What is ‘bridle lameness’?

HAVE you ever had a situation where your horse is perfectly sound on the ground, but when you ride, their stride becomes irregular, short and hindquarters don’t track up?

A ‘bridle lame’ horse looks and feels unsound when ridden, but shows no heat, no musculo-skeletal symptoms and no other symptoms that could possibly cause the lameness. The lameness shows up only when ridden.

Unlike the name suggests, the lameness isn’t caused by the bridle…

When we work our horses through and into a contact, part of the process is showing our horses how to move freely within the restraint of the aids. If our horses feel contact, but are not yet accepting or working into that contact, it can create tension and restrictions in the range of movement. They can brace into their body to balance against the bit pressure instead of feeling the bit pressure and lifting into it.

This can cause pressure on the mouth. As discussed in previous articles, the tongue, via the Hyoid apparatus, connects into the neck via the Omohyoid muscle, which originates on the inside of the scapula (shoulder); the Sternohyoid muscle, which originates on the sternum, and the Sternothyroid muscle, which also originates on the sternum. The Hyoid Apparatus is a delicate structure and can be injured, misaligned or even fractured. A bit that causes restriction of the tongue will restrict the movement of the hyoid and associated muscles, causing pain and tension in these muscle groups, affecting the whole myofascial chain and resulting in changes in movement.

Any tension or discomfort in the tongue will affect the neck muscles and temporomandibular joint (TMJ), in turn this will affect the shoulder, so blocking movement. A blocked shoulder, will in turn cause the back to hollow and block movement in the hindquarters, so the abdominal muscles will not be engaged.

When our horses ‘balance against the bit’, they use parts of their body that impede their true balance from their core and centre of gravity. They do this by twisting at the poll, dropping the shoulder or the hip or bracing their underneck. All these actions affect our horses’ ability to move functionally and ‘work over the back’, i.e. work with good posture and freedom of movement. Add to that the human on the back, which they have to carry, which isn’t necessarily always balanced itself and changes the horse’s centre of gravity and how they have to carry themselves.