6/ MAY 2023 THE RIDER MY SPIN:


By Susan Dahl. Have you heard of ‘Horseman


Syndrome’? It’s actually a thing. My first thought was are they talk- ing about a cowboy being bow- legged? LOL Scientific American released


an article in Mar/23 talking about a handful of skeletons found in Bul- garia that have this characteristic ‘tell’ of horseback riders. I didn’t know that was a ‘thing’ either. Ap- parently, we’ve been riding horses for over 5,000 years. Cool. Here is a link to the article:


Photo Credit: Pixabay


https://www.scientificamerican.co m/article/humans-started-riding- horses-5,000-years-ago-new-evi- dence-suggests/.


Horseman Syndrome as early as 3,500B.C.E. in Western Russia


Many of the skeleton remains


belong to the Yamnaya people, a nomadic tribe from the Ukrainian steppe, who have been long associ- ated with horses by archaeologists. These horsemen swept across much of Eurasia from modern-day west- ern Russia. These same people also influenced the Indo-European lan- guages spoken today. Ex. English, Celtic, Germanic, Spanish, Hindi, Russian and Persian. So in 2015, some DNA was se- quenced of these human bones to


Do You Have Horseman Syndrome? It's Not What You Think


So Horseman Syndrome is de-


tected by a pattern of marks on the skeleton that show an adaption to riding a horse - biomechanical stress caused by repeated move- ments. According to the article: “Horseman syndrome involves changes to the thigh bones, pelvis and lower spine.” “You use muscle groups in a way you usually don’t do in everyday locomotion”. Don’t we know it! Back to the bow- legged cowboy again. Lol The article doesn’t suggest any


cure or care for the still live horse riders but it’s interesting to know what our skeletons will show. Putting My Spin on a Sore


Back and Legs from Repetitive Riding


Reinersue Note the position of the legs to denote a horse rider.


around 3,500 BCE which archaeol- ogists set the date for horse domes- tication.


Oh, My Aching Bones “Bones are living tissue in liv-


ing creatures” where you can read life histories from bones. I knew that bone doctors like Temperance “Bones” Brennan (from the TV se- ries Bones) could read the bones for all kinds of forensic evidence.


@KISS Reiners About Susan Dahl Susan Dahl, ORHA/NRHA past multiple champion, writer, blogger, author and clinician, retired certi- fied professional horse trainer. Owner of Foundation Reining Training Centre in Durham, ON. She specializes in effective horse- manship, and reining. For more in- formation on her services: judging, clinics or resale horses, please con- tact her on facebook, her website: www.reinersuehorseman ship.com or reinersue@hotmail.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44