16/08/2025
Let’s talk posture 🧘♀️🐴
While out on the road this week I snapped this very interesting picture of one of our lovely veteran clients at rest in his stable before any treatment 📸
This is the same picture - I am not into ‘before and after’ treatment pictures, while posture can visibly change in sessions before and after pictures are still largely misleading due to many variables and the horses position can be so easily manipulated to create an ideal snapshot in time for an impressive social media post 🤳🏻
Also pictures are exactly that, a snapshot in time but posture isn’t static and influenced by so many things and changes as a result of so many things!!!
So why did this posture catch my eye 👀 and
why is posture so crucial ❓❓❓
🐎 The most obvious is the position of the limbs under the body, however, if we look closely he also has a dipped back, ‘pot bellied’ appearance and altered pelvic position - these changes to stance are likely a result of discomfort, pain and weakness making the horse want to compensate in order to offload or protect certain structures 🐎
🐴 Altered postures are often subtle indicators of issues and can manifest long before obvious lameness or behavioural cues. Poor posture itself, even if there to try help, often requires more muscular effort, places more load on the joints and can lead to secondary issues, so close attention to posture is important 🐴
Just for context this particular horse has been retired for a while, has known back and joint issues and currently is managed brilliantly day to day by his owners alongside his team of professionals, however, postures like this are not uncommonly seen in horses with no (known) issues and ones that are in work.
So Let’s listen to our horses, the devil is in the detail - knowing them inside out, keeping up to date with regular dentist, farrier, physio etc will help to identify and manage issues and could even help to prevent issues occuring or reoccurring 🐎🐎
