Why Does My Horse Keep Tripping or Stumbling?
WHY DOES MY HORSE KEEP
TRIPPING OR STUMBLING?
Sometimes the toe is the problem. Sometimes the toe is only the clue.
Before We Get Started - I Am Not Pretending to Be Your Vet
This is another one of those articles where I want to say this right from the beginning: I am not diagnosing your horse, and I am definitely not pretending to be your veterinarian. I do not want to piss the vets off because, quite frankly, we need them. They are important to our horses, they are important to me, and there are absolutely times in this article when I am going to tell you to stop guessing and call yours.
And while we are making friends, I am not trying to piss off your farrier either. Man, their job is tough. They spend their day bent over under a thousand-pound animal that can decide at any moment that today is the day it needs to swat a fly with the exact leg the farrier is holding. It is physical, dangerous work, and a good farrier is worth hanging onto.
So let us not turn this into the vet-versus-farrier-versus-trainer game. The horse does not care who gets the credit. The horse just wants us to figure out why the darn foot keeps catching the ground. Let us work as a team on this one.
Is the horse simply catching a toe once in a while, or is there a pattern telling us something about the foot, the body, the nervous system, the rider - or several of those things together?
Yes, Start With the Feet
The obvious place to start is the feet. Are the toes too long? I see this on a regular basis. If I see eight horses in a day from completely different barns, I can pretty much guarantee that several of them are going to have toes longer than I would like, underrun heels, heels that have become too long, or four feet that seem to have four completely different opinions about what shape and angle they would like to be.
Now, before everybody starts pointing at the farrier, that does not automatically mean the farrier did a crappy job. There are a lot of reasons a hoof can become distorted. Conformation matters. Previous injury matters. How the horse loads the limb matters. The surface the horse lives and works on matters. Growth rate changes with season, diet and the individual horse, and sometimes the simplest answer is that the horse just needs to be done sooner.
Yes, sometimes not enough toe has been taken back. Sometimes the horse grows foot like it is being paid by the inch. Sometimes an owner is trying to stretch the schedule a little too far because life is expensive. But having the feet done every six months and then wondering why your horse looks like he is wearing bedroom slippers is not really a mystery we need Sherlock Holmes for.
Personally, I look at my barefoot horses about every three to four weeks, and if they are shod I am usually working around six weeks, depending on the horse, the season, the hoof and what that horse is doing. That is not me handing you a magic schedule for every horse on earth. It is me saying that the feet need to be looked at often enough that we are maintaining them rather than repeatedly trying to rescue them.
If your horse has started catching the front toes, look at all four feet. Take side pictures and front pictures. Compare the hoof-pastern angles. Is one foot more upright? Is one toe running farther forward? Are the heels starting to run under? Is one hoof capsule distorted compared with the other three? Sometimes we get so used to seeing our own horse every day that the foot changes right in front of us and we stop noticing.
Different does not automatically mean wrong, and a photograph does not diagnose a hoof. It simply gives you something more useful to discuss with your farrier and veterinarian.
Sometimes You Need to See What Is Going On Inside the Foot
Here is another thing I really want horse owners to understand. Sometimes your farrier is looking at a difficult foot and trying their absolute best to improve it, but there is only so much information you can get from staring at the outside.
Maybe the toe keeps running forward. Maybe one heel continually collapses. Maybe the hoof capsule looks distorted, one foot grows completely differently than the opposite foot, or the farrier keeps making changes but just cannot seem to get that foot where everyone wants it. That does not automatically mean the farrier is doing something wrong. Sometimes there is a reason that foot keeps growing the way it does, and we do not truly know what we are dealing with until we look inside.
This is where I absolutely love getting the veterinarian involved and getting those pretty little X-rays. Seriously, those pictures can be worth their weight in gold. Radiographs can give your veterinarian and farrier a much better idea of the relationship between the hoof capsule and the bones inside it, the position and angle of the coffin bone, sole depth, heel and toe relationships and whether there are bony changes that may affect how that foot needs to be managed.
Now your farrier is not working completely from the outside and trying to guess what is happening underneath. They have a map, and I like maps. If they have been fighting with the same foot for months, imagine how useful it is for the vet and farrier to be able to look at a picture together and say, "Okay, this is what is actually sitting inside this hoof. This is how much sole we have. This is the angle we are trying to work with."
Sometimes the X-rays also tell us that the foot is not as simple as we hoped. Maybe there are changes involving the coffin joint, navicular region, coffin bone or another structure that needs veterinary management. And remember, radiographs are fantastic for bone and internal hoof relationships, but they do not show every soft-tissue problem hiding inside the foot.
