On this page you can read information about navicular disease.

 

THE CAUSE: WRONG TRAINING       Navicular disease or podotrochleosis was until recently one of the most severe and least understood problems that there was in equine sport. Luckily, it is now possible to treat and prevent navicular disease, thanks to our training method. Our many years of experience has taught us that navicular disease and lameness are almost always the result of incorrect training. There are people who have 3 or 4 horses with navicular consecutively, while others have trained hundreds of horses without having any problem with it. Coincidence? The secret of our training? Put your horse right and ride him forwards! Most of the lameness problems are caused by the fact that every horse has a natural curve, either to the left or right.   Riders unconsciously reinforce this natural curve, which the horse has while being ridden and will even adapt their body to compensate for this and because of this, the horse will then become even more crooked.  This then results in tension in the back. It gets even worse when the rider tries to ride the horse with his head low without having him straight in his body.  Dr. Reiner Klimke said: “only a straight horse lets itself collect.” If a rider doesn’t know how to get a horse straight, the horse can never use his hindquarters well and there becomes too much weight on the forehand. But how often do we see a rider trying to pull the head of the horse down with riding aids such as a martingale and draw reins or with too strong use of the hand?  If the rider then tries to collect the horse, all the pressure and weight goes to the front legs, the legs then become overstressed and the horse goes lame. Consequently because the hoof is the weakest part of the chain, symptoms show here first. This can go from degeneration of the navicular bone, to inflammation of the bursa of the navicular joint. In many of these cases, the veterinary struggles to find anything abnormal with the horse and therefore diagnoses clinical navicular. Navicular disease is a result of the incorrect use of the back, this is because the rider is not aware of the natural curving of the horse and therefore doesn’t put the horse correct and straight, which then leads to tension. It is therefore impossible for the horse to get a good contact on the reins to collect, which results in too much pressure on the front legs. Contrary to belief, in a lot of cases of navicular a medical cause is not found but instead incorrect training has been found to be the cause. Because of the incorrect training, there is too much pressure being applied on the front legs. If the pressure continues, it is logical that inflammation and lameness will be the next step. Injecting the horse, letting it rest, giving it painkillers, back manipulation, giving the horse many types of medication, cutting through the nerves in the foot and orthopaedic shoeing are not the correct way to treat lameness and navicular. These treatments are of a symptomatic nature but do not treat the actual cause of the lameness.

THE SOLUTION: RIGHT TRAINING                        The solution for your horse is the right training. The results of our training can be outstanding. Even horses who have been lame for months or years, walk correctly in less then 15 minutes. With this type of training, there is much less pressure on the front legs, the pain goes almost instantly! Go to the Classical Horsemanship page to learn more about the training method. If you would like to bring your horse with navicular to us, I’d first like to let you know how we work: First of all, we look at the horse when he’s standing still. Than we look at the position of the pelvis, if one side is lower then the other side, it shows us exactly which front foot has too much weight.   After that, we then move the horse on a double lounge to see how much the horse is falling inside on the circle and then we start to put him straight in his balance to take away the excess of weight on the foot.   The next step is to explain and show the rider how to ride the horse and how to give the aids with his weight and reins.   With our method, the horses don’t only start to move better, they also become easier to handle. Because they are in less pain, it is logical that the horse starts to feel better in their body and their general health improves. When we deal with a lame horse, it is very important for us that the horse has been checked by a vet before. It only makes sense to come for a session with your horse when the vet has diagnosed navicular disease or when a veterinary has not been able to give a specific diagnosis and treatment for your horse’s problem. (Please note if the horse’s joints have been infiltrated by a veterinary, we cannot give any guarantee with our method)

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