04/21/2025
Very interesting, must read until the end.
The ethics of rehabilitation for horses
Ethics means, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
Let me explain that further, the horse in the pictures below taught me a very valuable lesson after years of believing I was helping horses. I had never considered that if there was significant bone changes from years of soft tissue problems or genetic issues contorting the horses body that those things are irreversible.
The horse below is martini, he is a Swedish warmblood bred for dressage. He was started at 5, ridden on and off but always having issues with anxious tension. He got some cracking scores early on and won a dressage series but as time went on the work became more tense and he got hotter to ride. He was great to trek out and super safe. Then his owner decided to sell him due to a lack of time. He was hard to sell because of how hot he was to school, so the price was significantly dropped and he was now sitting in a paddock overweight and out of shape. That’s when I bought him for cheap, I thought because he’d been started later(5) that he would have years left although I suspected I’d have metabolic issues to deal with because of how obese he was.
When I got him home the first thing I did was get X-rays of the knee down in the fronts to see how his joints looked and to check for any pedal bone rotation from the white line separation/inflammation of being overweight and lack of hoof care. Mild rotation of the near side front but clean joints and now I could show those x-rays to the farrier for remedial shoeing, for the barefooters….he was foot sore and I needed him to get moving asap, he went barefoot again later on. He developed a serious floating issue where he would fall over on the right side as soon as you moved forward but he was fine on the left side. I only learned about the floating issue on his first ride to the vets, the previous owner had only reported scrambling but this had progressed to actually loosing his balance and falling down when driving 1 metre forward.
Months of diligent slow rehabilitation followed, body work, Inhand work, lunging, diet overhaul, 4 weekly reshoes. His bloodshot eyes and pain face slowly started to fade and I felt confident we were making good progress. In this time he got a full dental that helped free his neck up immensely but a slight restriction bending right still remained. He was ready to start ridden work so I had a WOW saddle fitted to him, he had a large shoulder and short back that needed a set back panel. After three months we started ridden work, we did allot of hacking out which he loved and then we started schooling. We spent allot of time learning new postures to take the neck out longer but while ridden it was very difficult for him. It felt rather than he didn’t understand that he physically couldn’t because he would always oblige with what I requested for a moment and then retract.
6 months passed and that’s when I took the after photo below. Around this time I was listening to podcast of a person who rehabs horses and she planted a seed that started the doubt in what I was doing. She said, “Good work sticks and so once I’ve completed rehabilitation I turn the horses out for 1-2 months. when they come back to work they will normally feel better and have retained the work, horses with serious physical restrictions will have regressed to almost a starting point again”. She said “those horse are normally dealing with serious boney changes or deformities and the moment you turn them out the bones dictate the soft tissues”.
That was a light bulb moment for me because so often I had rehabbed horses at the charity I operated Stable to Stirrup or in my project horses and in their new homes it had fallen apart in a matter of months.
So I turned martini out for 2 months and slowly I watched his body go backwards and his behaviour decline. I had one ride to confirm what I had already suspected, he was back to square one…..in fact he was worse because now he protested to go forward. What I now know is that I had totally destabilised his physical coping ability and in that process made things worse. Horses compensate when things are hard and through the process of learning new proprioception I felt I had caused things to get tighter than before turn out.
Mentally he was always looking for danger around him, always jumpy at the slightest thing that didn’t upset my other horses. Then he would stand for hours in a corner away from other horses with his head down looking depressed. That’s when I decided this is no life for a horse and I made the call to put him down.
I was commited to the whole process and decided to dissect him as the final chapter in learning from him. I could have never imagined what this horse was coping with. My background in taxidermy means I am confident in handling lifeless bodies.
The findings as follows
ECVM (equine complex vertebrae malformation) unilateral C6, transposed to C7
Arthritis in every anticular process neck joint
Kissing spine
Sacroiliac disease
Boney growths through out the sacro lumbar junction.
Bone spurs on the lumbosacral junction that was restricting flexion of the hind.
So this is the next horse that I’ll bring you his story of learning! On his specific behaviours and physical restrictions I felt under saddle, there’s so much to talk about with this horse so your all welcome to ask questions but more will be revealed over the next few months.
He’s at rest now
*he was 13 when put down
*in the second picture he’s been clipped out as it’s the middle of winter and yes it does change the colour and visibility of his brand.
His story is available on patreon.
