I hear a lot of people who are very resistant to any kissing spines found in a horse, and I wanted to share about one of my horses.
As a little background, I’ve become a lot more aware of KS in the past couple years, as I found out my green horse (5 at the time) as grade 4 KS and is now on a maintenance program for that (shockwave, mesotherapy, Equibands, etc.). His is pretty severe, but he is going well overall. I initially brought him in because I felt him get tight in his back, like a “hump” in his back, not for behavioral issues.
Since then I hear a lot of friends or clients say they would never buy a horse with kissing spines and how the horse is doomed for a life of pain and you’ll never be able to compete and blah blah.
So, yesterday, when I had my vet out (VEI, for those local to northern VA) for our heading-into-spring injections and soundness evaluation, I asked them to radiograph my coming 16yo Prelim/2* OTTB horse’s back. Out of curiosity. He has been Prelim over 20 times in his career and done two 2* events successfully. He is not the most correct in dressage (gets stiff in his poll, tight, etc.), but is a great tidy jumper and incredibly solid and saintly.
He ended up having Grade 1/2 KS in most of his back and some areas of Grade 3. Call that mild-moderate. His back had never been xrayed till this point in his life and he’s never had any special therapy or treatment for his back. He loves his job and has pricked ears the entire time we are jumping, especially XC. So, if you are out there vetting a green horse and it ends up showing kissing spines, consider that it bothers some horses and doesn’t bother others and to look at the whole picture.
I’ll let you know in about 5 years how the Grade 4 gelding ends up!