Preserve Those Precious Joints

Reprinted with permission
May/June 2002

As a horse progresses from talented young prospect to experienced competitor, life's wear and tear will inevitably affect his joints.  How soon and how seriously the signs of arthritis--the most common form of degenerative joint disease--will appear can depend on many factors.  These factors include genetic predisposition, damage from injuries, accumulated performance stresses, conformation, temperament, and protective measures.  

To understand why arthritis makes horses limp, imagine the knee of a stick figure horse.  In this simplistic picture, the bone of the forearm meets the cannon bone without a cushion of any kind.  The horse can bend his knee but the dry bone surfaces grind against each other.  Each motion abrades the articulating surfaces further.  Our stick figure horse is arthritic.

Nature built real horses with more complex joints.  Where bones come together, the ends of the bones are cushioned by cartilage.  The cartilage is lubricated by a thick liquid called synovial fluid.  This fluid also nourishes the cartilage.  The cartilage and synovial fluid form a highly effective shock absorbing and lubricating system.

As a horse trots, gallops, jumps and piaffes his way through the years, the cartilage on the joints' articulating surfaces gradually erodes.  Synovial fluid becomes increasingly polluted and thinned by byproducts from both the damaged cartilage and the body's repair processes.  As the synovial fluid becomes less effective, cartilage breakdown intensifies.  In the worst case scenario, deterioration continues until the cartilage and synovial fluid develops gaps, allowing the bones to rub up against each other.

Veterinarians and trainers agree that it's impossible to prevent joint stress.  However, they emphasize that there are effective ways to minimize wear and tear.

Rules for Riders
The first thing that trainers recommend is to avoid stressing young horses' joints.  A young horse shouldn't be saddle broken until his veterinarian confirms that his knee joints have adequately matured.  It is especially tempting to to start large youngsters too soon. . .but tall does not equal mature.

Trainers often caution against drilling any horse--but particularly young horses--in tiny circles.  Endless lunging or relentless riding in small circles is very hard on a horse because the inside foreleg is constantly stressed as the horse leans in and pivots with every step.  A dressage trainer advised, "Ride smart, not hard.  Frequently a larger circle teaches the horse just as well.  Would a spiral exercise, where you tighten and expand your circle, do the job just as well?  And, if you're riding at a level where small circles are necessary, remember to go large at regular intervals.  Take breaks, let the horse relax."

One hunter trainer gave similar advice: "Every jump means more wear and tear on the landing gear--the feet and ankles and knees.  Don't school unnecessary fences!  If today's schooling is about going straight after the jump, you have a choice of setting up the lesson with poles on the ground, a two-foot jump, or a four-foot fence.  Guess which one puts the most concussion, the maximum impact, on the horse's joints!"

Several instructors brought up the subject of when to end a training session.  "Riders feel a powerful need to keep going, to get things perfect.  But there is the teacher saying 'Your horse has had enough for today.'  Riders should listen."

"You can't blame every case of arthritis on bad heredity," one trainer stated.  "Some riders excel at pounding on their horse's legs.  It takes daily workouts to condition a horse.  If you can't get out to the barn several times a week, don't try to make up for it with one mongo-marathon ride on Saturday.  It takes a really sound horse to withstand an inconsistent work schedule.  No horse can do it forever."

"Every horse needs time off between shows," another rider said simply.  "The higher the level of performance, the more critical down-time becomes.  Tired muscles can't do their jobs.  That leaves the tendons and ligaments to compensate by taking more of the load.  Ultimately, the buck stops at the weight bearing structures--the bones and joints."

"Too many riders (and I'm thinking of plenty of pros, too!) skimp on the warm-up.  They don't understand the relationship between a thorough warmup and soundness," complained one professional rider.  "A joint is bones plus connective tissues: muscles, tendons, ligaments.  A minimum of 10 minutes walking, or maybe trotting slowly in a natural frame, is needed to get the blood flowing to all those tissues.  Only then are the ankles, knees, stifles, and hocks ready to canter, collect, extend, or jump.  Every time a rider skips the warm-up, he or she stresses the joints a little bit more.  After four or five years of this, don't act shocked when the horse starts coming out stiff in the morning, and the vet finds arthritis in his hocks and knees!"

