French stallion w/ ECVM

[Jackie_Cochran]

I had several horses in my life. I owned 2 VERY closely related pure Davenports and an Anglo-Arab that was probably the uncle (or something pretty close) of one of them.

I am sure my stallion did not have it, though for an Arabian he had a longish neck. The mare was short necked, and grazed in the position described in one of the articles.

The Anglo-Arab was the horse I trained the highest, he ended up super light in hand while staying in front of vertical, super light to my leg aids (me twitching my calf muscle) but my aids had to me EXACTLY RIGHT before he would give me any more advanced movement. He also had a delightful amount of impulse. His throatlatch was wonderful.

BUT he was demanding in one way. If I did not ask for a more advanced movement EXACTLY right as to timing and intensity his response varied from simply ignoring me, to showing irritation, to “You got to be kidding me lady” to “You unspeakable beyotch, get out of my face!” If my rein aid blocked his motion from the thrust of his hindleg I did not get what I wanted. I did not even get a bad imitation of what I wanted. At best I would get an absolutely horrible imitation of what I wanted which left me feeling completely humiliated and hopeless as a rider.

COULD this horse have been so uncooperative to my rein aids when I blocked his hindquarter thrust because he had a mild deformation at C6-C7? From the articles there is variation between horses that suffer this, some just lack a little bit of bone up to some lack significant amounts of bone and twisted processes. He showed some of the expected resistances to my rein aids until I honored his desire to never have his impulse blocked in any way, manner, or form. In other words he was a great, wonderful, responsive and generous horse so long as I timed my rein aids properly in relation to the thrust of his hind legs.

He taught me A LOT. And if I had persisted in trying to ride him in the “approved” so-so slap on the tight noseband, heavy contact, “you are going to obey me right now”, spur jabbing, spectacles now seen in competition I would have ruined him as a riding horse. I learned to work within his limitations.

[skydy]

Is there a translation from the French of the facebook post?

[Graymaresrule]

Not much in the post

Looking for a good home

𝗦𝝝𝗡 𝗛𝗜𝗦𝗧𝝝𝗜𝗥𝗘

• Zundance Malleret PS is a young stallion who was destined to join our breeding stallion catalogue, and start competing at 4 years old.
• Following the discovery of a genetic anomaly Zundance will unfortunately never be able to do sports.
Indeed, a very rare phenomenon, it misses the first two ribs, causing an irregularity in its locomotion.

We hope to find him a family where he can live happy days

The horse is absolutely not suffering from his “disability”
Will be neutered before leaving.

For more information on the details of his departure, do not hesitate to contact +33676655464

[wanderlust]

@Montanas_Girl

ECVM is most commonly found in large, fast-growing, long-backed/necked horses. In other words, the complete opposite body type of the typical Arabian. It can be found in just about any breed of horse but is far, far more common in TBs and warm bloods than Arabians.

It also has nothing to do with line breeding, unless one is line breeding specifically for the types of horses predisposed to developing ECVM.

You are confusing your acronyms. ECVM is a congential malformation where some degree of the structure of the 7th cervical vertebrae is transposed on to the 6th, with the first ribs also frequently being malformed. It is problematic because the muscles that typically attach to the ridges of the 7th vertebrae cannot do so as those ridges are actually on the 6th vertebrae.

ECVM is almost assuredly hereditary.

CVM, also know as wobblers, is what you are referring to here with long necks and growthy horses. CVM is not the same as ECVM. There are lines known to have wobbler horses, but it’s not been consistently reproduceable in studies. It is highly likely that there is complex combination of genetics + developmental environment that brings it on.

[Montanas_Girl]

Can you please provide a scientific reference for ECVM as a different pathology from CVM? I didn’t do an exhaustive search, but I can’t find anything from a non-layman’s/social media site.

[wanderlust]

ECVM= equine complex vertebral malformation
CVM= cervical vertebral myelopathy

Here it is referred to as ECCMV but is very clearly talking about what most people refer to as ECVM these days: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7222808/

Google Sharon May Davis, who has done exhaustive research on this. The equus-soma site also has quite a few research links in addition to their own thoughts/bone research.

