Everyone says that the collapse of the backbone is a genetic condition affecting horses of very old age, and I might agree with this. But why does it wait until a horse becomes older? There seems to be a breed predisposition, such as Arabians and Morgans, but I have seen this in other breeds. And some within these breeds never become swaybacked.

Once this starts to occur, there is no going back.

With the prevalence of kissing sping increasing, coupled with my belief that a loss of top line is from chronic protein loss plus deficiency of adequate high-quality protein in the diet, I’m unsure of the true root cause.

The good news is that this is usually not painful. But if you see a swaybacked horse, note the rest of the body condition. Could there also be demineralization of the bones (osteoporosis)? If you know, please comment and let us all know if this is a condition we could avoid.

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