twitter facebook google stumbleupon
pinterest linkedin

Talking about the afternoon nap, which is a strong tradition in the French race horse industry, an old vet told me, “They try to repair the afternoon the damages created the morning on the race track”.  It was in the seventies and the concept of microdamages was already hinted. The old man was half way retired from a successful career sharing his time between the golf course and a few selected customers. He had the serenity of a man who has done a lot and does not have to feel challenged by new ideas. He was the type of vet who cared for the horses refusing to use drug for one more performance when he felt that the horse should not be asked for this one more race or jumping course or dressage test. He saw him responding angrily to the request of a trainer, “I am there to take care of the horse, not of your ego.” I liked him for that but he told me back in the car, “As soon as I will start the engine, another practitioner will come giving him what he wants.” 

I was interested in the practical application of advanced research studies for performances. My thoughts were on better preparing the horses for the athletic demands of competitions. Often, I asked him questions and he became interested by the practical application of what he regarded as “non-applicable” scientific findings. He is the one who introduced the thought that the capacity of correcting kinematics abnormalities for better performances could also be used for therapy. 

It was the afternoon of a sunny day. He often spent a few hours watching my horses working. He stood up like if he had just take a decision, telling me, “I understand that you do it for performance because you are young and you like to win. I greatly respect the fact that you prepare efficiently your horses for the athletic demands of the competitions. You will grow older and soon or late, keeping the horses sound will become your first priority. Once you will have won so many blue ribbons that you will no longer be impressed by another one, you might direct your passion for the horses toward a much more useful and rewarding priority. You will win their soundness. And I am going to give you a taste of that right now. I will be back in about one hour, with a lame horse. I think that what you are doing is going to help him. I have taken care of his lesion, over and over but the same problem come back. I am not trained to figure where is the root cause and I can see that consciously or not, it is what you are doing. If a horse resists, you try to figure why, instead of deciding that the horse misbehave.” As I objected that this was not my field of expertise, he reassured me saying, “I will help you. I cannot help this horse with what I am trained to think and do. I think that your constant search for finding the root cause is what this horse need.”

We found the root cause and we corrected it and the horse became sound and above all, remained sound. The old man said, “As veterinarians, we are trained to think that back problems are the outcome of legs problem. I watched you focusing of proper functioning of your horses’ back and I saw changes in the kinematics of your horses’ limbs. You approached the problem totally the opposite way. In your mind, the problem starts in the back and I effectively see correction of the limbs kinematics abnormalities through better coordination of the thoracolumbar spine and associated muscles. That is what pushed me to think that if you can improve limbs kinematics abnormalities from good to better, you can apply the same technique to improve limbs kinematics form abnormal, lameness, to normal, soundness. This is why I decided to try with this horse. I think that if you keep working in this direction, you are going to open the door to a new generation of therapies.” He then added. “But at first, the doors will be tightly closed.”

Indeed. the doors were tightly closed and while many gradually opened, some instead, build a higher wall. The patterns of the wall builders are always the same. They start with a scientific finding and they made up deductions and conclusions that go far beyond the findings that the original study effectively demonstrated. The process turns scientific findings into fantasies but in their mind, their deductions and conclusions became their scientific references. They refer to the process as “having an open mind.”

From microscopic, to neurologic, to muscular, serious scientific researches demonstrate that sound motion is the outcome of proper locomotion. Remember the introduction of this study. At every levels, mechanical stresses, (movements,) are critical for the control of tissue form and function. Muscles and bones actively remodel in response to changes in exercise and response to mechanical stresses. This is actually a fundamental feature in all living tissue. At neurological level, the fundamental principle of locomotion is a very large number of what can be compared to minuscule engines having each one all the elements they need for the movement or part of movement that they create. They are called “Central Pattern Generators.”  The central pattern generators are stimulated by the central nervous system in a specific number and order to create a complex movement. The central pattern generators involved in locomotion are turned off when the horse is standing still. “Movements are generated by dedicated networks of nerve cells that contain the information that is necessary to activate motor neurons in the appropriated sequence and intensity to generate motor patterns. Such networks are referred to as Central Patterns Generators, (CPGs). The most basic CPGs coordinate protective reflexes, swallowing or coughing. At the next level are those that generate rhythmic movements. Some, such as respiratory CPGs, are active through life, but are modulated with changing metabolic demands. Others such as locomotor CPGs, are inactive at rest but can be turned on by signals from command centers.” (Sten Grillner, The Motor Infrastructure From Ion Channels To Neuronal Network.)

The central pattern generators can learn from each other independently from the brain. Hence when they have learned improper movement, they repeat and even protect improper movement. They can relearn correct movement but only through the repetition of correct movement. Jean Luc Cornille