As a horse owner you want the best for your horse, to know that their back that you are sitting on is comfortable and to do as much as possible to help prevent any form of injury happening.
The most important thing to recognise is that as soon as you add the weight of the rider onto the horse's back, it compromises their posture, balance, and ability to move. It also increases strain on the tendons, ligaments, fascia, joints and the bones themselves. With young horses it can affect the distribution of force through the growth plates, which can potentially affect the way the back grows. What happens to horses at a young age is really important in terms of maintaining their posture for longevity, preventing future problems, as well as achieving good performance. Maintaining good back health isn't just about young horses, it's essential for all horses. There are many back problems that can occur in horses, including kissing spine, arthritis, facet joint arthritis and muscles strains and tears. Thankfully, there is a lot that you can do to help prevent back issues.
Preventing Back Problems is a webinar to be held on Wednesday 27 November with Gillian Higgins that will address this topic in great detail. Gillian will reveal the top 10 practices that every rider should do with their horses to help prevent back problems. These practical tips and exercises are all easy to do and will help the horse improve posture, suppleness and strength, whatever discipline, age or training.
The horse’s back is an amazing structure that does so much. The horse's back:-
connects the front end to the backend
supports the weight of the digestive system and the contents of the abdomen
enables the horse to transfer force from the hindquarters forwards
facilitates the weight carrying ability of the hindquarters so the horse can collect and perform advanced movements in dressage such as piaffe and passage
enables the horse to jump enormous fences
enables the horse to buck and rear and roll
helps to carry the weight of the rider.
The horse’s back does all these amazing things, often with the addition of an unbalanced load on his back - the rider!
This article shares with you the key principles of keeping the horse's back healthy and helping to prevent injury.
Fitness
When it comes to fitness, the focus is placed on cardiovascular fitness and the ability of the horse to be able to keep its breath whilst performing at higher speeds for a longer period of time. However, cardiovascular fitness can also help to strengthen the horse’s back. The back is made up mostly by the thoracic vertebrae attached to which are the ribs which, of course, are very much connected to breathing. When we add a saddle and rider, extra strain is placed on the ribs. As the function of the muscles connecting into the ribs is breathing, aerobic conditioning is one of the best ways to strengthen them and therefore help support rib position strengthen the back and generally improve back posture.
Quite simply, a fit horse will have a better posture than the same horse that is unfit.
Position of the Base of the Neck
You might be thinking, "What has the position of the neck got to do with preventing back problems?" but if you can get the neck in the right place, it will have a huge impact on the horse's back.
Often, when the subject of outline is discussed, it is the position of the horse's nose in relation to the vertical that is considered. However, because there is so much flexion and extension at the first joint of the neck, the atlanto occipital joint, it's possible for the nose to be on the vertical with flexion at that joint with no consideration for what is happening further down in the horse's neck.
Instead, the focus needs to be on what is happening at the base of the neck, in the lower cervical vertebrae. These vertebrae should be in a position that is straight and lifted slightly upwards, slightly flexed or retracted. When the base of the neck is in this position it has a positive effect on the back too.
If the horse is slightly extended through these vertebrae, and the position of the base of the neck is in a forwards and down position. This means that the back will not be able to work in a good posture, and this position puts more stress and strain through the horse's back as well as other structures.
If you would like to learn more about the neck, take a look at the Understanding the Horse's Neck webinar, available from the Horses Inside Out Academy. In this on-demand recorded webinar, Gillian goes into detail about the anatomy and biomechanics of the horse’s neck.
This leads us into the thoracic sling to help prevent back problems, the horse needs to have a really strong thoracic sling. They need to have good tone within these muscles and good posture. Watch the Thoracic Sling Muscles - Improving Posture & Movement webinar to learn more about this.
In the webinar on the 27th of November, Preventing Back Problems, Gillian will go into detail for each of these points and principles as to how we achieve it to best prevent back problems. She will give you specific exercises, whereas in this article, I'm just looking at the principles behind it.
A relaxed, long topline
The back must be able to relax, so the back muscles can't to be short and tight. This, of course, is to do with developing balance between the flexor and extensor chain of muscles, which needs to be in good balance to help prevent back problems. In the Preventing Back Problems webinar, Gillian will discuss exactly how to achieve this.
The extensor chain of muscles make up the topline of the horse. They are situated above the spine and behind the hip. This chain is involved in all forward movement, particularly cantering and jumping. These are illustrated by the green and blue paint in the picture.
The flexor chain of muscles lie underneath the spine, in front of the hip and include the abdominal muscles. They form part of the core muscles and play an important role in supporting and maintaining the correct posture of the back. These are illustrated with theorange, yellow and pink paint in the picture.
Well Toned Abdominal Muscles
This is the flip side of the previous principle. As well as having a long, relaxed topline and extensor chain - the flexor chain or ventral line needs to be short and toned. There are lots of exercises that are easily incorporated into your daily routine that will help, these will be discussed and demonstrated in the Preventing Back Problems webinar.
Mobility
It is important that the horse is mobile through their back, and there are a couple of things that we need to do for this to happen.
The muscles need to allow it to happen, so they need to be healthy, not just in terms of the ability to elongate, but the strength and stability to be able to demonstrate movement and expression.
The actual range of movement. You've heard the phrase, if you don't use it, you lose it. Well, it's the same with the horse's back.
There is a very, very little movement in the horse's back, but it is vital to maintain that tiny amount of movement. Understanding exactly where the movement happens within the horses back and the type of movement, whether you're looking at flexion, extension, lateral flexion or rotation, because the amount of movement and where it happens is in a slightly different place depending on the type of movement.
Understanding where that happens is the key to being able to maintain it. Once you understand the range, then you can start to look at which movements and exercises encourage the horse to use that movement.
With this knowledge you can assess whether this movement is good or not so good, and potentially some of the reasons why. In the webinar, Preventing Back Problems, Gillian looks at the best exercises to do that get the back moving, both in terms of flexion, extension, lateral flexion and rotation. Doing these exercises on a regular basis will help to maintain mobility.
Good Hindquarter Strength & the Ability to Carry Weight Behind
This addresses the balance between the forehand and the hindquarters. The horse naturally carries 60% of their weight on the forehand and 40% behind. Add to this the weight of the rider and this puts more weight onto the forehand and adjusts the balance. It is important to do exercises that readdress this balance and make sure that the horse has the strength in their hindquarter muscles to be able to carry more weight behind.
There are a whole host of different exercises you can do, from really simple ones to gradually increasing to quite demanding exercises for the more advanced horses to strengthen the carrying capacity of the hind limb.
Maintaining Fascial Health
This connective tissue surrounds every muscle, organ and bone. Fascia is also part of the tendons, it’s underneath the skin - it connects everything to everything. In recent years, we have become more appreciative that this structure is key to musculoskeletal health and performance.
There are practices we can do as horse owners to help make sure that our horses fascia stays healthy. Hydration is very important. Movement is important, too.
Maintaining Good Bone Density
Here's just a little hint about this final principle – and it’s to do with movement and turnout. If you want to know more, you need to join us for our Preventing Back Problems webinar on 27 November 2024!
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