That is why I hate the vet-versus-farrier mentality. Why are we choosing teams? We need both of them. The veterinarian can investigate pain and image what is happening internally. The farrier can use that information to make better mechanical decisions over time. The owner gets to do their part by keeping the schedule appropriate instead of phoning when the feet look like canoe paddles.
If the farrier keeps struggling with the same hoof, would radiographs help us understand what we are actually working with?
What If the Foot Is Fine, but the Horse Still Cannot Find It?
Once we have looked at the obvious things - hoof balance, trim schedule, pain in the foot itself and radiographs when they are warranted - then I want to start thinking about something completely different. Does the horse actually know where that foot is?
That sounds like a funny question because obviously the foot is attached to the horse, but the nervous system has to constantly know where every limb is in space and what it is doing. That awareness is part of what we call proprioception. Sensory information is constantly travelling from muscles, tendons, joints and skin toward the spinal cord and brain, while motor information is heading back out telling the muscles what needs to happen next.
Think about yourself. Have you ever had one leg fall asleep and then tried to stand up? You know perfectly well the leg belongs to you, but for those first few seconds it feels like somebody replaced it with a pool noodle. Suddenly a movement that normally takes no thought becomes awkward and clumsy. I am not saying your stumbling horse has a numb leg; I am showing you how much we rely on sensory information without ever thinking about it.
The horse is doing this every single stride with four limbs, a spine, a neck and a rather large body moving through space. Then, because apparently that was not enough of a job already, we climb on top. Now the horse has to coordinate all of that while carrying our weight and compensating for our balance too.
The Body Has Little Reporters Everywhere
This is where we can introduce some of my favourite little anatomy geeks: muscle spindles and Golgi tendon organs. Do not panic. I am not turning this into a neurology exam.
Muscle spindles help provide information about muscle length and changes in length. Golgi tendon organs provide information related to tension and force. Along with sensory information from joints and skin, they help the nervous system understand what the body is doing and what needs to happen next.
I like to think of them as little reporters sending messages back to headquarters: "Left front is here. Muscle is stretching. More tension through this tendon. Ground changed. Adjust." Most of that is happening without the horse consciously thinking about it.
If something interferes with that information getting back properly, or interferes with the motor response going back out, movement can become less accurate. Now we may see a horse drag a toe, place a foot awkwardly, stumble, scuff the ground or simply look a little clumsy.
This is one of the reasons veterinarians pay so much attention to gait and foot placement during a neurological examination. Backing, tight turns, slopes, different footing and changes in head position can sometimes make weakness or coordination problems easier to see. Again, none of those observations diagnose the horse from the barn aisle. They tell the veterinarian where to look next.
Is It Nerve, Pain, Weakness... or Something Else?
This is where things get tricky, because stumbling does not automatically equal a neurological problem. Pain can change movement too. A horse with a sore foot may shorten the stride and protect that limb. A horse with discomfort through the back, pelvis or hind limb may alter how the leg swings and clears the ground. Weakness can look clumsy. Fatigue can look clumsy. And true neurological problems can also cause poor coordination, toe dragging and abnormal placement.
Do you see why I keep telling you not to diagnose from one sign? The stumble is the clue. It is not the answer.
If the feet look good, I start looking higher. What is happening through the limb? What is happening through the shoulder? What is happening through the cervical spine? Is there pain? Is there muscle loss? Is the horse weak? Is the horse fine on a straight line but falling apart when turning? Is one side consistently worse? Is this something new?
The big thing here is pattern. A horse that catches a toe once while gawking at a cow is a very different story from a horse that is suddenly stumbling every ride, dragging the same toe and becoming awkward on turns.
Fatigue Can Make the Story Much Clearer
Another thing I want owners to notice is when the stumbling happens. Is the horse awkward walking out of the stall, or does everything look lovely for the first fifteen or twenty minutes and then the feet start getting lazy as the ride goes on?
Those are different stories. A horse that becomes more clumsy as the body fatigues may not have the strength or postural endurance to maintain the same quality of movement for the length of the ride. That does not mean we ignore it, but it gives us another clue.
Think about yourself again. If I made you hold a squat until your legs were shaking and then asked you to walk elegantly down a flight of stairs, I am willing to bet your foot placement might become a little questionable too. You would probably trip over something approximately one inch high and then turn around and blame the stairs.
