whatever local fauna decides to stop by.
“In the first couple of days, it makes their eyes pop out a bit when they see the place, but they soon relax and settle into the environment,” Best said. “It gives them so many things to look at, which mentally stimulates them a lot. We’ve definitely found that with stallions.
“The horses can just eat, talk to each other and have a look around. It just brings them mentally right back down to another level of relaxation.”
The mental unwinding is then mixed with an individually designed training program to strengthen the horses’ muscles rather than build their aerobic capacity through galloping.
Horses aren’t ridden – technology completes the process in a controlled but stress-free environment before horses return to paddocks for more relaxation.
“Even though horses are spelling, we might put them on the water treadmill three times a week or so and they can still spend large amounts of time out in the paddock being a horse,” Best said.
“That way, the horse gets everything they need mentally, but still stays fit.
“I call what we do strengthening more than fitness, because we’re about muscle building rather than galloping a horse.”
Best joked the horses don’t get a tan under Horse Shepherd Park’s red-light solarium, but the apparatus is vital for those that have back problems or are recovering from spinal surgery.