So, if something doesn’t seem quite right about your horse, but you are not sure if it is due to a musculoskeletal issue or something else, here are some suggestions on how to perform a basic lameness assessment. In addition, there are other health problems that can mimic subtle lameness, making identification and diagnosis quite challenging. Identifying, diagnosing and managing a low-grade musculoskeletal issue is important because a slight injury can progress towards a more serious and damaging problem if not caught in the early stages. Lameness can be, to some extent, “in the eye of the beholder.” While a light pleasure/hack horse can get along quite well with significant issues such as heel pain syndrome or hock spavin, and would not be considered lame for their intended purpose, the same lesions would quickly cause limping and performance issues in a more intensively trained show or race horse.
Pain in the body can result in a wide array of signs, from something obvious, like a sudden head nod or limp, to a more subtle and inconsistent change in performance.
