His methods progressed beyond laser therapy to include a comprehensive platform called Equine Muscle Maintenance. He developed techniques that exceeded typical treatments for hocks, knees, back and joints to include protocols for rehabilitation, pre-performance conditioning, maintenance, and post-performance therapy, each designed to get results and protect the racehorse.

Were there skeptics of his practice? Certainly.

The state veterinarians at Hollywood Park raided his barn after people complained of a guy doing some “funny stuff” with horses. But skepticism can begin to fade once a barn starts winning and achieving consistent results.

And did the results ever come.

In addition to numerous graded stakes triumphs, Bourmas’ work with a five-year-old Dakota Phone led to a 37-1 upset triumph in the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (G1). In the world of harness racing, his treatments of then two-year-old trotter, Manofmanymissions, contributed to a world record-breaking performance and a championship victory in the 2010 Breeders Crown. In addition to Jerry Hollendorfer, Bourmas also treated horses along the way for the stables of Hall of Fame trainers Ron McAnally and the late Jack Van Berg. Van Berg once said of Bourmas, “That kid comes in and within 20 minutes your horse is a completely different horse.”

Today at age 48, Steve Bourmas has built up quite a collection of experiences with memorable horses he has treated. Perhaps no horse has captured a larger portion of his heart than the late Shared Belief. America’s Champion Two-Year-Old Male of 2013 broke hearts around the world when he died at age four in December of 2015 due to complications of colic.

“He was the most incredible horse I’ve ever known,” says Bourmas. “He was so smart and so tough. I’d work on him in his stall, and when he started to feel good, he would swell up like King Kong and would get cocky and would try to kill you if you weren’t careful. He was so smart that he figured out the red button on my laser machine controlled the power and he would make a bee-line for the button with his face to shut it off to stop it from humming. You had to play his game in a controlled way. If you brought him to the paddock to school, he thought it was time to race, and when he learned he wasn’t going to the track, he would go crazy. We were careful to never extinguish his fire, but, rather, contain it.”

Shared Belief was injured during a fourth-place finish in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1). Steve Bourmas found a horse in his stall who couldn’t barely walk without a hitch, couldn’t switch leads, and could not gallop.

“When I saw Shared Belief in his stall, his head was down and I thought, ‘What happened to him?’. Nobody knew the horse better than me and Armando [Rodriguez], his groom. Armando knew him because he was with him every day, and I knew him because I knew every inch of his body. I don’t see a horse as an animal. I talk to them like a person. I started putting everything back together - his spine, his legs, his shoulders. I could tell [as he got better] because he started biting me again. And, shortly afterwards, he won the Malibu Stakes (G1).”

Blind Luck was a multiple graded-stakes winner and Champion Three-Year-Old Filly of 2010. Her competitiveness was on full display during her treatment sessions.

“She was one of the meanest horses I’ve ever been around,” says Bourmas. “If she got mad at you, she would pin you inside the stall. She’d pin her ears back and suck on her lip. She bit me so hard before the Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1) at Churchill Downs that she made me bleed from a chest wound through three layers of clothes.”

Similar to Blind Luck in demeanor was multiple Eclipse Award winner Unique Bella.

“She was a very temperamental horse. There were times when she would let you go in her stall and work on her, and there were other times when she would see someone coming and didn’t want anybody to be around her,” recalls Bourmas. “The horses knew who I was and some wanted the therapy all the time. And if I was working on another horse, they would often get jealous and start kicking walls.”

One of Bourmas’ most rewarding experiences was with the great filly Songbird.

“When people see the finished product on the track, they often don’t understand the work it takes to get a horse like Songbird to that level. It took me 26 visits with her in a stall every month. Laser therapy, hands and manual therapy, stretching, and legwork. Just constant work to keep her loose. Every time she went to the track, whether she was galloping, jogging or working, she gave you 110 percent.”