Clinical Signs and Causes of Back Pain in Horses

Learn about common issues owners encounter with their horses’ spine and saddle fit and how to treat such issues.
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Let’s face it: Horses weren’t designed to carry humans on their backs. Therefore, a horse’s spinal health is crucial to his function as a riding horse.

In this article, Moira Nusbaum, DVM, of PenMar Equine, in Myersville, Maryland, shares common issues owners encounter with their horses’ spine and appropriate treatments.

“The different parts of the spine serve different forms and functions,” she said during the Society of Master Saddlers Introduction to Saddle Fitting course, held May 1-2, in Hagerstown, Maryland. “To say that ‘a vertebrae is a vertebrae’ is simply not true.”

The cervical (neck), thoracic (from the withers to the last rib), and lumbar (from the last rib to the pelvis) vertebrae and their various muscle groups create a remarkable amount of spinal flexion and extension, she added

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Alexandra Beckstett, a native of Houston, Texas, is a lifelong horse owner who has shown successfully on the national hunter/jumper circuit and dabbled in hunter breeding. After graduating from Duke University, she joined Blood-Horse Publications as assistant editor of its book division, Eclipse Press, before joining The Horse. She was the managing editor of The Horse for nearly 14 years and is now editorial director of EquiManagement and My New Horse, sister publications of The Horse.

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