Does your OTTB have Kissing Spines? Read this

For starters, this is not an academic article assessing whether kissing spines are genetic or caused by development or being ridden at a young age. If you're reading this, and your horse already has kissing spines, frankly, it doesn't matter.

I'm writing this article having worked with many KS OTTBs and their humans over the years. I want to share with you what I've learned from the experience and the missing pieces in the general physical therapy/rehab programs that have affected the efficacy of the rehabilitation.

I want you to leave this article feeling empowered, hopeful, and with a roadmap to help your horse rehab for a strong topline and healthy, sustainable biomechanics.

[disclaimer]

If your horse has been assessed by a veterinarian and the KS diagnosis requires surgery, this is not a workaround, but the information I'm sharing WILL help you with the recovery process after the surgical procedure.

Let's dive in!

What is Kissing Spines?

Kissing Spines is a condition where the bony projections (called dorsal spinous processes) of the horse's vertebrae are too close together or even touching—hence the term "kissing." This often occurs in the thoracic (mid-back) region and can cause varying levels of discomfort, pain, and performance issues.

Signs of kissing spines can look like:

• Resistance to saddling or mounting

• Bucking, rearing, or girthiness

• Difficulty bending or collecting

• Behavioral changes under saddle

• Back soreness or tight muscles along the spine

The presence of KS can usually be confirmed with radiographs (X-rays), though physical signs and palpation often give early clues.

What does your vet have to say about your KS diagnosis?

Depending on the diagnosis, your vet might recommend:

• To reduce pain/inflammation: injections, shockwave, or in some cases, surgery (interspinous ligament desmotomy or bone shaving)

• Strengthen back and core: physical rehab and retraining

The focus of this article is the latter, physical therapy for the mind and body to build healthier, sustainable biomechanics.

The KS Rehab Roadmap

Your OTTB will never be able to use their back correctly if their adaptive posture and biomechanics offer them relief/avoidance of pain.

Let's imagine you have a knee injury and certain ways of moving cause pain in your knee. You unconsciously altered the movement of your hips as you walk to avoid this pain.

Next thing you know, you have back pain though because you're holding your spine funky to allow for the compensation in your stride. Your physical therapist starts correcting how you walk (as that's causing the back pain), but you soon realize that you cannot fix the walk because of the source issue, the knee.

After you got surgery on your knee, it's time to start the real PT. You are having difficulty changing the way you walk for fear of/anticipation of pain in your knee. Your body was reprogrammed to think your compensated gait was normal. This is ingrained in your muscle memory, and you have to think, really think, about the asymmetry in your gait. It's slow, proprioceptive work and requires a lot of concentration and fatigue of muscles you didn't know you had (and hadn't used).

Slowly but surely though, you do the work and reprogram your body to move in a more symmetrical, sustainable way. Your back stops hurting as the ripple effect from the knee injury was addressed.

This is the journey our OTTBs must go through.

The challenge is: how do we teach a horse to notice compensation in avoidance of pain, and motivated enough to reprogram their daily posture and movement patterns?

Most rehab programs address the pain/inflammation and strengthen the back, but they don't address the mental and motivational support horses need to reprogram their posture and biomechanics.

Here's my roadmap on KS rehab:

1. Remove the Pain:

   
   

   Depending on your vet's diagnosis, we have to address the degree of inflammation and discomfort present. This could be injections, NSAIDs, bodywork, laser, etc. There is a whole scope of modalities out there that can help with this area. Much of it will depend on what is available/reliable in your area, so listen to your vet, do your research and read your horse for what seems to offer the most relief.

2. Remove the Fear of Pain:

   
   

   "Fear of" is a very powerful motivator for all animals with a nervous system. When addressing this limitation, I like to start a conversation with the nervous system to create a "reflex to relax" before we get into the actual "fear of".

   Nervous system regulation is the ability for the body to let go of a stress response and return to mental and physical relaxation. It is the art of releasing tension from the mind and body.

   There are a lot of helpful resources out there on how to generate relaxation, and this is one of the first tools I teach in the OTTB Restart Online Program; it's so paramount to helping OTTBs release old patterns and behaviors from their past.

3. Address the Biomechanics

   
   

   Now that we have removed the acute pain/discomfort from our horse and have a baseline for what true relaxation and tension release look like, we can begin to reprogram the body to find a better, healthier way of going.

   Just like with our human example, the reprogramming has to happen through self-exploration, not pressure or force. Lunging gadgets and equibands can affect posture, but ultimately, the horse is simply avoiding pressure; remove the pressure, and the horse will use the compensatory muscles for the other 23 hours of the day.

   Through balance, relaxation, and connection, start highlighting changes in their physical posture. As they release tension from their mind and body, the tense/braced muscles will release as well, allowing the lifting muscle groups to

   activate.

   I like to look at pole-wither-croup alignment. This is better than long and low, as KS horses can drop their head without engaging their core/hind end (see note below).

   Once we have targeted this posture at the walk, we can begin to add more engagement to the hind end (think forward but not faster), stepping up more fully under the center of gravity and creating more pelvic rotation, core engagement, and therefore "lift" through the back and withers. This is better achieved through invitation and than pressure from a rope/whip.

Practice this pattern at the walk. Ninety percent of the work should be done at the walk!

This gait holds the most power and gives us the most room in between strides to adjust the balance, relaxation, and energy. As your horse gets stronger, we can begin to find it at the trot, then canter, over poles, with a saddle, and so on and so forth.

Another thing I look for is how soft the neck is. Without nerding out on muscle anatomy, notice when your horse's neck looks like a triangle versus an arch forward, as if the top of the neck is reaching forward to the pole with an open throat latch.

NOTE: If your horse does not explore, then there are still points of discomfort/pain inhibiting them. They will not actively put themselves in pain; they will always do everything in their power to avoid discomfort (even in lunging gadgets).

Next Steps

Your horse hopefully is now trending towards more correct biomechanics than brace mechanics. Think quality over quantity. It's more important that your horse does 10 steps of walk using the correct biomechanics than 15 minutes of walk, trot, and canter using the incorrect biomechanics.

If you're having trouble knowing when your horse is using their topline versus not, train your eye. Watch YouTube videos. Research the internet. Ask a local trainer to show you on one of their horses, etc.

Before you ride for the first time back, it's important to reassess the mental anticipation of pain associated with riding. Check that all the steps, saddling, mounting, etc., leading up towards riding don't undermine all the hard work you've put in to create a relaxed, tension-free partner.

The truth is...

I treat every OTTB that comes across my program as if they have kissing spines. Why? Because the rehab process I outlined above will benefit any horse that has old patterns and behaviors that are holding them back from finding a better way of going and being.

Everything about the ridden process is learned, none of it is natural for our horses. For many OTTBs there are things they need to "unlearn" or "relearn" and that is the goal of the restart process and what I've dialed in my OTTB Restart Online Program.

I believe every OTTB has the ability to be a happy, healthy, willing equine partner. It's up to us to notice their patterns and address them at their core so they can "relearn" a new, healthier way of interacting and existing in the world we create for them.

I hope this information has been helpful and given you direction and clarity on how to help your OTTB with kissing spines thrive once again.

If you want help rehabbing your KS OTTB or you want to take the guesswork and frustration out of the process, the step-by-step video modules in my program might just be the roadmap you need.

Stay Curious and Happy Partnerships!

"The complete 90 day guide to restarting your OTTB with simple, easy to follow steps for a thriving partnership and harmonious pursuit of your equine goals."

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