Chiropractic Care provides a number of benefits for horses.

Regardless of the discipline in which the horse participates, from trail riding or competitive roping, to dressage, barrel racing, and more, chiropractic care benefits them all. Owners, riders, and trainers, are constantly asking their horses to do incredible, yet unnatural things. Whether that is barrel racing, cutting, reining, team roping, cross country, dressage or jumping, our animals always try to please us by performing at their best.

Most horse owners that I have come across take amazing care of their animals. However, most care that is routinely provided for horses is reactionary. Meaning that we don’t usually provide care for the horse until something starts to show up. That could be something as slight as a grade-1 lameness, a more serious problem such as colic or laminitis, or the rider may notice that all of a sudden the horse doesn’t want to take a certain lead or lope in a particular direction. Whatever prompts the decision to contact a healthcare provider, it is normally something that happens once a problem has been identified.

Many times a person contacts me, it is because they want help with a particular issue, symptom, or ailment. Not realizing that chiropractic care can be something they can utilize for their animals on a regular basis, it is no wonder why people usually ask for symptom-focused care. So with this in mind, I want to address a few things regarding equine chiropractic care, that might be new to most horse owners.

A common question I receive is, “Does my horse need a chiropractor?” So what are some things to look for to indicate that your horse would need a chiropractor?

• Has your horse’s behavior or performance changed recently?
• Does unusual or fluctuating lameness exist?
• Does the rider have difficulty sitting straight on the horse?
• Has the rider or trainer noticed changes in the various gaits?
• Does the horse drag its feet or are the shoes worn down on one side?
• Are lead changes suddenly an issue?

You may have noticed that all of the above questions result in a reactionary care. Once you feel or notice an issue, then you look for a solution. But there is another way you can determine if your horse needs chiropractic care. Ask different questions, such as:

• Do I ask my horse to go all-out, push him/herself in competition?
• Does my horse carry a heavy load (be honest…)?
• Does my horse take frequent rides on trailers?
• Does my horse spend most of his/her time out in a natural environment, such as a pasture?
• Have you reached a training plateau that you just cannot push through?
• Was my horse once a lot faster or quicker and has slowed down (when age related changes are not suspected) and yet is sound?

As you can see, these are not symptom-based questions; they are lifestyle centered. The rigorous routines of competition and travel that performance horses are subjected to, need to be accompanied by appropriate levels of maintenance care! This is what is so often overlooked in the equine world. Human performance athletes are given access to a multitude of maintenance care options. These include but are not limited to, chiropractic care, massage, hyperbaric chamber, ice water therapy, e-stim, acupuncture, etc. These options are now becoming more and more available to animals as well! Chiropractic care should be at the center of any maintenance care plan. Why? Easy! Structure equals function! If the structure is incorrect, the function is going to be incorrect as well. Have you ever thought about what the function of muscle tissue is?

At the basic level, and we are speaking of skeletal muscle here, it is to move bone. That’s it. If the bones that make up a joint, are not in their correct position, can the muscles move the bones properly? The answer is no. So if a horse has a joint out of position, and we give that horse a massage, or acupuncture, or supplements, will any of it work? No, the joint position must be corrected. The purpose of chiropractic care is to correct the joint position so that the muscles can do their job. Once the joint position is correct, then you can treat any remaining issues, such as muscle soreness, tightness etc., with supportive therapies like massage, acupuncture, supplementation etc.

So what this all boils down to is this. Having your horse checked and adjusted by a chiropractor on a regular basis, will ensure proper joint position. Proper joint position ensures proper joint motion. (Remember, structure = function) Proper joint motion results in a horse performing at their optimum level! This reduces the presence of compensatory movements which in-turn decreases the likelihood of pain and injury! This is the purpose of chiropractic care! And what horse wouldn’t benefit from that?

If your horse is not moving properly, or you notice performance issues, chiropractic care can help!

I hope that you have enjoyed this post! If you have any questions about this information, or to schedule a chiropractic adjustment for your horse(s), please contact us at 480–490–6655, or email us at sporthorsechiro@gmail.com. You can also find us on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and on Twitter.

Thank you for reading!

Referring to this joint as a knee is anatomically, functionally, and mechanically incorrect. What is the anatomy of the equine “knee”, how does it differ from an actual knee, and how can it possibly be a…… wrist?

