Thanks. Some interesting looking stuff.
I am all for a healthy dose of skepticism! If we don’t challenge things, we end up with a lot of Witches in the world… ironic because THW quite literally has found a way to weaponize social media in such a way to prevent herself from being publicly challenged.
In regards to ECVM… You’ve encouraged me to go and read up a little bit on it. It turns out my understanding of the malformation was incorrect. It’s not the facet joint that is affective but the transverse ridge, which is often missing in ECVM. Like all things, its a spectrum, and it appears that the reason some horses can have this anomaly and seem to not be affected while others are severely affected relies on the severity and how the malformation affects surrounding structures.
I think of it in human terms. You can have one person with a slight bulging disc that happens to hit a nerve just right where the pain is unbearable, whereas you can have another person with a severe looking (on radiograph) disc deterioration or stenosis that doesn’t cause pain or symptoms at all due to the location and lack of impact on surrounding structures.
It’s a highly interesting topic, and yes, awareness of it is quite young, but growing.
That said, I have met a horse diagnosed with ECVM, when he was young, he seemed fine, and was unusually easy to start under saddle at 4. However, by the time he was 6, he began to present strange balance symptoms and became unpredictable under saddle. By 8 years of age, he deteriorated to the point where he could not even be turned out with other horses. He would attack other horses and was unsafe to ride. His whole posture changed as well, which was interesting. His pelvis became more and more steeply angled with time, regardless of balanced gentle training or left on his own in the field.
I can’t remember the university, but I believe it was a university in Michigan (could be remembering that wrong), that had a big research project around ECVM. He was brought there by his owner and after years of not having an answer, and dead ends, finally a diagnosis. His malformation was quite severe.
It also turns out that a majority of his siblings out of the same sire were presenting similar behavioral and physical traits he had presented. A few were radiographed and confirmed to have the same malformation. The sire himself was unaffected, but his owner gelded him because a majority of his offspring presented with these same issues despite being in different training barns all over north America. Which was enough to make the ethical decision that gelding was likely the best solution at that point given the findings in his offspring.
It ended up being a very interesting case study, and rare, because not many breeders are willing to explore such a scary topic. Especially if a stallion was bred heavily… I believe there is a lot of pushback against the research due to political reasons and fear of entire bloodlines being tainted if it were found out to be a strong hereditary trait within a specific line.
So, it’s hard to say… a lot of the research that claims horses are sound with this malformation… do they specify the age of the horses? Do they follow up a few years later to see if the horses have or have not developed symptoms over time? There are so many variables at play, which makes it even more challenging to find clarity.
Deeply, deeply interesting nonetheless. Here is one of the links I was exploring for anyone who would like to read further.
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Interesting that the sire was not effected by ECVM but the offspring consistently were. What breed was the stallion or better yet, who was the stallion?
I would share breed and sire, but unfortunately that information would make it too easy to identify who I am, and as I’ve mentioned upthread, I don’t want a target on my back with the THW acolytes.
It is common for genetic malformations to skip a generation though, across most hereditary maladies.
Sharon May-Davis’ research has found ECVM to skip a generation as well.
Sharing the breed would identify who you are?
I am a little behind on this post, however, needed to comment on the above. If she was truly bitten and shaked as described, she would not be going back for more. And that is not an uncommon stallion story. My $$ is on her repeating something she previously heard and twisted to make her appear more bad a$$ than the stallion.
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Like I mentioned up thread I had a horse that I had to euthanize due to Wobblers among other things. The trainer I had bought him through had many siblings of his in training. She actually sent them all back to the breeder after I told her about the diagnosis of my horse. She said after a while she was noticing all kinds of weird behaviors with many of the horses that were related to him. The owner was not willing to look into the horses further and she did not feel comfortable training them or marketing them for sale after that. She felt they all probably had similar issues.
Very sad.
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When we discovered my mare’s kissing spines and neck arthritis, my vet was careful to say that she had spinal impingement “syndrome”. She had obviously had the kissing spines and neck arthritis for some time (she was in her early teens), and had only recently gotten to the point where there were any pain related performance or behavioral problems.
