Today I made my regular monthly visit to Ernest Dillons yard. Whilst I was treating his lovely mare Bella she really let me know how much she appreciated it – especially when I was working on her back. I really wanted to take a video clip but it was too hard to do this AND continue to do the massage at the same time. This thought popped into my head whilst I was treating her. TWICE this week I have been to see horses and been told by their owners that their horses are, umm... cold backed. To me its such a silly thing to say. What does it mean? Basically what it means is that when you try to put a saddle on the horse, it makes faces or moves away and thereafter will generally take a long time to work correctly. Cold back actually means that the horse is UNCOMFORTABLE. The most common cause is an ill fitting saddle – although in some cases it can be undiagnosed damage to the spinous processors. The term cold back may have come about because the horse may object less once it has warmed up – it seems to come right after 10 - 20 minutes work. This is more likely to be due to the fact that after that amount of time the synapses in the brain that react to pain simply stop firing in response to the nerve signals. Its a bit like like when we girls go out dancing in high heels and find that after a while we can ignore the pain! I can guarantee that if you run your fingers down either side of the spine on any horse that has been called cold backed, the horse will flinch or dip away from the pressure. This is because the back musculature is highly contracted making the horse uncomfortable. If you have ever had a bad back yourself, you will know how tight and uncomfy this feels. It makes you walk badly and it makes you grumpy. Horses are no different – in fact it is even worse for them. They are flight animals and have hundreds more nerve endings per square inch on their skins surface than do predatory animals like us humans. We have eyes in the front of our faces for seeking out prey. Horses have eyes at the sides of their faces to give them almost 360° vision so they can spot an approaching predator even when they are head down and feeding. Thus the requirement for the more nerve endings on the surface of their skin. They need to feel much better than us if (say) a wolf is attacking them and run faster. You will all know this test. How many fingers have I placed on your back. Its really hard for us humans to guess correctly. BUT if a fly lands on a horse they are able to twitch JUST that tiny area of their body where a fly landed. Thats how sensitive their backs are. Pressure of any sort is far far more detectable and thus more painful to a horse than it is to a human. So, PLEASE can we get rid of this outdated terminology. A cold back is a sore back and thats that!
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 13:17:58 +0000
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