What do you mean it’s not a knee? Of course it’s a knee… Well, anatomy means everything when trying to understand the motion of a joint, and what role it plays in overall body movement. Let’s dive into the anatomy of the “knee” and see why it’s wrong to refer to it as a knee, in the first place.

First let’s look at the anatomy of a knee. We will compare the human knee to a horse’s “knee”. If I ask you to tell me what motion occurs at your knee, you would say something like, “bending” or “flexion and extension”, both of which would be correct. Our knee, is considered a modified hinge joint. So you can think of your knee like a hinge on a door, as it only swings in two directions, forwards and backwards. That’s because our knee is primarily made up of two big bones, the femur (that runs from the hip joint to the knee joint, and the tibia, which runs from the knee joint to the ankle joint. Yes, there is a third bone there, called the fibula, which parallels the tibia (actually attaching to it below the knee joint), but it doesn’t play a role in the hinge motion of the knee itself.

Now, the main feature of the human knee, that we don’t have on any of our other joints, is the knee cap (aka the patella). This bone, that is structurally a part of the quads muscle group, slides up the knee joint during extension of the lower leg, and down during flexion. Take a look…Is there a patella on the front legs of your horse? No there is not. And in order for a joint to be considered a true knee, it must have a knee cap. So, which joints on the horse are considered its true knees? If you answered, stifles, then you would be correct! The knees of the horse are actually its stifles! You probably are realizing now that this makes perfect sense.

Here’s another way to make sense of this. We know where our horse’s shoulders are, right? At the top of the front legs, of course. Then the next joint moving down the leg, is the equine elbow. So working our way down further, does it make sense to have a shoulder, elbow, and then a knee? No… We have a shoulder, an elbow, and then a wrist. It’s the exact same situation with your horse. In fact, in veterinary terms, the joint that we commonly refer to as a knee, is called the “carpus”. And carpus is the latin word for wrist. Makes you wonder where the term, knee, came from.

I bring up the point about this terminology because unless you know what joint you’re working with, you won’t be able to stretch it properly. The vast majority of the time when I see people stretching the front limbs of their horses, all they do is stretch the shoulders. And even then, it’s done mostly into extension. The wrists are rarely ever stretched and loosened properly. Personally I believe that is because we refer to the wrists, as knees. And in doing so, we conclude that it’s just a flexion and extension joint. Now look at your own wrists. Do they just flex and extend? Of course not. They flex, extend, laterally and medially flex, and circumduct (which is to rotate in a circular motion). Your horse’s wrists can do the exact same thing. Only the circumduction is slightly less in the horse.

Of course the primary function of the horse’s wrists is to flex and extend. However, without proper function of the accessory motions, flexion and extension will be reduced. The accessory motions are the rotation, lateral bending, and circumduction. If these motions were not present, your horse would walk like a toy soldier. The accessory motions allow your horse’s lower leg to rotate or “swing” out while it flex and extends. Thus there is a flow or fluidity to the motion, rather than a purely mechanical or robotic feel to it. It is my personal opinion, that it’s these accessory motions, that cause the vast majority of movement issues that arise from the legs. So we must address them during our warmup and stretching routines!

For more informative videos like this, please subscribe to my youtube channel: Sport Horse Chiropractic You Tube Channel

Did you find this information helpful? If so, please share to your social media!

I hope that you have enjoyed this article! If you have any questions about this information, or to schedule a chiropractic adjustment for your horse(s), please contact us at 602–726–5186, or email us at office@www.sporthorsechiropractic.com. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter.

Thanks for reading!

*This information is intended to be used for information purposes only. Only a trained, certified animal chiropractor or veterinarian should perform chiropractic adjustments on your animals. If your animals are experiencing medical problems, please contact your veterinarian.*

Chiropractic care has many benefits for equine athletes. The primary goal of a chiropractic adjustment is to affect the neurology of the animal, not just alter mechanics. However, restoring proper motion of a joint allows the neurology to control the joint properly, thus altering mechanics to a more normal state. In other words, you cannot affect one, without affecting the other.

