A horse’s neck makes up about six percent of its body weight and consists of seven cervical vertebrae, along with muscle, tendons and ligaments. It has the greatest mobility of any part of the axial (or spinal) skeleton, giving it unique qualities and characteristics that play to the horse’s advantage—and disadvantage— as a ridden animal.
How It Functions The most mobile of the neck’s segments is the poll or atlanto-occipital joint, which attaches the skull to the first cervical vertebrae or atlas. It has the greatest ability for flex- ion and extension. The second neck joint, the atlanto-axial joint, allows the greatest degree of rotation. Both joints perform functions important to a highly visual prey animal who needs to see everything it can to protect its life. When working as a team of joints, the rest of the neck has a full range of mobility in flexion and extension, side bending and rotation, enough so that the horse can, as we all know, turn its head to face its rear. When working in concert with the rest of the skeleton, the neck function is mobility as opposed to the back which is designed more for stability. This distinction is valuable in understanding the use and health of the neck. “The key function of the neck is to sustain optimal neuro-
logical functions for the balance and visual systems of the horse, while allowing a large range of motion in different directions, demonstrating a different design than the back. The neck joints are much larger than those in the back and are the size of a pinky finger tip. The neck joints are concave; the back joints are more congruent, fitting together closely, again for stability,” explains Dr. Nicole Rombach, MSc (large and small animal chiropractic) and PhD from the College of Veter- inary Medicine at Michi- gan State University. Her doctoral thesis focused on the structural basis of equine neck pain. She and Dr. Narelle Stubbs are the founders of Equicore
Dr. Nicole Rombach, MSc, focused on the structural basis of equine neck pain for her doctoral thesis at Michigan State.
20 May/June 2017
By Patti Schofler
Concepts, developer of products designed to strengthen a horse’s core and includes the Equiband system. The top two vertebrae, the atlas and the axis, are
designed a bit differently than the rest and work to support and move the head. The other five—some of the longest vertebrae in the horse’s body—curve downward to the underside of the neck in an S-shape and to the chest, where they attach to the adjacent thoracic vertebral processes that point upward to form the wither. The structure of the neck allows the horse to put its
head down to graze and swivel to spot predators. Humans, however, ask more of the horse’s neck than to assist the animal in eating and protection.
The Neck in Sport For the high-level jumping horse, cervical mobility is an important advantage, explains Dr. Carrie Schlachter, DVM, medical director at Circle Oak Equine in Petaluma, Cali- fornia, and owner of the Circle Oak sports medicine prac- tice. Dr. Schlachter also holds chiropractic and acupunc- ture certification , is diplomate of the American College of Equine Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation and is an FEI- certified veterinarian for the jumping division. “The body follows the head. Jumpers need a lot of cervical mobility to jump the big jumps. They need to telescope the head over the jump and have the flexibility to move their head and neck wherever they want while they are jumping.” A neck set relatively high on the shoulders and somewhat longer provides more leverage for the jumper. Dr. Schlachter
Dr. Carrie Schlachter, DVM, from Peteluma, California.
Courtesy Dr. Schlachter
Courtesy Dr. Rombach
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