How do you define lame/unsound/unlevel/uncomfortable?

[TarrSteps]

Another one of my annoying thinking questions. . .

Discussions about 'not right' horses figure prominently in my professional life and between than and reading on here, I'm curious how people define their terms. I often see people refer to an unlevelness or gait change with the caveat that they believe the horse is not actually in discomfort. . .then how do you explain the change? How much does context inform your opinion? If a horse is still doing the job is it considered to be 'not in pain' by definition? What about bilateral or non-limb discomfort? How do you KNOW if a horse is uncomfortable and at what point is that lameness? How reasonable is it to expect a horse to be 100% all the time in order to have a useful life? Especially given that FEI horses don't even have to be 100% to pass a jog!

I'm not referencing any particular situation but it's an off discussed topic around here and I wonder sometimes if we are all talking about the same thing!

 

[Goldenstar]

In my mind an unlevel horse is mildly lame
An unsound horse has along term issue .
Uncomfortable that's one of those can't put my finger on it but something's up feelings .
Not right ,one of mines not right ATM his hair is growing in unevenly hes black he strange bleached looking orangey hair on his ears and in other places he's not right but I am not sure what to do about it.
Lame is lame I am not shy about saying my horses are lame because I had a lot of practise over the years.

 

[Holidays_are_coming]

I think a lot depends on the horse I wouldn't ride any horse that was even mildly un level, but for example my mare has mild changes in her hocks a lot of horses would just get on with it and work through the pain, however she started spinning napping and refusing to jump you cant really ignore that, like you could if the horse just felt wrong now and again

 

[WellyBaggins]

It is so hard and dependant on the individual, you see so many horses competing that are not sound but are happy in their work, my horse is 1/10 lame in front but he is not happy, vet is happy for me to ride him watching him trot up but he is unhappy in his work so I have stopped riding him, his lameness is so minimal but it is not minimal to him so I think you have to (within reason) go with what the horse is happy with, just my opinion though

 

[lindsayH]

Interesting, I've been thinking along these lines recently too. One term I find seems to be massively overused is 'mechanical lameness'. True mechanical lameness is actually very rare, it's certainly not something I ever really come across in the small animal vets I work at, or in people. Locking stifles are the only obvious cause that springs instantly to mind.

To answer your questions, it's often very hard to tell if an animal is in pain or how much pain they are in. Obviously, they can't tell us! Bute trials are unreliable. Nerve blocks are good but you have to know what to block...
I think many horses will continue doing their job despite fairly high levels of pain and no, I would not expect a competition horse to be 100% pain free at all times, any more than I could ever be. However, it is something I aspire to achieve for my horses and try my best to make it happen.

Edited to add, I agree with Goldenstar's definitions.

 

[exracer superstar]

When my mare was diagnosed with mild arthritic changes in her hocks I had noticed she would feel not herself and not right but couldn't put my finger on what it was she didn't feel lame she just didn't feel her usual self after a workup and xrays it was confirmed she has got changes they were treated and when I got back on her she felt amazing, the reason I couldn't put my finger on it was she was midly bilaterally lame in both hinds therefore she then felt even (if that makes sense). Unfortunately she then did her tendon out in the feild a week later bl**dy horses lol. However I'm not afraid to say if my horse is lame which I think some people are unless it is absolutely smacking you in the face and there is no way they could ignore it.

 

[only_me]

I think the hardest is working out if unlevel or lame.

From my perspective lame is altered weight bearing due to pain, and unlevel is altered weight bearing due to biomechanics/different stride lengths/environmental/other factors which may or may not have caused pain. Eg if a pattern is followed long enough it becomes a habit.

But unlevel can be caused by pain - whereas lameness is always pain.

Unlevel could be due to weaker on one side than other (which I'm sure is more common than we think) and dropping hips or not using hinds correctly etc.

Will try to think how to more eloquently explain what I mean!

This is just imo of course and from experience with people!

 

[elizabeth1]

I think a lot depends on the requirements of the rider.If the horse is happy in its work and only 1/10 lame for example this might be acceptable at lower levels.The Pony Club used to have the expression serviceably sound for mounted games which let a lot of older ponies who were happy under saddle perform a useful role.

 

[RachelFerd]

Its a minefield. TS, as you know, I am surrounded by a variety of unsound/unlevel/poorly performing horses on a daily basis, and I think it is very hard to define and very hard to understand why some horses with pronounced lameness seem to go about their jobs quite happily without any protest, and other horses with only the most absolutely marginal lameness will completely throw the towel in.