Each joint, and the capsules surround the joints, contain millions of sensory nerve receptors. These receptors are responsible for what we call proprioception, which is the ability of the brain to know the position of the body in space. Take into consideration, a field sobriety test. How is it possible for a person to close their eyes, and still be able to touch their nose with their finger? This is due to proprioception! The sensory nerve receptors within the joint and joint capsule, relay positional information to the brain. Thus allowing the brain to not only know what that joint position is, but also enables the brain to send the proper signals out to the muscles that control the joint, in order to move it appropriately for the task at hand.

What does this have to do with chiropractic care? Everything! If a joint is fixated in any way, then it is unable to move properly. If it is not able to move properly, then it is unable to stimulate these sensory nerve receptors, therefore decreasing the amount of positional information being sent to the brain. Less sensory information to the brain, equals less information for the brain to calculate joint position, and therefore, the information being sent out to the muscles that control the position of that joint is sub-optimal. This is particularly obvious in the case of a field sobriety test, in which the person is actually impaired. The sensory information coming into the brain is impaired by the alcohol, and that impairment results in incorrect motor information being sent out to the body. In essence, correct sensory information in, results in correct motor information being sent out. Correct neurology = correct mechanics = correct function.

So what if there is joint fixation? My horse is moving just fine… Sure, your horse is moving just fine… but is “just fine” what you’re after with your performance animals? Of course not! To get the most out of your performance animals, optimal structure is key! Without your horse being free and clear of vertebral and extremity joint misalignments, they will have any number of compensations throughout their structure. This means that they are moving a part of their body in a way, to make up for lack of movement in another part of the body that’s supposed to be performing that function. When this happens, number one, performance will suffer because the horse isn’t using its body the way it was designed to be used, and number two, the parts of the body being used to compensate will degenerate over time.

You’ll be amazed at how well your horses move when you clear these fixations and eliminate the compensations! Always remember, Structure = Function!

Did you find this information helpful? If so, please share to your social media!

I hope that you have enjoyed this article! If you have any questions about this information, or to schedule a chiropractic adjustment for your horse(s), please contact us at 602–726–5186, or email us at office@www.sporthorsechiropractic.com. You can also find us on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Thanks for reading!

*This information is intended to be used for information purposes only. Only a trained, certified animal chiropractor or veterinarian should perform chiropractic adjustments on your animals. If your animals are experiencing medical problems, please contact your veterinarian.*

So you have a horse with a pelvis that appears to be higher on the right than on the left. Uh oh… right? Well maybe, maybe not. I have heard quite a few equine service providers tell people that their horse is higher on one side of the pelvis than the other. And I have also had clients call me and schedule an appointment because their horse appeared this way. But does this actually mean that there is a problem?

No. In fact, in humans and in animals, asymmetry is the norm! Nothing in our bodies is symmetrical.

Go stand in the mirror and look at your head. Are your ears level? Are your eyes level? Are the corners of your mouth at the same level? Cover the entire left side of your face, and then cover the right side. Do you even look like the same person? You would be shocked if you did this assessment on people you come into contact with on a daily basis. Sometimes, areas of the body can appear to be symmetrical to the naked eye, but upon measurement, they are not. Even our eyes are not at the same depth in our skulls. If they were, we wouldn’t have depth perception! Have you, or do you know of someone, that has different size feet? Well YOU actually do… but some people have such a difference that when they buy a pair of shoes, they need to purchase one shoe in a certain size, and then the other shoe in another size. This is an extreme example, but one that articulates my point.

This is no different in animals. Some horses have a clubbed foot. Some have a narrow foot on the front right, and a nice rounded foot on the front left. There is always a difference. You may not see it, but your farrier does. These asymmetries are present all over the body, and become more noticeable as the body parts become larger in size. Not only that, but when you have bones that are close to the surface of the skin, versus bones that are buried under deep layers of tissue, such as muscles, fat, ligaments, etc., they become even more noticeable. A great example of this is the SI joint. The SI Joint is made up of the sacrum, and the ilium (see illustration A). Notice the size of the bones at the SI Joint. Relatively speaking, they are very large. And as already stated, asymmetries are more apparent in larger bones. Not only that, but the top of the highest part of the largest bone that makes up the SI Joint (Called the Tuber Sacrale) is very close to the surface.

For more information, or to schedule an appointment to get your horses checked and adjusted, visit us, at www.sporthorsechiropractic.com, and on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!

Thanks for reading!