09/07/2025
Great read . I couldnāt agree more that the body works as a unit.
If one area is not 100% we need a whole body approach to help it .
Load Transfer: The Invisible System That Keeps Horses Sound (Until We Break It)
(This is probably the most significant blog I have written to date...and I am deadly serious.)
1ļøā£ Why We Miss the Point
Most riders and owners look at legs, joints, or hooves when a horse goes lame. We obsess over hock injections, tendon scans, or shoeing tweaks.
But hereās the blind spot: horses arenāt Lego sets where you can just swap out a dodgy block and keep stacking. Theyāre whole systems where forces - rider weight, ground impact, propulsion - have to be absorbed, stabilised, and passed on like the worldās most complicated game of pass-the-parcel. That process is called load transfer.
If load transfer works, the horse moves fluidly, distributes force safely, and stays sound. If it doesnāt, the wrong bit cops the pressure - joints, tendons, ligaments - until it breaks. Cue āmystery lamenessā and your savings account crying into a feed bucket.
2ļøā£ What Load Transfer Actually Is
Load transfer is the art of sharing forces across the horseās whole body:
- Hooves = shock absorbers (your horseās Nike Airs).
- Tendons and ligaments = springs (boing, boing).
- Core and spine = suspension bridge (though honestly, comparing a living, moving horse to a bridge bolted to the ground is a bit crap - sorry Tami, Iāll get to you in a second and anyone else having a fit over my analogies :P ).
- Hindquarters = the engine room.
- Trunk = the bridge deck, carrying weight forward.
- Nervous system = Wi-Fi (sometimes 5G, sometimes ābufferingā¦ā).
Itās not one joint or one leg doing the work - itās a team effort. And when one player drops the ball, the others coverā¦ until they tear something.
3ļøā£ How It Gets Compromised in Domestication
Hereās the catch: our horses donāt live or move the way evolution intended. Instead, weāve gifted them the equine version of late-stage capitalism:
- Sedentary living ā Wild horses walk 20 km a day. Ours do laps of a 20 x 60 and then slouch around on the couch bingeing Netflix. Fascia weakens, cores collapse, proprioception clocks off.
- Gut health issues ā Ulcers, acidosis, restricted forage. Imagine doing Pilates with chronic indigestion. Goodbye stabilisers, hello bracing.
- Rider influence ā Saddles, weight, wobbly balance. A hollow back under a rider = hocks and forelimbs eating all the force. āCongratulations, youāre now a wheelbarrow.ā
And then we act shocked when the ābridgeā collapses and the legs file for workersā comp.
4ļøā£ Why This Explains Early Breakdowns
A horse with poor load transfer isnāt just inefficient - itās a ticking time bomb.
- Hock arthritis by six.
- Suspensory tears that never heal.
- Kissing spine in a horse that never learned to lift.
This isnāt bad luck. Itās physics. And yes, physics is painful. But so is paying vet bills the size of your mortgage repayments.
Once you see it, the endless cycle of injections and rehab isnāt fate ā itās the logical result of pretending your horse is four pogo sticks with ears instead of a system that has to share the damn load.
5ļøā£ Why Talking About This Will Probably Annoy You
Hereās the thing: people who really understand the sheer magnitude of load transfer will most likely confuse youā¦ or offend you.
My good friend Tami Elkayam is the one responsible for hammering this into my thick skull. And Iāll be honest: it took four clinics and two years of friendship before the penny really dropped. She will read this and her hair will stand on end, because load transfer and how the body works is far more interconnected and complex than Iāve made it here.
Because hereās the reality: there is a reason your six-year-old has the joints of a 27-year-old, or why your horse developed kissing spine. And while Iām pretty good at spotting when dysfunctional load transfer has already chewed through a part of the horseā¦ my bigger mission now is to spread the word before more horses ā and bank accounts ā get wrecked.š
It may sound like physics, and physics isnāt sexy. But this is physics that explains your vet bills, your training plateaus, your horseās ādifficultā behaviour, and that nagging sense of ānot quite right.ā
6ļøā£ What We Need to Do About It
Instead of obsessing over the parts, we need to step back and care for the system:
- Movement lifestyle ā Turnout, hills, hacking, grazing posture. (Not āarena prison with cardio punishment.ā)
- Gut health ā Forage first, low starch, fewer ulcers. (Because no one engages their core mid-stomach cramp...and that's not even mentioning how digestion impacts the whole things - that blog is for another day)
- Training for posture ā Lift the back, wake up the core, balance the bridge. (āMore forwardā and "rounder" isnāt a strategy, in fact saying those things can be part of the problem...)
Rider responsibility ā Balanced seat, good saddle fit, some self-awareness. (Yes, because we have a massive impact on load transfer and how dysfunctional we make it...but let's get the idea in our heads before we beat ourselves up.)
Preventive care ā Conditioning, fascia release, thoughtful management. (āWait for it to break, then panicā is not a plan.)
7ļøā£. Closing
Load transfer is the invisible system that keeps horses sound. When it fails, the legs, joints, and tendons take the hit - and horses āmysteriouslyā break down.
The tragedy isnāt that we canāt prevent it. Itās that weāre too busy staring at hooves or arguing on social media about everything from bits to barefoot to notice the actual system collapsing under our noses.
Once you understand load transfer, you canāt unsee it. And once you canāt unsee it, youāll never settle for patching symptoms again. Youāll start caring for the whole horse - because thatās the only way to keep the bridge standing, the system working, and your horse sound.
This is Collectable Advice 17/365 of my notebook challenge.
ā¤Please share this if it made you think. But donāt copy-paste it and slap your name on it - thatās the intellectual equivalent of turning up to an office party with a packet of Tim Tams and calling it āhomemade.ā This is my work, my study, my sweat, and my own years of training horses (and myself) before figuring this out (well with Tami Elkayam's patience too). Share it, spread it, argue with it - but donāt steal it.