I guess the grade of lameness doesn't always correlate completely with the grade of pain.

I wouldn't not make any kind of distinction between the terms lame, unsound or unlevel. To me they all have the same meaning, there are just varying degrees of lameness. Unlevel horses are lame horses, they just aren't perhaps very lame! I also think that an overall majority of horses are probably lame to a degree, but that degree could be very, very small and likely enough insignificant in relation to the amount/difficulty of work that they do. To me, bi-lateral discomfort is still obviously lameness, just hard to see visibly until one limb is nerve-blocked.

Given that most horses are probably lame to a degree, and probably do (by a certain age) have some pathological changes, I think that lameness, or a poor performance work-up only merits investigation once the horse is showing some kind of sign that what we are asking of them has become more difficult than it once used to be, or when they are showing increased resistance to working compared to what they used to show. Of course highly visible sudden lameness also needs investigating too. Knowing what a good realistic 'baseline' for your horse feels like, and being able to feel and assess change to that baseline is what tells you that the horse is feeling (more) pain.

Also a horse may be functionally sound and comfortable for hacking and prelim dressage, but that doesn't mean the same horse is going to be functionally sound for elementary level dressage for example.

 

[Goldenstar]

I think the hardest is working out if unlevel or lame.

From my perspective lame is altered weight bearing due to pain, and unlevel is altered weight bearing due to biomechanics/different stride lengths/environmental/other factors which may or may not have caused pain. Eg if a pattern is followed long enough it becomes a habit.

But unlevel can be caused by pain - whereas lameness is always pain.

Unlevel could be due to weaker on one side than other (which I'm sure is more common than we think) and dropping hips or not using hinds correctly etc.

Will try to think how to more eloquently explain what I mean!
This is just IMO of course from experiance from people !

I think your unlevel is what I think of as uneven and teasing apart uneven and unlevel is where things get really hard.
I am working with an uneven horse with the moment he has had a long term tooth issue and has developed though his working life he's 7 now ways of blocking to save pain in the mouth .
The tooth is is now resolved and we are now pushing on with his training interesting when I tried him he was definatly in the not right category he passed a five stage vetting it did not take me long to get to the issue if he had continued to work as he was I don't think it would be long before soundness issues resulted and he would have been unlevel then lame.

 

[ihatework]

Its a minefield. TS, as you know, I am surrounded by a variety of unsound/unlevel/poorly performing horses on a daily basis, and I think it is very hard to define and very hard to understand why some horses with pronounced lameness seem to go about their jobs quite happily without any protest, and other horses with only the most absolutely marginal lameness will completely throw the towel in.

I guess the grade of lameness doesn't always correlate completely with the grade of pain.

I wouldn't not make any kind of distinction between the terms lame, unsound or unlevel. To me they all have the same meaning, there are just varying degrees of lameness. Unlevel horses are lame horses, they just aren't perhaps very lame! I also think that an overall majority of horses are probably lame to a degree, but that degree could be very, very small and likely enough insignificant in relation to the amount/difficulty of work that they do. To me, bi-lateral discomfort is still obviously lameness, just hard to see visibly until one limb is nerve-blocked.

Given that most horses are probably lame to a degree, and probably do (by a certain age) have some pathological changes, I think that lameness, or a poor performance work-up only merits investigation once the horse is showing some kind of sign that what we are asking of them has become more difficult than it once used to be, or when they are showing increased resistance to working compared to what they used to show. Of course highly visible sudden lameness also needs investigating too. Knowing what a good realistic 'baseline' for your horse feels like, and being able to feel and assess change to that baseline is what tells you that the horse is feeling (more) pain.

Also a horse may be functionally sound and comfortable for hacking and prelim dressage, but that doesn't mean the same horse is going to be functionally sound for elementary level dressage for example.

Good answer, and what I wanted to say but couldn't get around to writing.

Sometimes I wish I was completely ignorant. I'm far to intune with unlevelness/lameness for my own liking.

 

[TarrSteps]

I think 'serviceably sound' is one of those phrases we're not really supposed to use on the internet anymore.

I would argue a great deal depends on the rider's perception, too.

Out of curiosity, om, roughly what percentage of people show noticeable unlevelness that is completely biomechanical in origin under normal circumstances? (As in walking down the street, not at the end of a strenuous workout? I'm not arguing with the biomechanical explanation but I would be inclined to agree with the above sentiment, that sometimes it is used because a rider/owner would rather not admit the horse is uncomfortable.

