28/11/2025
Most people assume horses “don’t feel as much” as humans because their skin looks thicker. The research says the opposite—and it changes how we should think about taping.
RESEARCH → TECHNIQUE → OUTCOME
RESEARCH
A 2020 comparative study found no meaningful difference in epidermal nerve counts between horses and humans, and very similar thickness of the pain-detecting epidermal layer (horses: 31.6 µm; humans: 26.8 µm). [PubMed 2020]
Yes, horses have a thicker dermis overall, but that doesn’t make them less sensitive at the surface. Multiple sources describe horses as “very sensitive at the cutaneous level,” potentially up to 10x more sensitive than humans because of richer mechanoreceptor density. [Equine Dermatology, 2019; PubMed 2020]
So no—your horse is not “tougher” than you. If anything, they’re more honest about what they feel.
TECHNIQUE
Here’s where EFT Equine Functional Taping breaks away from human-based kinesiology taping:
• Human tapes are designed to sit directly on skin.
• EFT tape is designed to work primarily through the hair coat.
In most EFT applications, the tape is interacting with the hair, not glued down onto bare skin. That means:
• Less risk of blisters, rashes, and skin stripping like we see in human taping.
• We can safely use elastic behavior closer to what the skin itself can tolerate.
Our tape is engineered to be as elastic as healthy skin (around a 200% ratio), with a different wave pattern and adhesive chemistry so it can:
• Grip the hair shaft effectively
• “Give way” under overload instead of tearing skin
• Maintain consistent recoil over several days
OUTCOME
In years of field use and research, we’ve only seen a single horse immediately remove tape due to irritation—despite working with highly sensitive, high-performance, and compromised horses.
What this means in real life:
• You can use tape as a precise neurosensory and fascial tool, not a brute-force bandage.
• You can respect how sensitive horses actually are, while still getting meaningful, long-lasting effects.
• The “limitations” that exist in human taping (skin irritation, blistering, adhesive overload) are not the same when you design a tape and a modality specifically for horses.
Clinical note: We still monitor for irritation, keep working tension at or below ~30%, and respect individual sensitivity. But we’re no longer fighting against the biology—we’re working with it. [Clinical Veterinary Advisor, 2021]
EFT wasn’t created as a rebranded human taping system. It was built from the ground up around equine skin, hair, and nervous system research—so the tape, the technique, and the outcomes all line up with how horses actually function.
03/12/2022
20/11/2022
09/04/2022
17/10/2021
17/10/2021
15/08/2021