The treatment modalities that were effective for her included things to treat pain, rehab her muscles, and calm her nervous system. It didn’t “cure” the bone damage or reverse the KS. She still has kissing spines, she still has neck arthritis, it just doesn’t hurt as much now that we know how to make her more comfortable. It’s kind of a mystery why she started shouting all of a sudden, but I can point to some changes in her training, workload, and management that might have triggered a cascade of sorts.
I believe that Celeste was inelegantly saying something to the same effect wrt ECVM. Just like kissing spines doesn’t have to be a death sentence for every horse, maybe some horses with ECVM can also be helped to be more comfortable with her rehab exercises and bodywork. The proof is in the pudding though, and I don’t know if she’s been successful at helping in those kinds of cases. Regardless, it usually takes an entire TEAM of people to help horses suffering with these kinds of things, bodyworkers are definitely part of the equation.
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Ok – I kind of agree here. Potential nerve impingement (in humans, as well as horses) is a whole different ballgame. That said, I would rather have a trained professional address the issue.
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It’s really difficult to take THWs perspective seriously when her argument is light-years away from what is currently understood about ECVM.
The most up to date research on ECVM recognizes that it is a congenital malformation, from birth, where the transverse ridge is missing from either one side or both sides of the C6/C7 vertebrae.
I am sure the severity of the malformation is what determines whether the horse can be made comfortable by careful management or if the kindest option would be to give the animal peace. It’s not black or white, and neither is Kissing Spines. It all depends on what surrounding structures are affected, and whether the horse can be made comfortable, or not…
THWs argument is based around a complete misunderstanding of what ECVM is, at least at the time these screenshots were taken when she made this argument, her understanding at the time was incorrect. As you can see, the whole of her argument revolves around the assumption that the bony changes are due to some compensatory pattern over time. Akin to bony changes of the hock which are very common and well understood. But, ECVM is congenital, ie present from birth. Bony changes of the hock are not, these happen due to stress placed on the hock joint for various reasons.
Stark difference.
So, as much as I would love to give the benefit of the doubt, and believe me, I did give far too much benefit of the doubt last year… Regardless, it is clear that at the time that statement was made, THW had very little understanding about the current research findings on ECVM, therefore she did not have the qualifications to be making those claims as a professional.
It’s one thing if an Amateur expresses a question or voices ideas among peers as a means of trying to understand a complex topic, which is fine…
What’s not okay, is for a professional who claims to have all the magical answers (despite little to no education as confessed by THW herself numerous times) that vets have mysteriously missed despite years of rigorous study and hands on experience, to make these extreme claims based on… what exactly? Especially when that professional clearly does not understand the basis of the argument she is proclaiming.
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Here are some interesting nuggets from this 2021 article confirming the points I just made in the post just above. https://www.ecvmallbreeds.com/wat-is-ecvm
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Let’s translate that into Traveling Horse Witch speak.
“ECVM is another unfortunate misnomer for Birth Trauma. A horse that has suffered birth trauma can be unfolded and fixed with BTMM and nerve release.” 
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Are you aware of the pedigree of these horses? Would you share in a PM?
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Sure. TB blood. Not super prominent anymore and there was considerable line breeding within this certain set of horses. I’ll pm you.
Just saw a whiny post on the facebook page of a woman in New Zealand that dissects horses, mainly their hooves. She does a great job on educating just how the outside of horses feet can hide or hint at the troubles within. It was disheartening to see her endorse the witch. (And of course there was a glam shot followed by a “woe is me people are bullies”)
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Samantha Watt?
The page is called The Study of the Equine Hoof. She has some very good info on it. Someone posted negatively about the witch and now the people crying bully are being bullies. It’s funny.
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That’s a great page. I expect she had no idea about Celeste. You should send her a link.
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“Drumroll”: no. Google will not remove COTH forum. Why is she bitching? She is being “featured.”
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