Btw, my own perspective is that many horses can function perfectly well and happily without being 100%, even to a very high level, particularly if care is paid to appropriate management. I just feel- perhaps unfairly - that it's better to call a spade a spade and admit to the reality of the situation, that we often do 'use' horses that aren't totally comfortable all the time, because this gives us the best chance of figuring out how to keep them most comfortable most of the time.

 

[RachelFerd]

Taking it further.. I also believe that in some cases of horses who have become habitually lame perhaps through weakness, or just a left-over from a previous problem, it is possible to ride them sound and improve them over time. It is also quite possible to ride a horse in such a way that makes it look lamer, and over time would create definite lameness.

I think a great deal of tact and feel comes into it, and there are many horses that can be functionally sound with one rider, and not with another. Doesn't mean that pain isn't a factor, just that one rider can probably reduce discomfort better than another.

Feel free to disagree with me on this one!!

 

[TarrSteps]

Perhaps I have to add 'in pain' to my list re Gs's tooth horse - not lame as such, but non-performing due to pain.

 

[RachelFerd]

Tarrsteps, I do agree with you, but, I think the difference between people and horses, is that a horse will instinctively 'try' to be as sound as they can be, whereas a human won't. We don't have the same flight instinct that a horse has, and we haven't been designed to flee from danger in quite the same way.

 

[Lolo]

I think to manage any of the definitions correctly you have to admit there is a problem in some form?

Like, Reg can be mildly unlevel behind on grass when he's getting tired. It has been hugely counteracted with hock injections, and this year has only been visible once when the warm up was hugely overcooked. He can also show some discomfort come from free walk to medium walk, and then to trot, but following the injections this has all but gone unless he tenses and hollows. But managing him correctly means knowing that this is a problem, and although the vets are happy with him and how he is Al needs to be very aware of what's going on underneath her to make the right call with him.

As for 'serviceably sound', I had an old horse who was exactly that. We bombed about over 2'3-2'6, occasionally bashed round an 80cm course just to test my nerve and had a blast. He was short behind, but consistent, and it was a matter of knowing him and whether he was happy or not.

Essentially, I think once you have a relatively strong idea of what is normal for your horse, it's up to you to try and maintain that normal. For ages, we thought it was back issues with Reg until someone on here started talking about their horse's hock issues, and it all added up. Booked the vet and he was having injections as soon as he came back into work! Hiding your head n the sand never works, but is all too easy to do when a beloved horse is not right, but not exactly not performing.

 

[only_me]

No idea on total % but most of those I would deem "unlevel" are post fracture/come out of a cast/becoming more active so they have been walking in an altered pattern therefore muscles have developed accordingly and a habit has formed.
It's normal enough that if you have a cast on leg you alter gait and take shorter steps - but when cast is removed the shorter pattern can remain which causes a limp. There is normally no pain at this point.

Once they start walking with longer steps the limp disappears and although may feel unnatural to some with a longer step it can be a case of forming a new good habit!

So in case of a horse maybe it's been that way for a long time and needs work to develop the weak areas to support and allow correct movement?

Biomechanics fascinates me and is something that I want to learn more about as perfect movement is not necessarily the most efficient or achievable!

 

[lindsayH]

And let's not also forget to mention that work is often the prescribed treatment for conditions that cause pain too!

I have a back condition myself that requires lots of exercise to stay on top of.

Not advocating working a painful undiagnosed horse of course, but under the direction of a physio/vet exercise can be a useful tool.

 

[Firewell]

At the end of the day who knows what the horse is feeling. We don't know. The horse could have a mechanical unlevelness and not be in a jot of pain as it's body has adijusted to a different way of moving or it could have a tiny nick on it's leg, or a knock and feel it.

We just have to go by what we think is best knowing the horse and the situation.

No living being is 100% right, 100% of the time. I myself am sitting typing this slouched to one side in my chair with a slight ache in the lower right hand side of my back. Yet to me i'm normal and not in any pain that affects my day to day living, work or movement. Sometimes when I have slept awkwardly or had a particuarly active day I will be stiff and I will feel it when getting up from sitting down and stagger for a few strides untill my body gets into the right place again. A hot bath and an easy day and back to feeling what is 'normal' for me. I'm a fit and healthy, active young woman but I'm a living being. Nothing in my body is perfect all the time, it is a result of life

I apply the same to my horse. If he shows a few unlevel strides warming up after he's had a hard day the day before or has stood in for 18 hours in his stable I don't freak out that he must have something wrong with him. However if I saw something in his way of moveing that is odd for him or appears to compromise him consistently for a period of time then I may worry that he has indeed done something to himself that is more serious and I may start think 'what' and 'why'. It's just common sense. I don't believe every horse is truely 100%, always. I think if you took apart every horse you would find something however small that you could attribute to certain behaviours when in fact it has nothing to do with it.

