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MARCH 2007 • VOLUME 19 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
Welcome to this two-part series on Proprioception and Horses, how it works and how we can help develop it in our horses. Poor proprioception can cause very real danger for the horse and for the handler as well. It can also create gait and movement problems. Helping our horses to have good proprioception is key to creating not only a successful horse in the show ring but has to be part of any good retraining project. First of all, let us
review what is proprioception and how it applies to us. Proprioception
is a sense other then sight, sound, taste, smell or touch. It is the
ability of the body to have awareness of itself, in position, in time
and in movement,
 information that comes from receptors that are in the muscles, tendons and joints. These receptors are in the form of muscle spindles which inform other neurons of the length of the muscle and velocity of the stretch. The other proprioceptor is called golgi tendon organ and is found where the tendons meet the muscles. There are also proprioceptors sending information to the nervous system from joints and ligaments. All of these provide this information that allows us to know without looking where our body is and what it's doing, and also provides us with feedback to maintain posture against gravity. Proprioception is often called the sixth sense and is often considered an unconscious sense versus the conscious senses of sight, sound, taste etc. Why unconscious? Unconscious because it encompasses so many areas of the body. The sensory information being processed is a constant and monumental amount, input coming in from all the muscle groups simultaneously, which could in effect become overwhelming and confusing for the conscious mind. By making this one of our unconscious system functions, this also allows for instantaneous response to the input. So what does proprioception do, not only for ourselves, but for our horses?
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