Change Can Be Good
By Dr. Patty Glover

Change is difficult for many of us. It doesn’t seem to matter if it is a change in scheduling, or a change in career path, or even if the grocery store changes where they keep the milk it can be unsettling!  This is the story of Rebel and his owner who weathered change optimistically and with an open enough mind to try new things.  Their willingness to keep rolling down the path they found themselves on ultimately saved the career of a brilliant dressage horse!

Have you ever met a horse that you thought should be a Breyer horse model?  Rebel is one such horse!  He is completely adorable, so much in fact most people refer to this 16 year old horse as “Baby Rebel”.  People often wonder what breed Rebel is and most think he is a Welsh Pony cross.  But he is actually a Holsteiner Arabian cross!  The warmblood genes he carries have served him well during his dressage career.  Throughout his career, when Rebel would enter the show ring someone would wonder why “a pony” was competing against the likes of fancy warmbloods.  Perhaps this is why Rebel is one of my favorite patients, not only is he cute as the dickens but he always showed with his head held high (despite what his condescending competitors said) and he never failed to act politely while he knocked their socks off either!

In February of 2005 Rebel slipped on some ice and severely injured his left hock.  He was initially grade 5 out of 5 lame (which means he had would not bear any weight on the leg in motion or at rest).  He was lucky in that he didn’t actually fracture or break his leg, but he was really unlucky in that he did severely strain his hock joint capsule and all of the soft tissue associated with it.  This type of injury is called “tarsitis”. Rebel was treated with local joint lavages and joint injections.  A joint lavage is when fluid is run into the hock and then allowed to immediately run back out.

When there is a bad laceration or cut over a joint this can be done with antibiotics to prevent infection, but for Rebel it was done with an anti-inflammatory.  He was given oral anti-inflammatories (Bute) and hyaluronic acid injections (Legend).  He also received topical treatment with ice, cold hosing, DMSO gel and sweat wrapping.

Thankfully, the severity of Rebel’s lameness improved as his hock slowly healed.  However, he did remain grade 1 out of 5 lame (which means it was difficult to observe, and not consistently apparent) on the leg.  Several years went by and his low grade lameness was still present.  Rebel was able to live a happy life and do light riding but his dressage maneuvers were not comfortable for him because his left hock joint didn’t bend as well as his right.  During this time, his owner never failed to look for the next thing they could “try” together.  While their dressage ambitions had fallen short of his potential, there were many avenues left for them to persue it wasn’t long before they began avidly exploring the trails near their home.

I first saw Rebel in 2007.  Always on the lookout for things to help her beloved horse, his owner had recently learned about horse Chiropractic care (or vertebral spinal manipulative therapy, VSMT) and was interested in making Rebel as comfortable as possible.  When he walked, it was noticeable that his pelvis moved abnormally.  His pelvis was compensating for the change in the way his hocks moved and thus traveled asymmetrically side to side.  His right sacro-iliac joint traveled much higher than the left.  When I examined him chiropractically I found that his right sacro-iliac joint was “stuck” upward and toward his tail while his left was “stuck” downward and toward his head.  I adjusted Rebel several times over the course of a few months.  

Originally his owner had hoped that he would be happier and more comfortable with Chiropractic care, what she didn’t anticipate was that this lameness of 2 years duration would disappear!  After his regime of adjustments, Rebel was moving better than he had in years and happily returned to the dressage arena.

When Rebel started having trouble again in the fall of 2009, his owner immediately called me.  Rebel had recently been temporarily leased by another adult and subsequently developed a sore back.  He would not move his hind end up underneath himself and was unable to maintain a collected trot or canter. 

When I came to see him it was evident that Rebel had a really sore back, he was quite painful to palpation of his withers and low back.  He received another adjustment, during which we found many subluxations in his back, withers, sternum and pelvis.  His withers and sternum being painful and chiropractically subluxated prompted my “mounting block” conversation that many of you have probably heard.  It goes something like this -- ideally we, as riders and horsemen, would maintain a level of fitness that allows us to mount fluidly from the ground.  However, many of us don’t and some of us ride really tall horses that make mounting a struggle regardless of our athleticism.  When someone pulls themselves up onto a horse while mounting, they put a great amount of strain across the withers and around the barrel and finally onto the sternum.  This can essentially rotate that whole section of the body in the direction of the person mounting.  The same thing can also happen if a dismounting rider slides down the side of their horse while hanging onto the saddle.  Thus, mounting blocks are a horse’s friend!  I’ve heard from many people that they think mounting blocks are “for sissies” or “just not cool”.  I maintain that I think there is nothing cooler than a horseman who places the comfort of their horse before their own pride. 

Rebel felt instantly better after his adjustment and immediately started moving better. A quick conversation with his new rider ensured that they would be using the mounting block consistently in the future. Rebel continued to improve over the course of several weeks and when he was rechecked he was moving really well!

Rebel is continuing to enjoy his “cross-training”, so much that his owner thinks he has more passion for the dressage when they do it.  Some say change is good…. at least for Rebel that seems to be the case!