Empathy

Last week I somehow strained my neck and I was unable to turn my head without pain. I couldn’t sleep except in one specific position due to the pain and by the end of each day it would go into spasm just from having to carry my head around without support.

As I very carefully and tentatively worked through my physio exercises, I couldn’t help but think about horses and how much we as an industry oversimplify pain and discomfort.

I’m pretty sure if you had imaged my neck last week it would’ve looked fine, you could poke and prod at my neck and it wouldn’t hurt and, while it caused me pain to do so, I still had a normal range of motion. You couldn’t tell by looking at me that I was in pain, luckily I could vocally moan about it to anyone who asked.

I know I’ve written about pain a lot in the past, and I will link some of those posts in the comments, but I don’t think we can talk about it enough.

There is still the general consensus that we can “rule out pain” by doing lameness work-ups and some imaging. Aside from the fact diagnostics in the equine industry are still extremely limited, why do we never think about the fact pain can be present even if we can’t see a cause? A pulled muscle is not going to show up on an x-ray, but it can still really hurt.

So many of the ways we are encouraged to train, ride and manage our horses are really hard on their bodies and likely to be causing soreness regularly. If we’re riding into a strong contact or our horse is bracing and pulling a lot, they’re going to be sore. Yet we’re taught to see everything as a disobedience or behavioural issue to stamp out. I think of all the times horses try to say no and communicate their discomfort and we call it “sass” or “attitude”.

I was so irritable when my neck was hurting, if someone had tried to make me move quickly or push through my exercises I would’ve bitten their head off.

I’m tired of watching stressed, uncomfortable horses being hassled into compliance and sold as success stories, when all that has happened is they’ve learnt no isn’t an answer. Being ridden around with a compressed neck is no good for any horse’s body and yet it is still the norm. Your after video is usually a horse being ridden over bent no longer “fighting” the contact. Success. I’m feeling so frustrated by it all, but maybe that’s just the remnants of the irritability from the pain in my neck….

Next time you feel your horse is being annoying and they just won’t “do the thing”, consider for a second they might not physically be able to do so without causing themselves discomfort and whether the thing you want them to do is appropriate at all. Our horses will be much better off if we can just have a little empathy.

So many of our horses are living in compromised bodies. Understand that if they’re saying no they have good reason. 🐴