Hello Everyone!

Veterinary medicine was established in 1761 in Lyon, France. For 265 years, approximately 85-90% of lameness has been primarily focused on the limbs and feet of horses by veterinarians. It is amazing to me, as an outsider to this profession before I became a veterinarian at 41 years old, that one would focus primarily on the limbs and feet of the horse versus the huge body mass that a person rides or drives that is responsible for actually moving the limbs.

“One rides the body to move the limbs of the horse, not the other way around.” -AJD

The origination of this quote is ME. Everyone needs to spread this quote, but you have to give me credit. Maybe it will wake people up, especially the equine veterinary profession, that this quote is logical and factual. I have never seen a person latching themselves onto a limb or limbs of a horse or attempting to put a saddle on a horse’s limb to move the horse’s body. I would love to see that in real life…someone putting a saddle on a limb. I mean, which limb would you choose and live through that experience? Right or left front versus right or left hind. The odds are clearly against you surviving. There is no protective safety equipment (i.e., helmet, air vest, or any padding anywhere) to help you survive this faulty logic.

Logical thinking to my blue-collar mind is applying objective reason, facts, and data to solve problems by systematically identifying patterns. By identifying patterns of function or dysfunction, one can then construct a sensible, actionable solution to the problem. The most important point to logical thinking is that one needs to understand HOW the “thing” that is having a problem works BEFORE one can even start to identify a pattern. This is the entire huge unspoken problem with the equine veterinary profession. I have to and must preface this so that no one takes this as meaning every single equine veterinarian…I mean “the majority.” Is everyone happy?

Yes, we (equine veterinarians) are taught walk, trot, and canter gaits and what legs go where. Everyone should understand these basic fundamentals. But NO ONE teaches, nor understands, as an equine veterinarian, HOW a horse WORKS biomechanically. Again, it is not taught, so how can we (equine veterinarians) know? Truthfully, we can’t and don’t. All of us, and I am including myself in this category. I did not know, but I know more now, as I have identified the patterns of how horses move and work biomechanically. Again, I truly believe that people are doing the best they can with what they have and know. Progress is being made slowly even with all the diagnostic equipment available (CT, MRI, radiographs, ultrasound, and PET scan), but we are still so far behind in solving so many problems. Which is why I started the podcast years ago, did kinematic research and am still doing research, published research, tried to publish more research, am still trying to publish research, have this blog, etc. BUT, this is the year of the FIRE HORSE!

Ok, back to body lameness. Here is the list of common performance issues that are caused by body lameness and would be fixed but are not understood and thus not taught:
1. Why is my horse not straight or will not go straight?
2. Why are a horse’s haunches stuck to the right or left?
3. Why do horses “bulge” their shoulder in one direction or the other?
4. Why do horses lean in one direction but not the other?
5. Why do I have to hang on to my horse’s right or left rein?
6. Why are my horses’ diagonals different?
7. Why is my horse’s canter smoother in one direction versus the other?
8. Why does my horse 4-beat at the canter?
9. Why does my horse feel like the front end is in one county and the hind end is in another?
10. Why does my horse pin its ear when I bring the tack out or put it on?
11. Why is my horse girthy?
12. Why is my horse only lame under saddle?
13. Why won’t my horse go forward?
14. Why does my horse kick out on a lead change?
15. Why is my horse unable to do a lead change?
16. Why is my horse late on the lead change?
17. Why does my horse “hop” into transitions?
18. Why does my horse pin its ears and/or wring its tail at canter transitions?
19. Why does my horse kick out at my leg in one direction but not the other?
20. Why is my horse hiding behind the bridle or won’t take contact?
21. Why is my horse’s neck and/or nose tipped to one side?
22. Why can my horse not sit on his haunches or stop?
23. Why does my horse invert its back or cannot pick up his/her back?
24. Why does my horse “jig” when I get on him/her?
25. Why am I pushed to one side of the horse?
26. Why do I have to use so much of my right (or left) leg on my horse?
27. Why can’t my horse maintain a circle on the lunge line?
28. Why do horses cross-fire on the lunge line?
29. Why does my horse through its neck up on down transitions?
30. Why does my horse fall out behind?
31. Get my point….the list can go on and on.

This list includes common performance issues that CAN ALL BE FIXED. Most importantly, EXPLAINED WHY THEY ARE DOING WHAT THEY ARE DOING. These are all body lameness performance issues, and the first item on the list is the most important problem and the most prevalent.

I coined the term “body lameness” as a layman’s term that clients and trainers could understand easily. No other person can claim the term as theirs. Ask ChatGPT or Google. I tried using the proper medical term “axial skeleton” but received back distant and blank glazed-eyed looks of “huh” with puzzled confusion. I realized the only clients that understood the word “axial” were those who worked in the medical fields, one who worked at NASA, one medical attorney, one client that taught physics, and all those who worked in some type of engineering field. The majority of people do not work in these fields, so dropping the medical terminology quickly occurred during the first year of graduating from veterinary school. I quickly forgot the medical jargon, still to this day cannot remember most of it, and went back to my natural blue-collar “jock” (athlete) plain-speaking language, thus “body lameness.” The medical jargon is somewhere in my brain and can easily be recalled, but I prefer to speak like a regular person.

The video attached to this blog is a prime example of body lameness. What do you see? I love driving horses! If my entire practice was driving horses from here on out, I would be so happy. They are easy to understand biomechanically because they should all be straight, just like a riding horse. If they are crooked or carrying their body not in a straight line, it is easier to figure out what is wrong. Why? Because the variables of influence, compared to a ridden horse, are fewer.

That is it for now.

AJD