Hidez Recovery Suit Aids Equine Athletes

By May 1, 2012
Thoroughbred race horse wearing the Hidez suit.

Australia's Hay List put the Hidez suit on the map, using it to condition before winning a $1 million race.

It looks like a scuba outfit, but it has nothing to do with water. The Hidez Travel and Recovery Suit is designed to help high-performance horses more quickly recover from physical exertion.  Top human athletes have been using the garments for some time, explains Australia’s Matthew Spice, who developed the concept for the equine use and is officially rolling it out in the U.S. this summer.

“Olympic athletes, NFL footballers, Tour de France riders, they’re all using it,” Spice says, explaining that the suit offers “graduated compression.” “Basically, the heart pumps blood down the limbs, but the limbs don’t return the blood. The suit applies pressure at the extremities and then the pressure reduces off as the blood travels back up the body.”

It’s like, he says, “getting a constant massage. It promotes good blood flow when they’re traveling or standing still for a long time and boosts oxygen availability into the muscles.”
The technology made its U.S. debut at the Rolex Kentucky Three Star Event in April, with Boyd Martin and Phillip Dutton giving it a go. It is also being used in the stables of  Thoroughbred trainer Graham Motion at the Kentucky Derby, and is also being used by race horses in Australia.

“We were trying to keep it quiet, but word accidentally got out” when an Australian racehorse, John McNair’s Hay List, won a $1 million race in Sydney, and the horse was seen afterwards wearing the suit as they hotwalked him around the barn area. We had loaned him a suit to help with development, and it was apparently quite eye-catchng,” Spice recounts.

Spice says that in the pre-launch stage, he’s making it available free to any Olympic contenders who would like to try it. “It’s really easy to use―to get off and put on. You throw it on like a normal rug and zip up the legs.”
The U.S. distributor is Ron Wiseman of Outback Animal Health. Spice is currently seeking a Canadian agent.

For more information visit Outback Animal Health, or Hidez.com.au.

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