I actually learned about this after my intermittently neuro horse’s CT myelogram was read by one of the top equine radiologists in the country. They state that the imaging does not show signs of compression aka wobblers… however, it does show EVCM with transposition of C7 onto C6, noting that the clinical implications of the malformation are not well understood at this time. It’s clear as day on the CT images.

The topic is actually really interesting reading or watching if you ever care to go down a rabbit hole, and explains a LOT about some of the struggles this poor horse had. The veterinary community has been slow to come on board on this, which is why it was very interesting that the radiologist both noted it and added the caveat, because I’ve also seen it referred to previously as a “normal anatomical variation.”

Here’s a great vid with Sharon May Davis discussing it: https://youtu.be/Szk4oSp_Rd4?si=xBCgXQfACYZ-ElH7

ECVM= equine complex vertebral malformation
CVM= cervical vertebral myelopathy

[Montanas_Girl]

@wanderlust

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7222808/

Thank you. This link was helpful. I followed it to a couple of other sources that were more clinical in nature.

I still think it is highly unlikely that every one of the horses the previous poster struggled to ride just happened to suffer from this one as yet not fully defined abnormality.

[Graymaresrule]

A horse with symptomatic ECVM will have gait anomalies because his muscles do not attach to bones as they should.

A horse with symptomatic CVM will have issues because nerves in his spine are more or less pinched.

The symptoms can be similar

Note: these are trends and tendencies not absolutes

[2tempe]

Cervical Vertebral Compressive Myelopathy (CVCM)

A good explanation.
@Montanas_Girl , I agree with you here. There are a number of things that present in similar fashion, (as I found out, see post above) and it is not a simple puzzle to solve.
CVM is a developmental defect and ECVM is a genetic thing. Many of the other options fall under the catagory of “S*** happens”
My horse has spinal compression - but due to arthritic changes, not a development defect.

[Jackie_Cochran]

I dug through my horse anatomy books and three of them had drawings of the C6 and C7 separately. I studied the pictures and compared them to the illustrations on the articles.

Not all horses have the full, absolutely dire malformation. In one of the articles she emphasizes that horses that have just a little bit of the malformation can be ridden with the rider taking care not to force the horse into stuff that he, the horse, just says “I can’t do this.” With mild cases the horse and rider can work together to keep on riding the horse with minimal danger/damage to horse or rider.

And I did some stuff right–24/7/365 turnout in pastures, often BIG pastures. When I could still trailride safely I did a whole lot of that. I give the horse the freedom to use his neck as he wants as long as his head is in front of vertical (ALWAYS) unless he is inverted, then I invite him to put his head down with the reins (NOT by pulling the head down.)

The horses I ride work with me to help both of us with our physical problems. The horses forgive me when my body messes up. In return when the horse tells me he can’t do something I go back in the training, work at getting his body fitter, and getting the horse relaxed so they can move better. The horses and I work together to ameliorate our handicaps. If the horse still says he can’t do something I back down, go on to work on other stuff, and only take it up again if the horse indicates that he might be able to work with me on the harder stuff.

I do not show. I do not ride dressage. I ride for physical therapy for my MS, and the training I do now is mostly to get the horse moving so that the horse helps me with my own walking on my own two feet (the horse’s back needs to swing and the horse has to push with his hind legs). If I did not ride I would be back in a wheelchair.

Swinging back. Light contact with the horse responding correctly to my rein aids (in conjunction with my leg aids.) I work on making the horse a better ride for the other riding students at the stable. My riding teacher is pleased with what I do and how I successfully brought 2 of her horses back into basic walk-trot usefulness and with how all the horses I ride there improve with contact.

I am not a dictator on horseback though I do expect obedience. We both work together and we both tend to benefit from my weekly (supposedly) 30 minute riding lessons.

I have never ridden a wobbler though so I have no basis of comparison between the two problems.

I do suspect that I have ridden horses with the milder forms of ECVM. From the articles the horses with the milder forms of ECVM can still be useful riding horses, at least for a while.

I just adapt to the horse and get the best ride I can get that day.

[avjudge]

@Jackie_Cochran

From the articles the horses with the milder forms of ECVM can still be useful riding horses, at least for a while.

