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Looking Beyond the Symptom to the Source of Movement

As long as we believe that a bamboo pole can make a horse piaffe, we are still thinking at the periphery.

The problem is not simply whether the horse can be made to perform the movement. The question is whether the horse's body has developed the coordination necessary to perform it correctly. Asking a dysfunctional horse to execute a movement for which its physique is not adequately coordinated does not correct the dysfunction. It can increase the stresses created by it.

When injury eventually appears, attention then shifts to the painful joint, tendon, ligament, muscle or fascia. One therapy follows another while the more important question may remain unanswered:

What created the abnormal stress in the first place?

Piaffe provides a useful example.

During piaffe, the hind limbs substantially increase their decelerating activity, resisting the forward displacement of the body over the forelimbs. Simply stimulating greater propulsive activity from the hind limbs does not necessarily create greater collection. Increased propulsion can lift the croup and shift additional load toward the forehand—the opposite of what is required.

The forelimbs have a different task. Their elevation depends substantially upon the storage and return of elastic energy through tendons, fascia, aponeuroses and muscles during stance. For this mechanism to function efficiently, unnecessary loading of the forelimbs must be minimized.

If increased hind-limb propulsion shifts more weight onto the forehand, the natural mechanics of the movement are compromised. Attempting to correct the appearance by artificially stimulating greater forelimb action addresses what we see rather than why it is happening. The result may resemble piaffe, but resemblance is not biomechanics.

That is peripheral thinking.

The same problem occurs when injury has already developed. Treatment understandably focuses on the structure showing damage. Stall rest, medication or other medical intervention may be necessary to allow an injured structure to heal. But healing the lesion and correcting the mechanism that produced it are two different things.

If the horse returns to work with the same dysfunctional coordination that created the abnormal stress, each stride begins recreating the conditions that contributed to the injury.

The thoracolumbar spine is central to this discussion.

During locomotion and performance, the muscular system of the thoracolumbar region participates in managing and redirecting the forces generated by the hind limbs. These forces must be coordinated through the trunk so that they can contribute appropriately to forward motion, balance and the requirements of the gait or movement.

A dysfunction in the coordination of the epaxial musculature can alter the way these forces are managed. The consequence may appear far from the original dysfunction: abnormal loading of a limb, excessive stress on a particular joint or repeated strain of soft tissue.

The location of the injury therefore does not necessarily identify the origin of the problem.

This distinction changes rehabilitation. Progressively increasing the number of minutes a horse walks may be appropriate for tissue healing, but time alone does not correct dysfunctional coordination. If the movement pattern responsible for abnormal loading remains unchanged, increasing exercise simply increases the number of repetitions of that pattern.

The same principle applies to the hock.

Peripheral thinking sees hock pain and treats the hock.

A more complete approach asks why abnormal forces are repeatedly reaching the joint.

The hock does not function independently. Rotations and translations within the lower limb occur in coordination with the fetlock, hock and stifle, while the forces reaching those structures are influenced both by hoof balance and by the organization of the body above them.

Hoof balance matters because it influences how forces are received and managed at ground contact. But forces also travel from the body downward through the limbs. Their direction, duration, intensity and frequency are influenced by the coordination of the thoracolumbar spine and the rest of the locomotor system.

Both ends of the equation matter.

This is also why our understanding of the back itself must evolve. The muscular system of the equine thoracolumbar spine is powerful and complex. Its function cannot adequately be described simply in terms of stretching and relaxation. Muscles resist, stabilize, redirect and convert forces while operating through relatively small ranges of vertebral motion.

That changes what we ask of the rider as well.

Instead of deliberately shifting body weight forward and backward in ways that may provoke compensatory muscular responses, the rider can seek a more neutral balance and develop communication through increasingly subtle changes in muscle tone and coordination.

The objective is not to manufacture the visible gesture.

It is to develop the coordination capable of producing the movement.

If damage has already occurred, veterinary diagnosis and appropriate treatment remain essential. But rehabilitation should also ask what movement dysfunction contributed to the abnormal loading and whether that dysfunction remains present.

Otherwise, we may successfully treat the consequences while leaving the cause untouched.

New research cannot simply be added to an unchanged training system if assumptions within that system contributed to the problem. Knowledge has value only when we are willing to let it change what we do.

That means upgrading not only rehabilitation, but also equitation and work in hand to reflect what is now understood about equine locomotion.

The real change begins when we stop asking only:

Where is the horse hurting?

and begin asking:

Why is the horse being loaded there?

That is the difference between treating the periphery and understanding the source.

Jean Luc Cornille

Science of Motion