Is your horse hiding pain in plain sight? 👀
Read through to the end, there are freebies for you down there 👀
Did you know that as horse owners, we aren’t very good at identifying when our horse is in pain? In fact, according to science, we’re actually like really bad at it… love is blind, perhaps?
A 2020 study published by the Journal of Equine Veterinary Science* looked at a group of horses that were subjectively determined as “sound” by owners. The horses were then put through an objective assessment by a team of veterinarians and it was determined that about 50% of the horses actually had mild to moderate (grade 1-3) lameness - yikes, yes, half of the “sound” horses in the study were actually determined to be lame.
While scientifically it’s not really fair to assume that the 50% statistic is applicable to all owners and all horses, it does imply that many of us likely have a horse with a mild to moderate lameness that we are blissfully unaware of… eek.
So how can we do better? We can educate ourselves! We train our eye to look for pain in our horse and to better understand how they function.
When assessing a horse for pain, there are a multitude of factors to consider such as functional movement, conformation, posture, hoof health, dental, health, muscular health, etc., but given my profession (😉), I want to focus on muscular health specifically. When your horse has general pain or lameness issues, it will almost always come out in the muscle!
So, what exactly do we look for in equine muscle health? The 4 T’s!
Tone:
Tone is assessed through looking 👀 How does the muscle visually look? Hard and rigid or soft and smooth? Look for atrophy (areas that seem hollowed out) and overdevelopment (areas that seem to be bulging out).
Texture:
Texture is assessed through palpation. How does the muscle feel? Are there textural differences across the muscle (lumpiness, stringyness, grittyness)?
Temperament:
Sometimes also used interchangeably with the word tenderness, it’s assessed through palpation and visual assessment. How does the muscle (and horse) respond to palpation? Does the muscle begin to spasm or tighten? Does the horse duck away from the pressure? Do they pin their ears, try to bite or kick?
Temperature:
Temperature is assessed by a gentle feel. What does the temperature of the muscle feel like? Are there hot or cool spots?
Now it’s time to learn how to actually use this knowledge on your own horse, it’s time to learn how to look and palpate for pain.
I’ve created a FREE 30 minute tutorial video, Assessing Your Horse for Pain, that will guide you through this process. Check out the “chapters” in the description of the YouTube video if you want to skip ahead to a specific “T” or a specific part of the body. You may also want to have the freebie anatomy charts and muscular pain notes sheet handy for reference.
This new knowledge will give you fresh insight into the health of your horse. You can use this knowledge to better understand your horse’s performance, to better communicate with your veterinarian or bodyworker, and to monitor your horse’s “normal”. If you find a problem area during the assessment, will it be better or worse next month when you check it again? You now get to be the keeper of that sacred information.
You hold the keys to your horse’s universe. Congratulations 😉
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Wait, hold on! I did the assessment and my horse is all out of whack, now what?
Did you find all kinds of weird grit, gristle, or sensitivity during your horse’s pain assessment?! Check out my Equine Massage for Owners course. It includes 20+ massage and stretching techniques within 90+ minutes of guided tutorials to teach you how to massage your horse and address muscular pain and restriction. When you understand your horse, you unlock their potential ✨
*Müller-Quirin, J., Dittmann, M. T., Roepstorff, C., Arpagaus, S., Latif, S. N., & Weishaupt, M. A. (2020). Riding soundness—comparison of subjective with objective lameness assessments of owner-sound horses at trot on a treadmill. Journal of Equine Veterinary Science, 95, 103314. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jevs.2020.103314