Considering that the skeleton of Eclipse shows this deformity, at least according to several articles on ECVM, I would say this is an understatement! it has apparently been in Thoroughbreds for a long time, undetected.

[2tempe]

And if you read about the woman in Australia who has done much of the work on this, she was seriously threatened if she were to disclose the bloodlines in those TBs she found ECVM. I suspect that someday, this will become like the Fragile Foal Syndrome; do a test and disclose results of your breeding stallions.
BTW the woman also has some speculation that not all breakdowns on the track are what they seem. IE did a cervical/muscle problem cause the horse to take a bad step. Who knows…

[Graymaresrule]

The actions asked of a race horse are very different than those of a sport horse

[wanderlust]

@Montanas_Girl

I still think it is highly unlikely that every one of the horses the previous poster struggled to ride just happened to suffer from this one as yet not fully defined abnormality.

Agree, and suspect it is far more prevalent than we know about with varying degrees of impact from absolutely none to very significant in a small handful of horses.

[beowulf]

Are the threats factual or verified in any way? I remember someone saying this before and it turned out to be wahoo because the person claiming it also believed it was Northern Dancer. That theory doesn’t hold water too well considering that horse is recent and was never used in closed stud books that also suffer from it, like Arabians or some WB registries.

[2tempe]

I dont know if they are publicly verifiable but she did make the comment in a video interview that I heard.
But the wanting to suppress the information is no different than the WB breeders went through with Fragile Foal Syndrome or the QH people with HYPP.
In the TB world, dont they do necropsies on those that die at the track? I wonder if they actually take a look at those vertebrae during the process. That would be a great way to collect additional data.

[JenEM]

@beowulf

believed it was Northern Dancer. That theory doesn’t hold water too well considering that horse is recent and was never used in closed stud books that also suffer from it, like Arabians or some WB registries.

If you trace back Northern Dancer, and pretty much any modern popular TB stallion of that era, you end up with Eclipse back the line. Assuming the skeleton known as Eclipse 1) actually is the horse’s and 2) does actually show the malformation, you’d just as easily be able to say it’s an Eclipse problem as Northern Dancer/Man O’War/Secretariat/Phalaris/Bend Or/pick your common point of pedigree.

It would be very interesting to see a study of historical equine skeletons and see what of the “modern” malformations such as ECVM are present.

[beowulf]

@JenEM

If you trace back Northern Dancer, and pretty much any modern popular TB stallion of that era, you end up with Eclipse back the line. Assuming the skeleton known as Eclipse 1) actually is the horse’s and 2) does actually show the malformation, you’d just as easily be able to say it’s an Eclipse problem as Northern Dancer/Man O’War/Secretariat/Phalaris/Bend Or/pick your common point of pedigree.

It would be very interesting to see a study of historical equine skeletons and see what of the “modern” malformations such as ECVM are present.

Even Eclipse is not far enough back to explain how the disease is in biologically distinct registries like Arabians or WBs. It’s significantly more common in WBs than TBs; if it was from Eclipse, wouldn’t the inverse be true considering Eclipse’s enormous impact on the TB breed?

I don’t think 2tempe is lying, FWIW, I’m sure someone genuinely said they were threatened to suppress information. My skepticism is with that person. I believe we’ve even discussed that claim on COTH before.

Like other diseases, I don’t wonder if this malformation has been present in the horse since it was domesticated. That would explain how it is in various breeds with zero recent shared ancestry. It might even explain how the horse got domesticated at all - maybe the horses with missing ribs were easier to catch and break…

Does Sharon Davis put forth any peer reviewed studies? I remember watching several of her seminars and being fascinated. Her theories on the disease have been fully embraced by some rather interesting “biomechanic experts”, like Celeste – which may sully the underlying knowledge, however true.

[Angela_Freda]

And not much difference from the denials of issues with horses with hypp and DSLD/ESPA before those became better understood and better researched… And undeniable.

It was my experience with the DSLD/ESPA people that there was definitely hostility about the suggestions of prevalence in certain breeds from breeders and enthusiasts, sadly.
.

[jvanrens]

@2tempe

the QH people with HYPP.

HYPP was known as Impressive Syndrome for quite a while before there was a genetic test for it. It’s not like it was a secret.