25/06/2025
The Road to ‘Kissing Spines’?
Further to our last post “The Influence of Diet on Posture”
Kissing Spines is polar opposite to a relaxed top-line. Being aware of contributing factors is key to not inadvertently starting down the road! Imbalances in the diet which affect nerve and muscle function are an over-looked cause!
Muscles convert chemical energy into mechanical energy, therefore any bio-chemistry disturbance which affects the contraction and release of muscles will show up in the horses posture and movement.
“Grass-affected” horses often manifest these imbalances in how they carry themselves. Unless addressed this becomes their ‘default posture’ and they are ‘upside-down’ both on the lunge and under saddle, despite meticulous care with saddle-fit, body-work, quality riding and hours of ‘correct work’.
When it goes on for years it is not hard to see how it can lead to back problems and kissing spines.
Performing even simple exercises is more difficult and takes more time than would be expected of a ‘green’ horse. It causes many a horse owner to wonder what is going on because this same horse was not ‘travelling hollow’ a few months ago.
Lunging (without any influencing gear) is a good way to check your horse’s ‘default’ posture.
When there are no problems he will soon settle (if fresh) and offer to extend his neck out and look where he is going. Strides will be fluid and long, transitions up and down will be smooth. (See the photo of the dark bay horse, Axel).
When the long top-line muscles repeatedly hold the ‘hollow’ posture over time, the tips of dorsal processes of the spinal vertebrae come closer together and eventually can impinge on each other – “Kissing Spines”.
Because this biochemistry aspect of nerve and muscle function is not recognised, the advice given to remedy is to use the pessoa, draw reins, leverage bits or martingales, trotting poles and cavaletti.
But if you look at the problem through a different lens you would address the horse’s diet FIRST.
This is because use of any physical apparatus to encourage the horse to engage the muscles located below the spine (abdominal & ileo-psoas, ie his core muscles) WHILE the muscles located above the spine (top-line) are ALREADY, albeit involuntarily, engaged, puts the horse in an impossible situation.
The horse simply CANNOT volunteer to release his top-line muscles - a necessary prerequisite to engaging his core muscles.
In other words both sets of muscles cannot be used at once. It is an indication something ‘isn’t right’ if you need to resort to gadgets.
Far better to correct the diet, give him TIME to recover so he is ABLE to offer a relaxed posture on the lunge, a really good indication that you have the diet right and can proceed. Time frames vary from 1-3 months.
It is especially critical to address diet BEFORE you go down the road of corticosteroid injections into the spaces between the vertebrae or into the SIJ. In the vast majority of cases, they turn out to be completely unnecessary and meanwhile use of steroids puts the horse at risk of laminitis.
Read up on the subject here: https://www.calmhealthyhorses.com/musculo-skeletal
Photo: Classic posture of the 'grass-affected' horse
For help with feeding for a relaxed top-line fill out the Enquiry Form:
https://forms.wix.com/70c7cae9-bec0-444a-b26e...
