These 50 horse Secrets are a collection of short “hints” and horse care tips that I originally sent out via email and that you won’t find in an equine veterinary textbook. The Secrets are designed to help you help your horse and improve your horse’s health. Some may be thought-provoking, others a gentle reminder of what you know. Others may provoke, “What? Are you kidding me? I never knew that!”

I only shared some of them briefly in this podcast, but you can check here the Ebook to learn more: https://www.tuckerbiokinetic.com/50

Summary:
Summary by AI:
Here’s a **summary of the key points** from Dr. Renee Tucker’s video on 20 horse health “secrets” that many vets overlook by not considering the horse as a whole system:

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### 🐴 **Dr. Tucker’s 20 Horse Secrets (Plus 1 Bonus)**

1. **Horses hide problems** – As prey animals, horses mask pain. By the time symptoms show, compensation mechanisms are exhausted.

2. **Head-shy horses** – Often not due to past trauma but misalignment of the **atlas** (first neck vertebra) causing nerve sensitivity.

3. **Suspension bridge anatomy** – Horses stand efficiently due to ligament and skeletal systems that work like a suspension bridge. Any tension at rest signals a problem.

4. **Immune issues may be liver-related** – Conditions like fly allergies and mud fever may stem from an **overloaded liver** using the skin as a backup detox organ.

5. **Nutrition-related lameness** – Imbalances in minerals (e.g., calcium/phosphorus) or nutrients affecting the **liver and ligaments** can cause lameness.

6. **Girthiness** – Never normal. It could be caused by ulcers, poor saddle fit, rib subluxations, or girth discomfort.

7. **Overly sensitive skin** – May actually be **misaligned ribs**, not just skin sensitivity.

8. **Crooked tail** – Indicates **hind-end asymmetry** or pelvic misalignment, not necessarily a tail injury.

9. **Lameness diagnosis tip**:

* **Worse at trot?** Likely a leg issue → Call a vet.
* **Worse at walk?** Likely a body issue → Call a bodyworker or chiropractor.

10. **ADR (Ain’t Doing Right)** – Low energy or bloating might be helped with **psyllium** to clear gut sand buildup.

11. **Teeth float affects topline** – Proper dental alignment improves back muscle development due to **proprioceptive nerves** in teeth roots.

12. **Horse repeatedly throws same shoe** – Likely from misalignments (e.g., pelvis), not the farrier’s fault.

13. **TMJ is the most critical joint** – Jaw alignment affects the entire body’s **nervous system feedback and coordination**.

14. **”Stepped in a hole” feeling** – Indicates **pelvic misalignment**, causing uneven stride lengths.

15. **Carrot stretch asymmetry** – Difficulty stretching one direction signals possible **spinal misalignment**.

16. **Horse unaware of hind end** – Often due to misalignment at the **lumbosacral junction**, disrupting body awareness.

17. **One-sided drool** – Often a sign of **TMJ misalignment**, impacting jaw movement and bit use.

18. **Downhill breathing issues** – May be due to **sternum misalignment**, affecting diaphragm and respiratory function.

19. **Refuses to go long and low** – Likely **neck, wither, or low back** discomfort from misalignments.

20. **Lead swapping/cross-firing** – Usually a result of a **sacrum misalignment** affecting hind leg coordination.

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### 🎁 **Bonus Secret #21: Are Joint Supplements Necessary?**

* Try **one IV Legend injection**. If no improvement → joint supplements may not help. If big improvement → they might be useful. Continuous use suppresses the horse’s own joint fluid production, so test before committing.

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### 💡 Final Thoughts

* **Listen to your instincts**—you know your horse best.
* Misalignments often cause behavioral or performance issues.
* Dr. Tucker promotes **TBT (Tucker BioKinetic Technique)** as a long-term solution for root healing, not just symptom management.

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Let me know if you’d like a simplified checklist, a printable version, or specific advice based on your horse’s symptoms.

