The Head Shy Horse, a theme many of us know all too well! What if I told you that maybe your horse wasn’t head shy but that they just had a very sore head! A cold Thursday morning in Kildare as I travelled to see and treat Lola…Lola is a 7 y/o NH racehorse whom I first met in early 2013. What jumped out and stuck with me when I first met Lola was how head shy she was! She couldn’t tolerate me being near her ears, poll, or even from mid-way up her neck. She was guarded, suspicious and apprehensive. I asked her owner about it and he said, “she’s always been like that”; she’s home bred so he would know. Charlie’s a great guy so was open to my opinion that most head shy horses are like that because of pain and tension in their poll. It’s my belief, from my training and experience, that all pain, via compensation, at some degree ends up at the poll. Let’s look at some of the mechanics in the horse’s body to get an understanding of how the poll can come under pressure and develop this pain. We know the poll … Continue reading The Head Shy Horse