Horse stepping under himself with hind legs...

[Gypley]

...when off fore is picked up.

I have no idea if this is relevant or something to worry about and I’ve never really thought too much about it before, but when I pick up my horses off fore, he steps under himself with his back legs to support himself. He does not do this with near fore. My reason to question this is my horse has always been really difficult to hold hold weight a build muscle especially over his hind quarters.
I’ve had many tests run including tests for two types of muscle wastage diseases which both came back negative (I don’t fee he was bad enough to warrent the tests but vet suggested it just to rule it out)
Could him stepping under himself be a clue to what may be wrong, or an indicator or something else?
I have both the vet and physio out next week so I will be discussing this with both, but wondered if anyone has any ideas?

 

[Shay]

Spinal chord impingement?

 

[Birker2020]

My interpretation would be that when you pick up his off fore he is reluctant to bear weight on his near fore. So this might be because he feels unbalanced or he might have pain in the near fore. So he is either attempting to stabilize his balance or minimize any pain by transferring his weight onto his hind end by bringing his hind feet under him. That's my first thought.

Be interesting to see what the physio says. If he is not building any muscle on his hind quarters this could be because he is not using his back end correctly. This might be because he is not being asked to work through from behind or there is pain in his hocks for example which would mean that using his back end (his propulsion unit) causes pain so he pulls rather than pushes himself along, therefore not building the correct musculature.

Usually in this type of scenario the horse will have an overdeveloped front end, i.e. shoulders from all the pulling along he is doing.