Transcription:
Dr. Tucker (00:00:00.00)
Hi, I’m Dr. Renee Tucker, a 30-year horse vet. Here are 20 secrets your vet doesn’t know because they focus on individual parts and what can go wrong with them instead of focusing on how the whole horse works together. Horse secret number one, horses hide their problems. Horses are prey animals. They are designed by nature to hide their problems. So by the time that we see anything or feel anything when we’re riding, then those horses compensating mechanisms mechanisms have been used up. Now, what’s a compensating mechanism? Well, it’s just what our body does to keep us feeling good. So say your knee hurts, you’ll compensate by putting more weight on your other leg. But when that other leg gets tired, that’s when you’re going to start to really see some limping from the original injury of the knee. Same with our horses. Guys, by the time you see or feel or even have that instinct that something is wrong, you are correct because the horses are designed to hide the problem, so go with your gut instinct. Horse secret number two, don’t touch my head. This one is called Don’t touch my head for those horses where you can’t touch their head.

Dr. Tucker (00:01:12.12)
They not only don’t like it and they twinge and flinch, some horses will turn around and bite you if you just try to touch their head or even around their head. Most people think that this is because they’ve been ear-twished or had some type of injury in the past, and now they’re just shy about their head. I find that’s That’s not true. 99% of these head-shy or ear-shy horses actually have a misaligned atlas. The atlas is the first bone in the neck, and then if it’s misaligned, it can pinch the nerves in there and make everything super sensitive, so of course, they don’t want their head area touched. If you’d like to see if your horse’s atlas is misaligned, please check my alignment checkup video for the atlas linked below. Horse secret number three, the horse is built like a suspension bridge. It’s crazy, right? How is it that a horse can be a thousand pounds and stand on four little feet? Have you ever thought about that? Well, actually, they are built like a suspension bridge. They have that big nuchal ligament at the top of their neck and it continues on and just changes name just to the supraspinatus ligament all across the top of the horse.

Dr. Tucker (00:02:22.00)
It’s like the cables of a suspension bridge. And the rest of the horse, it hangs off those cables, and they’re connected to the stay apparatus in the legs. So the whole thing is just really miraculously designed so that you can have 1,000, 2,000 pounds on these small little feet. Now, why would you care? Because when the horse is at rest. So nothing is going on. They’re just standing there, maybe sleeping. The only muscle that should be contracted to have the horse stand up is the triceps muscle. One little muscle in that whole huge body is all the horse needs to stand up. So if you notice any tensions or tightnesses, that’s a sign for you that something’s going on, and you want to track that down so you can get that fixed for your horse. Hey, we’re just going over 20 of the 50 horse secrets. I have the 50 Horse Secrets in an e-book. It has much more in-depth explanations, and if you’d like that, it’s at the description linked below. Number 4, weird immune system problems. Traditional fadnery medicine doesn’t do so great with certain things we consider immune system related, such as fly allergies or mud fever, where there’s no mud.

Dr. Tucker (00:03:36.06)
Also, cellulitis or constant itching. Things like this we think has to do with the immune system. Actually, it can be liver related. Here’s the secret. When the liver is too busy, overloaded, it will use the skin as a secondary filtering organ. So it takes all the stuff that the liver is supposed to be clearing out, and it sends it out to the skin, creating causing all kinds of irritations for the horse. What you can do is try an herbal liver cleanse for 30 to 60 days. If it starts cleaning stuff up or calming things down, you’ll know it’s a liver problem, not necessarily an immune system problem. Hopefully this helps. Horse secret number 5, when nutrition causes lameness. I know that may seem a bit of a stretch that nutrition could cause lameness. But as an example, if your horse’s calcium and phosphorus ratio is incorrect, you know that bones need calcium. So if they don’t have the right amount of calcium, they can have lameness due to things like OCD or arthritis. In addition, if they don’t have other nutrients that will affect the liver, say, Well, why do we care about that? Because if the liver isn’t right, it’s partially responsible for making the groceries that ligaments need to be fully functional.

