Ridden evaluations are key in poor performance investigations

A study has highlighted why horses should be ridden when being assessed for performance and slight lameness issues

- ELEANOR JONES

A NEW study shows the importance of ridden work in investigation of performance issues or low-grade lameness – and of understanding what horses are telling us.

Sue Dyson, former head of clinical orthopaedics at the Animal Health Trust, and Danica Pollard studied the use of the ridden horse pain ethogram (RHpE) on horses before and after diagnostic anaesthesia, or nerve-blocking.

The RHpE comprises 24 behaviours including tail-swishing and an open mouth, the presence of eight or more of which may indicate that the horse has musculoskeletal pain.

The study, on 150 horses presented for investigation of poor performance, found that most of the horses initially had scores of eight or more of the behaviours, although “lameness in the conventional sense was low-grade or absent”. There was substantial reduction in the RHpE scores after the nerve-blocking.