Now imagine a horse travelling heavily on the front end, pulling with the neck and shoulders, not organizing the hindquarters well and then carrying a rider for forty-five minutes. At some point something is going to get tired. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is stop while the horse is still moving well instead of spending another half hour practising poor movement because the clock says the ride should be an hour.
Conditioning should improve the quality and duration of good movement. It should not simply make the horse very fit at compensating.
What Changes When the Rider Gets On?
Now let us say you have watched the horse in hand. You have looked at the feet, watched the horse walk straight, back up and move on a large circle, and everything looks fairly decent. Then you get on and suddenly the horse starts tripping.
Well, now I am interested, because we just added several things to the equation at once: a saddle, a rider, extra weight, different balance, different posture and usually more work. The horse did not suddenly forget how to pick up the feet in the thirty seconds it took you to mount. Something changed when we climbed on, and that is worth paying attention to.
First, Look at the Saddle
A saddle that is not working well for that horse can change how the back and shoulder region are being used. If the horse becomes uncomfortable, shortens the stride, hollows the back or protects one side, the rest of the movement pattern changes too.
I am not saying every stumble means your saddle is terrible. Please do not march into the tack room, set fire to the saddle and tell everybody Shantel told you to. What I am saying is that if the horse moves comfortably without the saddle and rider but consistently changes once saddled, the saddle deserves to be part of the investigation.
Remember that the horse changes. If there has been muscle loss, muscle gain, an injury, time off or a change in body condition, the saddle may not sit the same way it did six months ago.
And Then There Is Us
Now for the part riders love hearing: we might be part of the problem. I know. Shocking.
Most of us are not sitting up there perfectly centred with identical hips, shoulders, legs and hands. One hip may be tighter. One leg sits differently. Maybe you carry more weight through one seat bone. Maybe you have an old ankle, knee or back injury from several decades of making questionable decisions involving horses. Horse people tend to collect injuries like other people collect refrigerator magnets.
Then we climb on and add all of that asymmetry to the horse. If we continually shift the horse onto one shoulder, sit heavily to one side or ride with the upper body forward, the horse has to organize itself underneath us. If the horse is already weak or a little crooked, we may be adding just enough extra imbalance to make the front feet stop clearing the ground as cleanly.
Are You Putting the Horse Onto the Front End?
Some horses spend a tremendous amount of time travelling with too much of the work happening through the front of the body. Instead of the hindquarters contributing enough to forward movement and the abdominals helping support the spine, the horse starts pulling itself along with the front end.
Now add the rider. If the rider is also sitting forward, or the horse lacks the strength to organize the body underneath that added weight, we can shift even more load toward the front limbs. That horse now has the job of lifting the forelimbs while carrying more weight over them, and then we wonder why the toe catches.
The head and neck matter here too. I do not want the head forced down into a position, but I do want the horse able to use the head and neck naturally as a counterweight while the rest of the body participates. If the horse is braced through the neck, hollow through the back and dropping heavily through the front, the forelimbs have a much harder job.
Terrain Can Expose Things Too
Notice where the stumbling happens. Does the horse struggle more downhill? Does uneven ground make it worse? Does deep footing expose toe dragging? Is the horse completely fine on a firm straight surface but clumsy on a circle? Each situation challenges balance, strength and coordination differently.
This is useful information if you do end up talking with your veterinarian, farrier, bodyworker, trainer or saddle fitter. "My horse trips sometimes" does not give them much. "He is fine in hand on firm ground, but after twenty minutes under saddle he starts catching the right front more often, especially downhill" gives the team something much more useful to work with.
When a Stumble Becomes Something I Would Not Ignore
Every horse is going to catch a toe once in a while. Maybe the footing changed, maybe the horse was busy staring at something in the bushes instead of watching where the feet were going, or maybe there was a little hole in the ground. One stumble by itself does not always mean we need to call an emergency meeting in the barn aisle.
What gets my attention is when I start seeing a pattern. If the stumbling is becoming more frequent, if the horse is actually falling, if the same limb consistently seems to be the problem, if the toes are being dragged, if the horse seems weak behind, or if turning and backing suddenly look awkward, then I am paying much closer attention. I am also watching those horses that give you that strange feeling that the body is moving but everything seems half a second behind.
That is when I stop trying to outsmart the problem and get the veterinarian involved. There is a big difference between helping a weak horse become stronger and exercising a horse that has an undiagnosed painful or neurological condition. Sometimes we need a veterinary exam, radiographs, nerve blocks, blood work, neurological testing or additional imaging depending on what the veterinarian finds.
And sometimes, after all of that, the answer really is beautifully boring. "The toes were too long." Perfect. Fix it, change the schedule, and carry on with life.