Dr. Tucker (00:04:53.16)
Now, if the ligaments aren’t right, that’s going to affect lameness, too, sometimes. So how can you know if your horse has a nutritional deficiency? Well, one way that can be helpful is if your horse is all the time eating strange things, such as chewing on wood, maybe eating sand, eating the bark off of trees, eating strange weeds, licking metal, drinking out of mud puddles, all these strange things that they consistently want to do is a sign that their body is looking for something to correct a nutritional imbalance. So when you see any of those signs, even if they’re small, you might want to check into that and see what you can find to balance your horse’s diet. Horse secret number 6. Is your horse girthy? That can be ulcers. Girthiness or cinchiness is when a horse does not like to be girthed up. They may stomp their foot or make frowny faces, and they may try to bite you. Some people think that because their horse has always been girthy ever since they’ve owned him, that it’s their normal thing. Girthiness is never normal. Never, I I promise. Sometimes you just have to deal with it, but girthiness can be caused by ulcers or saddle fit or even not liking the girth.

Dr. Tucker (00:06:08.01)
It could even be rib subluxations. There’s always an answer for girthiness. So start by checking out this ulcer video where you can find the cause of ulcers and how to fix them. Horse secret number seven. Is my horse’s skin sensitive? Now, I say sensitive in quotes because some horses just don’t like brushing all that much. Okay. But some horses, you We know we want to call them sensitive or sissies or weenies, or basically they just hate it. I know some people actually got a camel hair brush just because their horse was so sensitive, they wanted to be so gentle, and that’s great for them. But it didn’t help. The horse was still all twitchy. Couldn’t even brush them hardly. Just hates it. Some of these horses are not just sensitive to brushing. It’s not even their skin. It’s actually their ribs are misaligned underneath their skin. So when you’re brushing along the back, they’ve got 18 ribs, right? So if they’re misaligned, they can be sensitive and they just get twitchy. If you’d like to see a video on how you can check your horse for rib misalignments, check out my link below. Horse secret number 8, is my horse’s tail crooked?

Dr. Tucker (00:07:16.23)
I am sure you’ve heard the term the horse’s tail is like a rudder of the ship. It’s used for balance. That’s totally true. If your horse is going perfectly straight, then the tail should be perfectly straight behind them. So if it’s not, that is a clue that they are trying to counterbalance some misalignment or some other problem. It seems like everyone wants to blame a horse having a broken tail or something traumatic to the tail if the tail is consistently crooked. However, it can be many things because the muscling of the top of the tail, the tail head, that connects to the entire pelvis, both on the outside and the inside of the pelvis. So if the tail is crooked, that’s only telling you that there’s a problem with the hind end. That doesn’t really narrow it down all that much. However, if your horse’s tail is consistently crooked, that’s a beautiful sign for you that something is asymmetrical and your horse is counterbalancing for it. Then it’s your job to just notice that and then get someone to help you so you can figure out that problem for your horse. Horse secret number nine, walk versus trot.

Dr. Tucker (00:08:28.05)
This is for when you need to what to do first. If your horse is either lame or just that little bit off. Here’s the secret. If your horse is more obviously off at a trot instead of a walk, call the veterinarian. If your horse is more obviously off at a walk than the trot. Call a chiropractor, other body worker, or hopefully a TBT practitioner. Let me tell you why. If a horse is more obviously lame or off at a trot, then Usually, the problem is in a leg or foot. If a horse is more obviously off at a walk, it’s usually a problem somewhere in the body. Now, veterinarians are really good at problems in the leg. It’s a very specific part, and we can find where it is, an X-ray, an ultrasound, and all that stuff. If it’s in the body, however, it’s really hard to pinpoint. It’s very difficult to find exactly where the problem is without a lot of education in how the whole horse works together. Number 10, cilium for ADR. Have you heard of ADR? It is an official veterinary term. It means ain’t doing right. Legit, you could look it up.

