Is Exercise Helping or Hurting Your Horse?

“How do I know if he’s in pain?”

I get asked this question a lot when students are trying to rehab their horse through a particular gait deficiency or movement dysfunction. How do we tell when a conditioning plan is working and, more importantly, that the exercises are not causing further discomfort?

Most horses offer us several clues to navigate this quandary, the most obvious being their behaviors in response to an exercise. Negative behaviors (kicking out, sluggishness, tail swishing, etc.) generally indicate something is wrong. But what about the instances where you’re pretty sure you have resolved the underlying physical discomfort and yet the horse is still showing these behaviors? What if these misbehaviors have become a habit but do not reflect pain?

To navigate these scenarios, I use the four observations below, which will not only give you more clarity but often will result in a more accurate diagnosis from your vet if/when that step seems appropriate. Let me start with a recent example from my own barn.

Soon after our rainy season started, a mare in my training barn began acting out of character. Normally peppy, her mood now vacillated between sullen and sleepy. When ridden in the arena, she put a lot of effort in to veering towards the gate. And then finally, her overall movement seemed restricted, choppy. I asked the vet to check her for sore feet and, sure enough, the rains and sugary green grass had made her feet tender and sore. This explained her recent off-kilter behaviors. After a week of treating her feet and remedying her diet, the behaviors began to wane but they did not immediately disappear (it would be another week for them to go away completely).

At this point, upon my advice to resume riding and training the mare, her owner felt stuck. “How do I know that she does not still hurt?”…or on the other hand: “Or, what if the pain IS actually gone, but now she is just playing me up with these new behaviors?” In other words, how much was fair for the owner to expect?

It can be difficult to move forward with an exercise plan in this instance. But if you avoid exercise entirely, you end up relying on inaccurate guesswork about its possible outcome. The following four tools help considerably.

Test the Horse’s Response to Correct Movement Over Several Days

When horses are physically uncomfortable they travel with their bodies in all kinds of contortions. They move with short strides, or carry their neck to one side, or drift off their line of travel. They might carry their neck too low, too high, or both. They might occasionally stumble or lock their stifle joint.

The first question I ask riders who are vexed about whether they should urge their poorly moving horse to perform better is: “What happens when you do?” Does he adapt to your request and move on just fine? Or does he protest? A surprising number of riders have not explored this. They fear that they might be hurting their horse if they do so. Here the tendency is to allow the horse to move in a compromised posture because he might be choosing it for comfort.

True, the twisted head or hollowed back or stumbling feet might be adaptation to present pain, but it might also be residual postural preference that was initially triggered by pain that has now resolved. For this reason, I encourage riders to always strive to ask the horse to move well… and THEN see what happens. If the horse settles in to your request and carries on willingly, this gives you valuable insights upon which you can build a plan to go forward. If instead the horse replies to your request with a very clear ‘no, I cannot do that,” this information will give your vet much more specific information by which to make an accurate diagnosis of a pain source.

If you do not strive to ask these questions and instead spend a lot of time fretting and wringing your hands, you will not get closer to any answers. I see too many riders stuck in this state, wondering and worrying, waiting for an answer to fall out of the sky.

Ridden Horse Pain Ethogram

Over the last decade, researchers have worked on developing a pain ethogram for horses, which identifies attitudes and behaviors specific to discomfort. While there are further studies to be done in this area, I believe this ethogram offers students helpful ways to observe and evaluate their horses. You can read a list of the 24 pain indicators here.

Respiratory Rate

Breathing rates are highly individual and weather-dependent but a sudden change in your horse’s respiration during exercise can indicate mental or physical discomfort. If his respiration seems unusually high (like he is panting and his nostrils are widened), during what would ordinarily be an easy routine for him, make a note. Then, see if you observe a similar occurrence over the next three days. This cumulative observation will give you worthwhile clues.

At Liberty

The mare at my barn with sore feet spends daytimes in a large pasture. This allowed me to observe her moods, movement, and behaviors in a natural setting for several hours each day, which I believe offers far more insights than observations based solely on a one-hour training session on a given day. Observations at liberty when the horse is not directed by human stimulus are invaluable. Please note here that I’m not defining ‘liberty’ as encouraging your horse to run loose around a round pen or paddock. I observed that the mare continued to walk around the pasture plenty, but she did not tear off in a gallop which she normally does at some point every morning. She also did not pester the horses across the fence as she also often does, nor did she spook as normal when the rattly Fedex truck flew past.

Her wandering were slower and less adventurous for several days, albeit not absent entirely. And then, coinciding with improved movement and behavior under saddle, she resumed her gallop streaks across the field, her predicted spooks, and other antics.

Worrying about your horse’s physical comfort is a responsible and inevitable part of stewarding these blessed creatures. Occasionally, though, that worry can hold riders back from conditioning and continuing to help their horses’ bodies. This post has offered a few simple tips that I find helpful in this process. Feel free to reach out if you would like some guidance through your own horse’s training, recuperation, or general well-being. Custom coaching link here.