Movement disorders

In Sweden we have the expression ”it warms out”. It is usually used to describe a horse that moves unevenly in the beginning of a riding session. My question is does it really ”warm out” or does it just get numb?

The idea that the pain that causes the unevenness subsides came out of an experience I had during my student prom. On the prom the gallant young ladies, in way too high healed shoes, came into the rest room with faces twisted by pain from soar and tender feet. Some were even so desperate that they took off their shoes. Just to realise that there was no cold water cold enough to bring down their swelling feet to original size. They had to press down their feet into the shoes again, and with tripping steps towards the door they straightened themselves up to in order to make an effortless entrance when the door swung up to the ball room...

Horses are prey animals and any signs of weakness is a signal that no predator overlooks. Therefore, horses are experts at covering up early signs of pain. They have four legs to distribute weight over and can switch between them. Until that day when there is no leg left to lean on and we have one, to us visible, lameness.

At the beginning of our early training sessions my mare did not move rhythmical in the right lead, she looked lame. When she moved freely in the pasture you couldn't see any signs of unevenness. What happened to her was that she put a substantial part of her weight on the right front leg. On a curved track it was clear how difficult it was for her to lift her leg and still keep her balance. She barely lifted it off the ground, took a short step and it looked like she was limping. She needed both help to rebalance herself and retrain her muscles in a good way to move with ease.

Her behaviour got me thinking about another concept we have here called ”rein lameness”. Can a horse be ”rein lame”, meaning that it moves evenly until the rider takes the reins? I think it is possible and that it depends very much on how the reins are taken. If the reins are taken in such a way that the horse must resist the contact by tightening its muscles I do believe that that can result in movement disorder.

The essence of this post is that movement disorders do not need to go all the way to lameness if we as riders take in the information we sense (or feel in the butt!) as we ride.

It is by comparison we can notice the differences. Many riders, have in retrospect, actually said that they noticed a deviation from the normal but since nothing was apparent to their eyes the rode on... Be sensitive, take a moment to consciously feel your horse, then you have time to adjust the course before the movement disorder becomes an issue for the vet.