06/01/2025
Agreeing with this. I was recently talking to a simulator client who came out with the old phrase of “one of our horses is just a bit of a git… he’s been checked and it isn’t pain”… I have seen a video and firmly believe there are signs of pain. I was quite astounded to hear professional horse people still saying this.
I have recently had one of my horse’s SI joint injected. I didnt have specific diagnostics as it is hard to do in this area… but I did discuss it in lots of detail with my excellent vet and explain all the little signs that was leading me to think it was causing some issues (she then did a full work up and agreed it was the best place to start).
Whilst sedated I asked for x-rays of his hocks and stifles. Relived but also frustrated to see that they were really good for any 14 yo! I thought they would be useful to look back on or compare in future. He’s feeling better for the moment so🤞
Getting to the root of a pain problem -
As our understanding of pain related behaviour improves, there are many situations where horses might present with a "nothingy something" of an issue but there is no clear indicator of where that problem might be arising from.
The interesting (challenging) thing with this is that, if there is no overt lameness or "if I poke here it really hurts", then oftentimes there is no clear start line for your diagnostic journey.
This can be very frustrating because you can find yourself running around in circles not knowing where to start, with conflicting advice from the professionals around you - some of whom might tell you unhelpful things like "just ride through it" or "it's just bad behaviour"
And this is where I have found traditional diagnostics really need to up their game because from a welfare perspective we need to be intervening with pain before a horse is hopping lame or ditching their rider.
And this in turn will encourage people to pay attention to the smaller behaviours rather than waiting for lameness or waiting to be ditched!
What I have learned is that sometimes you have to pick a place to start and work from there.
This means you may be searching for a little while and you might be ruling out more areas through diagnostics than ruling in areas, but that in and of itself is useful information.
Here is what my career has taught me so far:
- If you think there is a problem, there probably is. Find yourself a team of professionals that will support you.
Sometimes a professional might tell you there isn't a problem because they don't have the skillset to see it or find it, another opinion can often be a good thing - though do keep in mind that too many chefs spoil the broth.
There is many a time where I will say "there is a problem - I can't tell you what, though my observation/palpation skills tell me xyz and I will support you in finding out what it is".
- Sometimes there is so much peripheral noise that you need to strip out a lot of variables and then reassess. This includes improving your horse's management to meet their ethological needs and reducing the workload to see where a problem stops being a problem. These all take time.
I have also found that horses can present as painful because their human is expecting way, way, way too much from them given their physical and emotional health. Getting comfortable doing less and going slower is a solid way of rounding off with a happier, healthier horse that you can actually do more with in the long run.
- I'm a "let's deal with the elephant in the room" kind of gal:
If your horse has poor foot balance, deal with that and then go from there. This could include radiographs to monitor changes in hoof angle and this might mean seeking advice from other hoof care providers to support you and your current hoof care provider in improving things.
Likewise, if your horse's back looks like a saggy hammock, or they have weird lumps/spinal protrusions, deal with that. You could get radiographs to tell you the orientation of the spinous processes. Then rebuild your horse's spinal angle and see where that gets you.
- The problem will continue to be a problem until you have actually resolved it! If your horse has diagnosed hoof balance issues, which you are working on resolving, but the balance is still poor, then it will still be an issue!! This means you have to adjust your expectations of your horse accordingly!
- If you are requesting relatively non-invasive diagnostics, e.g. radiographing/ultrasounding your horse's limbs or back, and you are prepared to pay actual hard earned money for this service even though it might show you absolutely nothing of any value (although to me, ruling out an area is of enormous value), please don't let a professional convince you not to UNLESS they have a reasonable counter plan for another diagnostic (NB a bone scan, to the tune of thousands of £££ is not a suitable counterplan in my opinion)
"I suggested to my vet that we xray my horse's back but they palpated it and said that his reactions were normal so there is no reason to xray"
"Okay well what did they suggest instead?"
"They didn't"
"Great, so you have a horse that presents with pain under saddle and yet we are still no further forward with determining the cause"
- Equally, diagnostics and expertise do come with a price tag, this means that in order to find out what is going on with your horse, you do need to spend money. I know this gets tricky when your horse is presenting with a nothingy something and you have a limited budget to deal with it because you really want to spend that money wisely, but turning up to your vet and saying "I have 55p and three buttons to spend, please tell me what's wrong with my horse", is really unfair on your vet and also your horse.
"I had his hocks medicated but it didn't change anything"
"Did you do any diagnostics?"
"No, we just medicated"
"So what you're saying is you did something painful, that isn't without its risks, despite having not done any due diligence, which means you've spent money you don't have on something that wasn't the problem?"
- It is not as simple as medicating and riding into the sunset.
Why did your horse get the diagnosis they got?
What have you done to improve their management/lifestyle/way of going so you can reduce the instances of this happening again? For biomechanic induced issues, you need to solve the problem by altering their biomechanics; medicating is a way of reducing the pain/inflammation to buy you a window of time to do this in.
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The relationship between pain and behaviour are very complicated. I really wish it was as simple as "nerve block here" to get results. There is so much more I could add and the nuances are vast.
There will of course be outliers to this - people who tried all of the above and are still without answers, or those who walked to hell and back to get them - and for those people I understand that this post might be very triggering, I am sorry about that. I hope you can see here that this is a good starting place for many people and I welcome your experience in the comments if you feel it has the power to help someone.
The final thing I will say is this -
Your horse does not need to perform in any way, shape or form in order to be deserving of your love, care and dedication to them. And if you feel they do, then perhaps you should consider getting a bicycle instead ❤️