Every rider and trainer talked about protective leg gear for the horses.  Every rider has a favorite combination of support boots, polo wraps and the like, but it all adds up to protecting the legs.  Protective wear not guards legs against accidental impacts, but also minimizes exercise-induced shock to the delicate structures of the leg.  "If the support boot absorbs even one-millionth of a pound of pressure during each stride, you can multiply that it by the number of strides taken in the course of a ride.  Multiply by the number of rides in the horse's lifetime.  Now, ask yourself how many extra months or years you have added to the horse's competitive career by protecting his joints--one stride at a time."

Get help From the Right Feed & Supplements
What you feed your horse is a critical factor in the fight to preserve his joints.  Devise a balanced feed and supplement program.  For growing young horses, get expert advice from a vet to make sure that you're providing all of the right nutrients in the right proportions.  

It's a mistake to let horses of any age get obese.  With every stride, extra weight multiplies the forces of the joints!

How do joint supplements, with their specialized vocabulary and long chemical names, figure in?  Basically, the equine joint's natural shock-absorbing and lubricating components are composed of GAGs.  'GAG' is short for 'glycosaminoglycan.'  Related terms include 'proteoglycan,' 'sodium hyaluronate' and 'chondrocytes.'  For the horseman who doesn't remember the answers from the final exam in college biochemistry, the pertinent concept is that, as the horse is asked to meet escalating athletic demands, his body must constantly repair and replenish damaged joint tissues and fluids.  Supplements can supply the necessary nutritional building blocks: GAGs such as chondroitin sulfate and glucosamine.

While there's no cure for degenerative joint disease, trainers and riders are understandably enthusiastic about supplements that can prevent, repair or minimize the effects of wear and tear on the joints.  Experts advise feeding a joint supplement early in the horse's career and continuing throughout his lifetime. Supplements can be used to treat existing arthritic conditions, but the vast majority of riders and trainers prefer to start early and prevent joint problems whenever possible. 

One thing horse owners can do is take time to figure out the correct dosage.  It's easy to toss a spoonful of supplement into the feed pan, but the smart owner tailors the dosage for each horse.  A standard dose is based on 1,000 pounds of body weight.  A Warmblood who weighs 1,300 pounds will be well served by a higher daily serving of supplement. 

Vets can provide additional options, including highly respected and popular joint therapies via intravenous or intramuscular injections.  The injected substances are close kin to the chemical building blocks already mentioned.  The more direct method of delivery translates to very effective treatment.  Also well regarded is the procedure commonly called 'the lube job,' which involves injecting new lubricant directly into the joints.  These measures are most often used in conjunction with the daily feeding of joint supplement.  

Tailor The Horse's Environment
In the quest to preserve equine joints, several riders credited rubber floor mats.  "Horses shouldn't stand on a hard floor when the 'give' of a mat provides a much kinder surface.  I'm amazed when riders agonize over wear and tear from a half-hour ride--and then put the horse back in the stall, and he stands on a cement-hard surface for the next 23 hours."

Another consensus: "Just say no to bad footing.  Pounding on hard footing damages more joints, and aggravates whatever existing arthritis the horse already has, worse than anything else.  Avoid bad footing.  One more ribbon isn't worth the price your horse pays." 

Turn-out is also connected to long-term soundness.  Horses evolved with legs that are ideally constructed for near-constant grazing low-grade exercise: continuous grazing, wandering movement across grassland, with occasional sprints to escape predators.  There is evidence that domestic horses which get moderate or extensive turn-out resist a variety of degenerative foot and leg conditions better than their stall-bound brethren. 

Stay Alert
It's a fortunate rider whose horse stays sound into his mid-twenties.  Chances are, this rider stacked the deck in her horse's favor with protective measures.  All riders should watch for early signs of arthritis, and be prepared to utilize all the weapons provided by common sense and modern veterinary science in the battle against degenerative joint disease. 

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