Is Your Horse Bridle Lame?

Is your horse perfectly sound on the ground when lunging (no muscle soreness, nothing picked up by the vet, chiro, masseuse or acupuncturist), but as soon as you start riding, it’s lame?

It could be saddle fit, but it could also be bridle lame.

A bridle lame horse is sound on the ground, in the paddock and the saddle fit is fine. There’s no heat, no issues with the hooves or abscesses, looks fine and not muscle sore. The lameness only shows up when ridden and looks to be somewhere in the front end.

A horse becomes bridle lame when it has become restricted in movement due to bridle pressure. This can be because they aren’t stepping through properly underneath themselves from behind. It can be because they aren’t extending properly through the shoulder. It can also be from tightness through the neck and jaw, or some combination of all the above. It usually is the result of being asked for a frame before they are ready.

The working frame should be the result of good self carriage.

However, due to the emphasis put on the overall frame and picture in competitions, this process can be rushed and compromised for the marks. When the horse is worked from front to back instead of from the hind to the hand, it doesn’t learn how to move freely within the restriction of the frame, doesn’t distribute its weight evenly and doesn’t engage the core. Instead they will load their weight into one shoulder more than the other - and in some horses this can make them look lame. This results in an irregularity of the stride which short term make them look lame, but long term ridden like this will MAKE THEM lame.

The only way to correct this before permanent damage is done is to take their training back down the training scale and retrain them back into true self carriage. The complication to this is the fact that the horse has already been incorrectly trained to respond to a particular cue (put your head into a frame without engaging the core or distributing the weight equally through all four limbs), and you are now tasked with re-teaching these cues, allowing the horse to first learn to flex through the hind legs, lift through the core before placing its head into the frame.

And the only way to prevent Bridle Lameness is to train them correctly in the first place, no matter how long it takes.

Would you like to know more about our Green to Self Carriage training course, which takes you through all the very early training stages for your horse up to the development of self carriage? We are looking for Beta-Testers - click here!

Sacroiliac Pain - the Quiet Lameness

We all know what a lame horse looks like.

You’ve probably seen it in your own horse if they’ve ever had a bruised sole or hoof abscess.

They hobble around, and we often see the characteristic head bob. Most commonly this kind of lameness has something to do with their hooves and some kind of trauma to the hoof or leg. Frequently, this can be corrected by a good Farrier and a spell.

The kind of lameness that doesn’t show up with the characteristic lameness symptoms can often be due to the way we are riding and the way the horse is developing - and most commonly I see start with the pelvis not being aligned. This lameness is known as Sacroiliac Pain.

As riders we put a lot of stress on the horse’s sacroiliac joint. It is designed to be a very flexible area of their body but it also gives support to the rest of their back.

Misaligned pelvis, riding crooked, and lacking engagement of the postural muscles can all increase this pain.

“Long the neck, shorten the body”, Manolo Mandez

 Rectifying this lameness will need the incorporation of veterinary and chiropractic attention along with physical redevelopment through correct training methods.

Sign up to be the first invited into our course Foundations to Equine Development: Green to Self Carriage, where we go step by step through the exercises horses need for a sound back.