Hey y’all, it’s Krista with SaddleBox and for today’s video I’m going to be discussing a few signs your horse might have to indicate discomfort.
So in general, horses are very good at hiding discomfort. Usually signs are very subtle, but when they do have signs of discomfort, especially during riding, you may notice increased swooshing of the tail. Now, some horses are just more sensitive and will have a lot of tail action going on, I have one personally, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her, she just loves to swoosh her tail and she does it in the pasture.
So watch your horse in the pasture, watch them when they’re being ridden to kind of indicate whether or not there’s a difference. But in general, if your horse doesn’t really swoosh their tail and they start swooshing their tail during riding, that might indicate that something is hurting them.
Another sign that a horse may be in pain is during colic, they constantly check and look at their stomach, so sometimes they have ulcers, or if the cinch is hurting them they’ll kind of look at it, and even pin their ears. So pinning their ears is another general sign that your horse is in pain. A lot of the time, if your saddle doesn’t fit them or your saddle is pinching their back, they will pin their ears and try to nip and stuff. That’s a great indicator that your saddle is hurting your horse.
Now, there are a few obvious signs of discomfort in horses. If they are obviously lame on one leg or you notice them limping or you can see some head-bobbing action going on in their gaits, that is an obvious sign that something is up, usually with the hoof or the leg when they are limping, but it could be something else.
So always have your vet out if you’re wondering if your horse is in discomfort or pain in any way. They can usually debunk that for you or you can usually find something that’s going on with them that you may have originally thought was a training problem, like say your horse starts pinning their ears at you while you’re riding them and you haven’t really seen that before and you think, oh they’re just being sassy, I’m going to keep riding them.
But in reality, maybe there’s actually something going on and you need to have a vet out. It may not be a training issue at all and they are actually in pain, and they are pinning their ears.
So just keep in mind if you are having an issue with your horse that you haven’t had previously and they’re kind of showing any of these signs, it might not always be a training issue, they might be in pain and it might be a good idea to have your vet out. I hope you guys enjoyed this and I’ll see you in the next video. Bye y’all.