when a horse falls ...

​When a horse suffers a fall during a race, whether it be on the flat or over jumps, and Ed Chamberlain or someone else declares after the race that the ‘horse is fine,’ take that statement with a pinch of salt. Ed speaks with good intentions, wanting to put people at their ease, easing their fear that the horse might be injured, but he cannot know with any degree of certainty that ‘the horse is fine’, 100%. The trainer will not breathe a sigh of relief until the horse is trotted-up the next morning and even then they, the trainer and owner, will not be out-of-the-woods as it sometimes takes days or even weeks for deep-seated bruising to make itself visible. Or worse, the misalignment of the skeletal structure of the horse.
A horse weighs half-a-ton. You only truly appreciate the weight of a horse until it stands on your foot or you witness the damage they can do to a car if they should lean on one. When a horse falls during a steeplechase there is a fair bit of deceleration before the horse collides with the ground and that can make the impact like hitting a wall and which can be far worse when the ground is firm than when it is soft and the horse can slide on the grass, reducing the force of the impact. A horse may be half-a-ton of coiled and springy muscle but it is also soft-fleshed and with bones easily susceptible to injury from hair-line cracks to severe fracture.
Is it any wonder a horse can lose its form and go from promising novice to a horse seemingly unable to finish a race after a fall, even one that seems innocuous? Or the other way around, a horse that has shown no worthwhile form suddenly becoming a winner when transferred for whatever reason to a new yard. I would guess in the first instance the horse was assessed by the trainer, perhaps even the vet, to be sound when imperceptible it was not, and in the second instance the new trainer or owner had the horse looked-at by chiropractor who discovered skeletal misalignment and after a series of treatments the horse improves on the gallops and at the races with marked effect.
Think of those aches and pains we all suffer, especially as we get older. When they first occur how many of us seek treatment, either from a doctor (a waste of time, in my opinion) or chiropractor? Not many of us, I would suspect. Of course, you must receive treatment from a skilled and experienced practitioner. I have had a neck problem for more years that I care to remember. After suffering the intermittent pain for decades, I finally, on recommendation of someone who has used the man for years, to seek a solution. He said, it was not my neck that was the problem but my shoulder. I knew him to be wrong but went for treatment on two further occasions. The problem persisted. Eventually I went to my doctor you passed me on to a N.H.S. chiropractor who assessed my situation, offered a couple of exercises to carry out on a daily basis and lo and behold my neck is 90% improved. If it stiffens up, I revert to the exercises.
To return to horses. Equine chiropractors can be a further expense to be added to the horrendous monthly training fees but the owner who refuses the request to have a chiropractor treat his or her horse is misguided. I remember standing outside a stable while a renowned equine chiropractor from up north treated – he wanted to be alone with the horse – a horse that was stiff in his quarters. The man came out of the stable – I cannot remember his name – stated that ‘we would have no further problems with the horse’ and went on his way. I would like to say that the horse went on to win races but fate took away that development, though the horse was sound and free-moving in the days after his treatment.
I have also witness horses sigh with relief whilst being treated by a chiropractor.
In a fair and equitable world every horse would be assessed by a chiropractor on a regular basis, and certainly after suffering a fall. But the world is not a bowl of cherries, as they say. Also, there is an apparent shortage of trained equine chiropractors. All of this came to mind after reading a feature in today’s Racing Post on an Irish and greatly revered chiropractor by the name of Ted McLaughlin. I would hope that owners reading the article will engage his or her trainer on the subject in regard to a horse that may have shown no form or has lost its form. One visit from a trained chiropractor might change lives, and for a relatively small amount of money when compared to all the other expenses incurred by the ownership of a racehorse.