Horse's Spinal Rotation
written on February 18, 2019, 10:41 am
When a horse bends, the spine also rotates such that the withers tip slightly in one direction or the other. In walk for example, there is bending both to the left and the right throughout the...
Horse's Joint Rotations - Important
written on February 13, 2019, 11:50 am
Joint surfaces are not symmetrical like a door hinge or a ball and socket, and that makes the limbs rotate when they flex and extend. Joint rotations can be synchronized such that all joints are...
Training Horse CPG's for Healthy Locomotion
written on February 3, 2019, 5:15 pm
Central pattern generators (CPG's) are neural circuits that automatically produce repetitive motion like heartbeat, breathing, and locomotion. For soundness in horses, we are concerned with locomotor...
Rider Position
written on February 3, 2019, 5:15 pm
The word “position” is a little misleading because the word itself implies no motion. Riding is all motion and position is constantly changing. As a young equitation rider, my position...
Overloading
written on January 13, 2019, 9:37 am
You hear or read about overloading joints. It leads to lameness. Some people will tell you to protect the joint, you should inject some stuff into the joint fluid. But what is it really...
Horses' Natural Cadence
written on December 3, 2018, 6:40 pm
In the context of horses' locomotion, "natural cadence" is an expression that can be replaced with "natural frequency". What does Natural Frequency mean? Natural frequency, a term of physics, is...
Mechanics for Equestrians II
written on November 29, 2018, 11:29 am
I was inspired by presentations at the 2016 SOM Conference, which were informative and engaging. During a presentation, a question was asked regarding the presenter’s decision to analyze compressive...
