Understanding horse anatomy: Part 1

Understanding horse anatomy: Part 1 - to prevent injuries

18m 6secs

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Posted: 14/11/2011

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Library > Training for all disciplines > Groundwork

Equine osteopath Kate Lockwood paints her youngster Barney to demonstrate how the horse's skeleto-muscular system works. Comparing a horse's anatomy to that of a human, Kate offers a fascinating insight into how a horse is put together, which includes a few surprises! Kate explains the impact of training on a horse's development and how poor saddle-fitting restricts movement. Find out why the abdominal muscles are so important and how to prevent injuries. Fiona Price does a good job of holding the delightful but impatient Barney! In Part 2, Kate shows us exercises to improve Barney's strength, flexibilty and core stability.

Comments

ziggiewoo 7 Jan 2012 Very interesting video food for thought, thank you!

osteosam 26 Nov 2011 Beautiful world - From my readings of Herschmans work I woudln't think he sees it differently. Regardless, the abdominals supporting the back is a fairly universally accepted principle in how the torso is supported, in both horse and human. In a very simplistic analogy, if you think of the spine as a tent pole, you need tension on both sides of the pole to maintain stability. Of course the spine has multiple sites of movement, akin to many little hinges, which necessitates the many individual contractions possible within both the core musculature and the paraspinal musculature (why it's not just one long muscle, rather many small, inter-related parts of one muscle group). The 'ring' of muscles that are formed by the paraspinals and the abdominal muscles are exactly whata are crucial for building a strong, supple and most importantly sound performance horse :)

Ost' Kate 16 Nov 2011 Thank you all for your lovely comments - I am glad that you are all enjoying the video. Please feel free to continue to ask any questions you may have. I just need to make one correction to the comparative skeletal anatomy section where I think my brain was running at about 500 times faster than my mouth and I had meant to say that in fact humans have 5 lumbar vertebrae where as the horse has 6. Happy Talk - one way that you can stretch out the deep sublumbar and pelvic stabilising muscles is to do some hind leg stretching - gently taking the hind leg backwards and holding. If you've not done this before it is as well to get a therapist that you use to show you how to do it, just make sure it is gentle and don't force anything. It is difficult to go into too many details here in this post and as I don't know your horse, the level you are working at, any medical history etc it is hard for me to give too many more but the simple leg stretches are avery good place to start - always after exercise though when the muscles are warm. I hope this helps.

GonzoGirl 15 Nov 2011 Very informative. Great job, look forward to the next one. Highly recommend.

Steve72 15 Nov 2011 Wow another fab video! It's so, so important to know and understand what is going on underneath the horses skin, and to know what we are doing as riders is affecting the horses muscular/skeletal system. Can't wait for part 2!!

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