What I do not love is spending six months trying every pole exercise known to mankind while the horse is still tripping over its own feet because we never stopped long enough to figure out why. And despite what Brenda at the coffee pot may tell you, nobody standing in the barn aisle has X-ray vision.
Do Not Just Fix the Stumble
This is probably the biggest thing I want you to take away from this article. Do not just look at the moment the horse tripped. Look at the whole picture around it.
Look at the feet and the trim schedule. Look at the hoof angles and whether one foot is wearing differently. Look at whether one toe is dragging. Look at whether the horse trips in hand or only when ridden, and whether it gets worse with fatigue. Watch what happens on circles, hills, uneven ground and after the horse has been working for a while.
Then look higher. What are the shoulders doing? What is happening through the neck and back? Is the horse travelling too heavily on the front end? Is there weakness behind? Is the saddle changing the way the horse moves? Is the rider collapsing forward or loading one side more than the other? Sometimes the answer is sitting right in front of us, and sometimes it is sitting on top of the horse wearing breeches.
If there is a foot that just never seems to improve, or your farrier keeps fighting the same distortion, those little X-rays can be incredibly valuable. Why keep guessing what is happening inside the hoof capsule when the vet can give the farrier an actual picture to work from?
Do not ask only, "Why did my horse trip?" Ask, "Why did that foot fail to clear the ground?" That question opens up the whole horse.
A Quick Disclaimer Before Everyone Starts Doing Neurological Exams in the Driveway
This article is meant to help you observe your horse more carefully. It is not meant to diagnose your horse, replace your veterinarian, or convince you that every horse that catches a toe has a horrible neurological disease.
Please do not read this, watch your horse stumble once on the way to the water trough and decide the horse has a spinal cord disorder before supper. That is not what I am saying.
What I am saying is that repeated stumbling, falling, weakness, significant toe dragging, unusual foot placement, worsening coordination or any sudden change in the way the horse moves deserves more investigation. Those are the times when your veterinarian needs to be part of the conversation.
Your farrier is part of that team too. If the hoof is difficult, distorted or simply not improving the way everyone expects, talk to both of them about whether radiographs or other veterinary investigation would help. Remember, an X-ray is incredibly useful, but it is not a crystal ball and it does not show every soft-tissue problem. Sometimes the investigation needs to go farther.
The point is not to become your horse's veterinarian overnight. The point is to recognize when you have enough information to train and when you need more information before you do.
Still Looking at Your Horse Thinking, "Okay Shantel... Now What?"
If you have read this whole article and are now standing in the paddock staring at your horse's feet like they have suddenly become the most complicated objects on earth, that is exactly where I can help.
A Whole-Horse Movement Assessment is designed to look at the bigger picture instead of handing you three generic exercises and hoping something magical happens. I want the history first. Has the stumbling always been there or is it new? Was there an injury? Has the horse had time off? When were the feet last done? Does one foot look different? Has the veterinarian looked at the horse? Has anything been X-rayed? Does the horse trip from the ground, under saddle, or only once fatigue starts to set in?
Then I want to see the horse move. I want to see where the feet are landing, what the shoulders are doing, how the horse backs, how the hindquarters are working and whether one side looks completely different from the other. I want to know what changes when we add a rider, because sometimes the horse tells us one story from the ground and an entirely different one once we climb on.
Sometimes I can give you simple exercises to help improve strength, coordination, body awareness and movement. Other times I may tell you, "Nope, I want the veterinarian to look at this before we do anything else." I am perfectly comfortable saying that. I would much rather send you to the vet than give you an exercise just so I look clever.
Private Session Options
| Session | Time | Price (CAD) |
|---|---|---|
| Initial Whole-Horse Movement Assessment | 60 minutes | $175 |
| Private Follow-Up Lesson | 30 minutes | $95 |
| 3-Lesson Progress Package | 3 x 30 minutes | $255 |
| 4-Lesson Progress Package | 4 x 30 minutes | $330 |
And if you started this article thinking, "My horse just trips a little," and somehow ended up fascinated by hoof balance, radiographs, proprioception, nerves, rider balance, muscle fatigue and the way one foot can affect the entire body... welcome to my world.
This is exactly why I love teaching through the Canadian Equine Therapy Institute. Once you start looking at the horse as a whole system, you stop asking only, "What part hurts?" and start asking, "Why is the body moving this way?" That is when things get really interesting.
And yes, sometimes after all that detective work the final answer is still, "Your horse needed his toes done." Which is humbling, but also kind of perfect.