As long as my horse is fit and well and happy in his job and himself and is normal for what is normal for him, I don't sweat the small stuff. After all I have a wonky jaw that didn't heal properly after I broke it and looks strange on an MRI and weird sort of artheritis symptoms in my fingers and I get sciatica pain occassionally. I'm happy, I ride and run and live, yes it's not perfect, yes I could have an operation to break my jaw and reset it, yes I could get my fingers investigated but why?? Why when I am perfectly fine and have lived with both since a tiny child? I don't feel in pain so who cares. Get a paper cut however and owwwwwwwwwww!

 

[TarrSteps]

Interesting you bring up 'riding a horse sound', RF. This is actually a topic of traditional discussion, back in the day when diagnostic and treatment options were much more limited and reference is made to it in older texts. When I was very young I worked for a then already quite old German trainer who talked often of riders who could do this, both 'on the day' and cumulatively improving the horse over the long term. He could do it and he talked extensively to me about it. Since then I've met other people who do it consciously. Of course it's very situational but it's hardly unheard of.

It's also quite obvious that the same horse can be 'lame' or 'sound' under different riders. It doesn't always work out the way 'round you'd expect though!

Same with loss of performance. Sometimes a horse goes better for a rider simply because that rider lets the horse travel and jump in a way that's more comfortable for it. I find that often with refusing - if you know what the trigger is you can, theoretically at least, make it happen and therefore also prevent it happening.

 

[exracer superstar]

Rachel ferd that us so true. I once tried a horse for sale I watched it being rode first and me and my friend were undecdided on if it was lame as it was so intermittent. I got on and rode how I normally would ride my horse (this horse was going to be for dressage) and I am able to ride to a fair standard anyway around we go and it starts shoulder dropping (lame up front what we had suspected) the owner bold as brass walks over and says really pull him through the outside rein and keep your inside on and he doesn't do that. Needless to say I walked away but goes to show how a rider can influencelameness the horse was sold on locally to me and I've heard through the grapevine he has chronic sidebone.

 

[stencilface]

My horse can often be bridle lame of unlevel, not all the time though which he needs just warming up more and pushing through. With his current lameness (tendonitis) the last time I rode him before the vet he was not right, but I pushed him a bit more to see if it was his normal unlevelness/laziness or whether he was lame. He's lame

In a 'lazy trot' he will often seem lame, but actually isn't so it is hard to tell the lameness from the unlevelness of laziness, which admittedly coudl itself be caused by other factors, but he's had virtually every inch of him scanned and xrayed so I'm not sure there's much more I can do! He general (when not actually lame) he seems happy in his work, which tbh is all you can go on really, some horses have high pain thresholds, some don't - like people. Mine is a particularly delicate flower it seems

 

[TarrSteps]

I do agree with the point, RF, about how hard animals 'try' to be sound also how how difficult this can make diagnostic work.

I'll confess, om, that my interest in biomechanics is largely practical but 'proprioception' is my favourite word.

 

[RachelFerd]

TS I have great interest in experimenting with riding a horse to be sounder or to be lamer. I have to do both at work.

Only a few months ago we had a horse in with a male dressage rider on board - with him it was lame left hind. HE was a VERY strong rider who was riding the horse hard up into the contact and making it move in the most 'flashy' way possible. Later on, I rode the horse. I am not as strong a dressage rider as the pro who rode the horse originally. When I rode the horse there was no apparent unilateral lameness behind, but I did not have the horse as UP into the hand, and I was working the horse probably in an elementary type frame, rather than pushing it to go like an advanced medium horse (which is what it was) I simply didn't have the upper body strength to hold the horse up there. Now, this is because the horse could not keep itself in self carriage. The way I rode the horse produced no apparent lameness, but neither did the horse 'go well' in that I was having to work very hard just to keep the horse working 'through' well enough. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make the horse go lame on the left hind, because I wasn't pushing it as hard as the original rider.

However when the horse was blocked out bilaterally behind with me riding, the horse had a dramatically improved way of going with much better self carriage and working in an advanced-medium frame all of a sudden.

