The recent article by Stormy May about the horse's back really got me thinking, wow, should we never ride our horses? This has been a huge issue for me ever since. So I have been on somewhat of a mission myself to get answers. The basis of the article seems to be the studies done by Dr. Joyce Harman. For me these left a lot more questions. What types of saddles were used in the testing, what kind of riders, what shape were the horses in to start with etc…?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know I have seen horses that have been used extensively for riding and they seemed to have no issues with their backs, no muscle wasting, even into their older years. So how is this explained?

I recently spoke with a saddle maker who is extremely knowledgeable about saddle fit and design. He was familiar with Stormy’s article as well as the research behind it. Overall he was in agreement. If you put poorly constructed saddles on horses with riders who don’t understand straightness in the horse and how to be in balance themselves, and then are not riding in collection, teaching the horse how to carry a rider and building their strength slowly, you are going to end up with results in these tests. Horses with sore backs and compromised blood flow. While this may describe a great many horse owners out there, does it mean that it is not possible to ride horses in a way that is not compromising them physically?

First of all, I want to applaud you for taking it upon yourself to find your own answers, that was the spirit that led to the research behind the back article in the first place. The Nevzorovs seemed to have come up with a conclusion that was pretty far removed from the horse world that I grew up in. I needed to find out for myself if riding compromised a horse’s well being.

My research had three different facets, one of which was doing research at the vet school library at University of California, Davis, the second was to travel to Russia to see Alexander and his horses and his students’ horses, and the third was to test it out on my own three horses for the period of one year.

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