Saturday, February 25, 2012

Can you spot the lameness?

 I found this online -- the quiz with no answer -- anyone care to watch, read the description, and hazard a guess at what the lameness is? So unfair that the answer is not provided in a way I can understand it fully (see http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs008/1101911302549/archive/1102508064133.html)



4 comments:

  1. Clover Ledge FarmFebruary 25, 2012 at 2:20 PM

    Kissing spine?? It says that on the side column of the website you posted too.odithe

    ReplyDelete
  2. Abbie Senesac LopezFebruary 25, 2012 at 3:11 PM

    There is something off about his right front leg. The whole leg is rotated so the elbow is seriously pinched. You can see the struggle to get straight when he's asked to trot.

    I just read through the website, I believe this horse has a dorsal impingement, meaning the dorsal spinal processes, the part of the vertebrae in the horse's back that you can feel when you palpate the spine, are touching and rubbing. In addition, they have shifted so that flexion and rotation of the horse's back is near impossible: this could explain why he can't carry a rider. His back doesn't have the ability to oscillate properly under the weight of a rider, and under stress pinches nerves impedes the development of muscle.

    I may be entirely wrong, but based on what I know about the spine and equine anatomy (which is quite a bit) it makes sense.

    ReplyDelete
  3. JoFebruary 25, 2012 at 3:39 PM

    My thought was that there was a problem coming from the right elbow. You can see from the very beginning of the video that there just isn't something right there. The article does suggest that the injury originated in that shoulder or elbow, yay me!

    ReplyDelete
  4. JeanFebruary 25, 2012 at 3:39 PM

    I kind of skimmed the article as it did go into great depths about all the issues and how they were largely corrected. Apparently the horse had an elbow injury that impacted his way of going, which in turn twisted his spine as a largely protective reaction.

    It looked mostly like a back issue to me, somewhere under the saddle. But switching saddles, etc. had no impact mostly because the horse had developed its musculature wrong to be able to move comfortably with a rider on his back.

    Interested and complicated. Sad too, because as you read, you realize the horse was really trying to please and as he progressed in the therapy continued to try to do the right thing even though his pain memory was strong.

    Thanks for another interesting post.

    ReplyDelete

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