E Q U I N E AT H L E T E
Body Work Skeletal imbalances cause discomfort and can affect the feet By Heather Smith Thomas
Foals often put one leg forward and one back when they graze. Hoof growth can reflect that stance and pressure.
Each individual horse has a unique conformation— the way the skeleton is put together—but many factors impact skeletal structure as a young horse grows. Sometimes things happen that create body imbalances before the horse goes into training and there are issues that put stress on various parts. Occasionally the feet, legs and joints are out of balance, which can affect the way that horse moves and performs, and whether he is comfortable or not in certain positions. April Battles, Holistic Horseworks (located in Hawaii) is a holistic horse therapist who deals with these kinds of problems and helps horses get back to comfortable balance. “All too often these horses are getting reprimanded or punished for not wanting to stand on three legs when a farrier works on them, for instance,” she says. She has seen many foals that already have body imbalances by the time they are weaning age. “If we can address these problems sooner, we won’t have hoof imbalance issues while the foal grows up.” It’s important to monitor foals as they grow, and be proactive to correct a minor problem before it gets to be a major problem. “With a 6-month-old foal these are quick, easy fixes, and then the legs and hooves can grow straight. If the body is not loading the hoof correctly, however, which can cause the frog to eventually become off-center, it’s more difficult,” she explains.
16 POLO P L A Y E R S E D I T I O N
She feels part of the problem today is that many broodmares are producing weaker foals because there’s inadequate nutrition and minerals in the feed. “We see more skeletal issues in foals; many are born with weak pasterns and have trouble getting up,” says Battles. Horses on a good mineral program don’t seem to have these problems. “The foals pop right up after they are born, and take off cantering around before the mare even gets up. This is how babies in the wild survived; they had to be able to get up and run with mama to get away from predators. Now most foals are living in stalls and breathing in ammonia and dust from the urine in the shavings.” It’s a very unnatural environment. Sometimes a skeletal imbalance actually starts when the foal is being born—as the body is being forced through the birth canal. More frequently it may occur when the foal is running and playing and slips or falls down. “When a foal has the first rib out of alignment/tweaked there is not enough gap for the shoulder to move correctly and the point of the shoulder starts to turn out. The elbow (at the armpit) then starts to turn in,” says Battles. When you start handling the foal’s feet to teach it to pick up its feet, or when the farrier does the first trimming and picks up the foal’s front leg, it might be noticed that the inside heel is becoming shorter. “It will be 1⁄16th to ¼-inch shorter than the outside heel. This is not in height, but pushed forward,” she says. This is due to how the leg is loading, with a twist on it rather than being straight. “Most farriers think they can change/correct that imbalance with trimming and shoeing, but the problem is farther up in the body, in how the muscle and bones dictate the way the horse lands on that hoof. Since it’s uncomfortable for the young horse to stand squarely, and that’s usually the hoof/leg that is back (rather than forward) when the young horse is grazing,” she says. Since the foal’s neck at this young age is shorter than his legs, he usually has one leg forward and one back, in order to reach short grass. If it’s always the same leg that is forward or back, the hoof growth starts to reflect that stance and pressure.
