Managing Your Horse's Joints With Injections

Medical experts weigh in on this common practice.

- Karen Brittle

As humans who spend our days riding and caring for 1,000-plus-pound animals, we may brush aside our own minor joint pains, treating symptoms by popping the occasional over-the-counter pain pill, soaking in a hot tub, drinking a glass of red wine or using a variety of sworn-by home remedies. While we may not be completely pain free, these kinds of minor aches and pains in humans can really seem to be more of a self care issue than a cause for medical intervention. It’s easy to believe that if the above holds true for us, it must also be true for our horses. However, the wear and tear on a horse’s joints, and perhaps most relevantly on the joints of a dressage horse training through the upper levels, is quite different from that placed on the joints of the average human or even of the horse engaged in less strenuous activity.

Dr. Scott Swerdlin, president of Palm Beach Equine Clinic, has been practicing veterinary medicine for more than 30 years and specializes in lameness in performance horses. According to Swerdlin, joint-care management is of particular importance for dressage horses. He explains, “In reality, I don’t know a horse who is competing at Prix St. Georges or higher who has not had routine medical joint support. The reason for that is what we’re trying to do in the sport. Rarely is a horse under 9 years of age performing any of the ‘Ps’ [piaffe, passage, pirouette] and, even at 9, it’s almost unheard of. Once they are intellectually able to perform these movements, they are already into their teens. It’s the athletic equivalent of me playing quarterback for the Jets at 60 years of age.”