Equine water treadmill exercise - The why, when and how of hydrotherapy for horses
- Horses Inside Out
- Aug 18
- 5 min read
Have you ever considered the benefits of an equine water treadmill for your horse? Once reserved for elite racehorses and for rehabilitation, water treadmills are now becoming an increasingly popular tool for horse owners looking to improve equine health and performance. Combining the resistance of water with the support of buoyancy, these treadmills offer a low impact yet highly effective workout that can aid in injury recovery, build strength, and enhance cardiovascular fitness. Whatever you do with your horse, water treadmill therapy could be the missing piece in your training or rehabilitation program.
Dr Kathryn Nankervis, Equine Therapy Centre Director and Associate Professor at Hartpury University will give a presentation on Aqua Training: How the use of water treadmills can improve soundness and symmetry at the Horses Inside Out Conference 2026. In this article, Kathryn takes a look at equine water treadmill exercise, why it can be valuable, when to use it and how to use it effectively.
As a physiologist, I am interested in understanding as much as possible about the responses of the body to exercise. Also, how the body accommodates and adapts to the challenges presented to it.
I really enjoy the blend of research and practice that my role as Director of the Equine Therapy Centre, Hartpury brings. Each horse that comes to us for treatment and rehabilitation of musculoskeletal injury, brings their own unique multidisciplinary team, led by the vet, who work together to construct the programmes for the case. I love working in an environment where everyone brings their own expertise, experiences and ideas.
In successful rehabilitation, the result often comes because “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” – it’s the combination of expertise, skills and good horse management that can really improve the outcome. My role and that of my staff at the Therapy Centre, Hartpury is to work with a horse’s team to deliver, monitor, and increasingly, to provide input on programmes based on our experience of using exercise within rehabilitation.
A Journey of Discovery
In 1999, Hartpury College installed the first ground level water treadmill for horses in the UK, and we set out on a journey of discovery that still entertains us all these years on.
The ‘Aqua Fit’ water treadmill and high-speed treadmill that partnered it made for a pretty unique set of facilities but in those early days, the high-speed treadmill did far more work than the water treadmill. Some saw the water treadmill as being rather gimmicky.
Twenty years ago, it was unusual for horses to use any kind of treadmill exercise as part of their normal training programme. Somewhere between 10 and 15 years ago, water treadmills became a standard form of cross training for dressage horses. In recent years, it’s not just professional riders choosing to add water treadmill exercise to their programmes. Many more owners of general-purpose riding horses are now adding a visit to the local water treadmill in the same way they might travel to a gallops or attend a pole work clinic. With the aim to add variety to the work and hopefully provide some additional benefit that other forms of exercise cannot provide.
The Wonders of Water
Due to the physical properties of water, exercise in water has long been considered to have potential therapeutic benefits. But let’s be honest, exercising on a rubber surface in a confined space in water is ‘unusual’. There are no water walking competitions for horses.
Whilst the popularity of the modality continues to increase, researchers try and keep pace in answering many of the questions about whether or not to use it; when to use it; and how to use it.
A good deal of my research efforts, and that of colleagues around the world is figuring out what place this modality can and should have in our training or rehabilitation programmes. For successful rehabilitation, knowing when to avoid a certain type of exercise is every bit as important as knowing what may help.
Working with Horses
The trouble with designing training and rehabilitation programmes for horses is that we cannot be as prescriptive as we would be for a human athlete. If you suffer a knee injury and you attend a consultation with your physiotherapist, you may be given a set of exercises to carry out to support your recovery. You will be told not only what exercises to do, but how to perform them well, how to progress in terms of repetitions, frequency, and difficulty. Horses, as enthusiastic as they might be about exercise, are less cognisant, and the challenge its that we must be more creative about constructing exercise programmes to encourage the horse to use their body in a way that suits the individual’s training or rehabilitation goals at that time. We need to find the easiest way for the horse to produce the movement patterns that support their development. Sometimes, we capitalise on unusual forms of exercise, to create responses in the horse that would be almost impossible to achieve through any other means.
Achieving the Maximum Benefits
The profound alteration in forces between ground surface and horse, and between the horse and the water are undeniable. Movement in water is clearly very different from moving over land. How can we capitalise on these differences, and the novelty they provide, to support our training and rehabilitation goals? To understand how to apply the exercise, we need to have clear short-term goals, informed by our longer-term training or rehabilitation goals. We also need to know what the likely response of the horse will be, and this is where the research is important. Finally, it’s important we monitor what happens when we apply the exercise to our horse/case, because there is always variability in response due to the individuality of the horse that is superimposed on our anticipated normal response according to the scientific literature.
Within rehab, we often use combinations of exercises to meet all our goals for a case. It is rare that one modality gives us everything we’re aiming to achieve, and it’s how the modalities are used in combination that gives us a successful outcome. Recovery from injury is not a very sensitive measure of success, or proof that a modality works, it’s merely proof that the people who managed the programme, managed it well. Ultimately, it’s an informed approach that delivers successful outcomes, not any one piece of kit.
Making Hydrotherapy Work for You
The aim of my presentation at the Horses Inside Out Conference 2026 – Soundness and Symmetry is to share with you what I’ve taken from the evidence based on water treadmill exercise and how I apply it. I’ll also give you some ideas about how to monitor a single exercise session and how to incorporate water treadmill exercise into your programme as effectively as possible.
Attention to detail is important for both training and rehabilitation, and through the course of my talk, I aim to give you as much information as I can, so you can be as informed as possible about how to apply water treadmill exercise for your own horse, or for a case you are responsible for.
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