04/06/2024
A fantastic visual of rotation of the equine thorax.
'Bend' is a result of lift of the thorax coupled with rotation of the spine and thorax and then bend is created and is possible.
🐴 The horses spine and thorax move in 3 dimensions. Therefore, it can also become 'stuck' and unable to move in any of the combinations of this 3d movement in any plane, any direction.
1. The spine should be able to flex and extend longitudinally
2. Rotate left and right
3. Bend laterally - this is the smallest of the movements.
As riders we need to be able to feel, assess and knowledgeably know how to help that horse regain function in the areas where function has been lost. This involves reigniting neural pathways between brain and body to improve functional movement patterns.
This means understanding how exercises really affect movement. For example, if you do not know what the specific 3 dimensional movements are of - let's say leg yield, as it's everyone's go to favourite exercise 🙄 then how do you know if that exercise is helping or hindering your horses functional movement issue 🤔.
And, how do you know if it's helping or hindering your horse if you cannot firstly crtically assess the biomechanical function of your horses 3 dimensional spinal function 🤔 and overall body function.
We so need to move away from the mindset of aids - X+Y=Z, and strive for assessing function and understanding that horse and rider are one when they are together, a harmonious marriage of two physical, dynamic beings. Surely, aids can only work to achieve a desired outcome if the function is perfect in the first place. 🤔
Oh we have a lot to learn. But, we must learn. If we want to ride these beautiful, willing, forgiving creatures we must strive for better body coordination and functional movement, in us as well as them, which in turn limits pain and structural damage, in us as well as them - seeing a pattern here !!! and not be happy to say -we don't understand, so ...
Or, but he/she has always gone like that so ...🤔 🤦🏼♀️.
🐴 When movement becomes dysfunctional, even a little, movement patterns change and loading - weight and forces exerted on the joints is increased in some areas increasing compression and compressive forces being exerted on the joints. This increases weight, force and compression causes damage to the joints and we are not just talking joints in the limbs such as hocks and stifles we are also talking about the joints of the spine.
There are 3 joints, a left and right facet joint and the joint of the vertebral body which is where the discs reside, between two vertebral bodies. This happens between every two vertebrae in the spine, and there are 7 cervical, 18 thoracic and 5 lumbar vertebrae in the horses spine. You do the maths.
We must increase our awareness of what is going on underneath our saddles, underneath our thighs and our butts. We must strive to learn more for the benefit of the horses. We must not be content with someone saying ' oh he has always done that, don't worry about it'.
As a physical therapist it is such an uphill battle to educate owners and riders about the function of equine movement. I often say, we realised many years ago that building houses with shallow foundations made them weak and vulnerable to movement, subsidence and total failure as they were structurally weak. We saw the damages taking place in front of our eyes and so we made changes to ensure foundations were strong enough to withstand the test of time. Everyone accepted that as being a good plan. Yet we watch horses falling apart in front of us, mechanical failure left, right and centre and yet there is huge resistance to making changes in the training methods and being open to learning, which is the foundations, because we seem to prefer to inject joints and treat the end result of knocking over the first Domino rather than stopping the first Domino being knocked over in the first place.
Come on guys, let's keep pushing forward with expanding our knowledge, for the soundness of horses everywhere.
