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December 2007 • VOLUME 28 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
Bones: Basic Building Blocks Part ll: Stimulus of the Right Kind
Bones constantly build, rebuild, remodel and repair through the horse’s entire life. Bone is living tissue. Every step, every stress adds to their strength. Whether it is a shearing action such as clambering sideways, a torsion such as spinning round (and bucking you off!) or straight-on pressure from a gallop, every movement stimulates the bone cells to lay down stronger tissue. Bones need stimulus to build as well as rebuild. A young horse that lives on a quarter acre of lush flat meadow will not have the bone strength of one clambering up and down acres of hill country. That is why the Welsh ponies are such hardy strong sound little brutes, as are the mustangs that roam for miles on hard plains as youngsters. [One might also consider what we are doing to our two-legged youngstock: driven to school, plonked in front of electronic babysitters, games ‘too dangerous.’ Osteoporosis at 25? Quite a strong possibility.] Additionally, even in adult life, bones continually break down and re-grow. There are two different types of cells which have the job of breaking down old cells (osteoclasts) and building new ones (osteoblasts) so that bone is constantly regenerated. The seven ages of man may well come from the seven complete skeletons we go through! Bones can completely remodel, as one can see from a bad fracture: as long as the broken ends are brought together, the body will knit them into a callus which will eventually reshape - often nearly indistinguishable from the original. In order to grow, as well as regenerate, bones need nutrition and….stimulus. In our modern world, equine nutrition is highly developed, with a myriad of feedstuffs and supplements available. Long gone are the days of bran, oats and hay which gave a poor calcium/phosphorus ratio. [The Irish bred some of the best horses because their studs were on limestone soil which helped grow strong youngstock.] Now there are nutrition experts employed by almost every feed supplier to ensure good nutrient balance in their products and to advise customers on numerous feeding issues. Let’s leave that side to the experts. [Nutrition is not limited to minerals - calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, etc – of course. It works in conjunction with Vitamin D (fortunately most horses spend a fair time out-of-doors) and various hormones which rarely cause problems in horses.] But the other half of the story……….?
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