Does that mean that the horse was actually sound when I rode it originally? No I don't think so, but the level of pain that I could push it through was certainly less than the first rider!!

 

[ajf]

I think it depends completley on the horse and their pain threshold, which I think must be similar to humans - different for everyone!!!

Think of rugby players, they play with broken fingers, toes, dislocate various joints, pop them back in and carry on. Now would you consider any of these lame, unsound, unlevel, uncomfortable? I know watching rugby players walk of the pitch after a game, I think several I would class as lame and the majority I would class unlevel and uncomfortable!

One of my horses runs on adrenaline. There have been times when I have gone XC and come storming back to find he has lost a shoe BUT I have not noticed this whilst on course, I couldn't even tell you where he lost it. Yet give him 10 mins to cool down, adrenaline levels to drop and he will not even place any weight on this foot (if it's a front shoe). So he was perfectly sound 12 minutes before popping round an Intermediate course but now will not weight bare so I would call him lame and in pain. Pop a shoe on and he becomes more comfortable, but I would then call him unsound and still uncomfortable. Give him a few days and he will generally be sound again BUT may be a little unlevel depending on how much foot he took off, but I would not class him as in pain! However, I feel that if I continued to work with different foot lengths this could end up causing an issue.

Hopefully this vaguely makes sense!

 

[Gamebird]

Unlevel horses are lame horses, they just aren't perhaps very lame!

A correct and very important point!

 

[Flame_]

Not quite an answer to the actual question, but it might be a vaguely relevant point..

Often when people are trying to justify working unsound horses, they use the argument that they aren't 100% but they still have to get up, go to work and get on with it, so so can the horse. While they have a point, their work probably does not require athletic performance. I have wonky shoulders, a back injury, knackered knees and various other aches and pains. i can do my manual job and I can exercise, but if my job involved someone expecting from me athletic performance whilst carrying weight, then I would have been fired/retired/shot long ago! Human athletes retire in their thirties, twenties, teens(!) for gymnasts, but we want horses to keep performing athletically for about two thirds of their natural life, long after human athletes bodies would have given up the job. Maybe it is tight that we expect that much of them?

I think for what a lot of people ask of horses they need to be right, and that goes for anything other than hacking, hunting and fun rides, tbh, but I've never been good at pushing on through resistance.

 

[Perfect_Pirouette]

It is so hard and dependant on the individual, you see so many horses competing that are not sound but are happy in their work, my horse is 1/10 lame in front but he is not happy, vet is happy for me to ride him watching him trot up but he is unhappy in his work so I have stopped riding him, his lameness is so minimal but it is not minimal to him so I think you have to (within reason) go with what the horse is happy with, just my opinion though

This. Same with my boy. Obviously (people will know from my posts on here) there was something up with my boy. One of his 'symptoms' was he was short on his right hind and I then started noticing on the lunge that he was looking shorter in front and a bit 'off' on his left fore. Took him to vets who diagnosed mild arthritis in those legs. His whole way of going changed ridden and he objected massively to being girthed/saddled. Whether this was something additonal to the arthritis or just the arthritis itself we may never know, but even if he was only in mild pain because it was only mild arthritis, it was still pain to him and he made it known/shown.

lame is altered weight bearing due to pain, and unlevel is altered weight bearing due to biomechanics/different stride lengths/environmental/other factors which may or may not have caused pain. Eg if a pattern is followed long enough it becomes a habit.

This also.

 

[zoon]

It is so hard. Zoon was once kicked in the hock and had a bone chip, but was sound in all paces , no shortness of stride, not unlevel - nothing. Was he in pain? Very much so - if you touched it he would flinch away violently.

As tarrsteps well knows, I had a mare who was just difficult to ride. she fought the contact, didn't want to work into it and liked to rush. She was an ex racer so everyone put it down to training as i hadnt had her long, although everyone agreed she was a bit tight through her back. But right from the beginning I just had a feeling it wasn't just training. Vets did work ups and declared her sound, physio/chiro etc all said no issue except a little tension behind saddle and trainers all said it was a schooling issue and give her time. She did everything asked, including this on her first ever xc schooling session -

And eventually was working like this all the time -

But I just had a feeling and since she was insured she went for a bone scan (against vets advice as they said nothing was wrong). Turns out she had severe kissing spines T6-T10, a sacroiliac injury, severe arthritis in her facet joints thought he whole length of her spine and a fractured wither.

I am a great believer that horses will do everything they can to hide any pain they are in which makes any sort of defining pretty impossible.