Dr. Tucker (00:09:40.19)
If a horse owner says, My horse just isn’t doing right, they’re just blah, low energy. I mean, they’re eating, but not with gusto. Stuff like this, you could try cilium. You probably know it as sand clear or also metamucil. Same thing. It’s a plant. It has fiber in it, and that fiber can clear out any stuck dirt or sand that might have happened to be in your horse’s intestine. And as you do that, a lot of times they won’t look so bloated through the sides and their energy will pick up. It’s worth a shot. So you can try cilium for ADR. Horse secret number 11. Why teeth float affects the back. Okay, I know that sounds weird. We all know that teeth floating affects chewing, it affects digestion, but how could it affect the back? Now, I’m talking about the top line. Well, one time, I was at this horse, and we were talking, the owner and I, because the horse was not developing top line. So she had me out to check alignments and making sure the ribs are okay and all this stuff is good because, man, she’s working hard. The saddle fit right, there is no top line developing.

Dr. Tucker (00:10:48.11)
It was strange. Coincidentally, the horse dentist was there. This was a natural dentist, so he did it right. Then when he was finished, the molars of the teeth, so the teeth in the back. So the top and the bottom teeth were correctly touching. This is called occlusion in the horse. What’s so weird is when he was done with the dentistry, I saw with my own eyes, the horse immediately developed top line. I was like, What just happened here? And as I learned, because there’s so many proprioceptive nerves in the tooth roots, telling the horse where they are in space, the better the teeth, the more the horse can develop proper muscle. But it’s strange but true. A good teeth flow will affect the back. Horse secret number 12, my horse throws the same shoe repeatedly. If your horse has shoes on and they keep throwing the same shoe, meaning it’s the same leg shoe, so the right front all the time, throws a shoe, it’s the right front again every time. Well, you can’t blame the farrier anymore for that, right? So you start wondering, Well, why does the horse keep doing this? Very often that’s because of misalignments.

Dr. Tucker (00:12:05.13)
An example would be the pelvis could be off, could be a little crooked. One side could be higher than the other. In fact, the pelvis can misalign so that one side is more forward than the other. That would mean your right hind foot is closer to the right front than it should be. And so it accidentally steps on the shoe, it keeps pulling it off. So if you have strange clues shoes like this where your horse keeps throwing the shoe and it’s the same one over and over again, that’s a sign something’s up someplace else. Horse alignment can be altered if your horse is wearing horses shoes. Watch this video and learn why horses should not actually be wearing shoes and why we started using them in the first place. Course secret number 13, which joint is most important? Which one would you say? I actually pick the TMJ. That’s the temporomandibular joint. That’s that jawbone joint right there. That joint, the TMJ, has the most proprioceptive nerves in the whole body. It’s crazy. Why would it be like that? I don’t know. But because it is, that shows again why we need really good teeth floating for our horses, so this TMJ can be aligned properly, why the atlas needs to be aligned, so the TMJ can get the right information to those nerves.

Dr. Tucker (00:13:29.21)
Proprioceptive of nerves tell the body where it is in space. You need ideal perfect proprioception to get perfect performance for your horse. Horse secret number 14. My horse feels like she stepped in a hole. I have heard this so many times, probably hundreds of times. Have you ever felt this, though? So the riders will tell me when they’re riding all as well, when suddenly it feels like the horse stepped in a hole with their hind leg, but when they turn around and look, there’s no hole there. Very weird, but very common. What’s really happening is the horse’s pelvis is crooked. For some reason, it’s misaligned and it’s one side is higher than the other side. This means that the lower side, the leg is effectively longer. And so sometimes when the horse is trying to do their stride, they can’t quite get the extension phase correct because the leg is effectively longer, and they just drop it, and it feels like they stepped in a when there’s no hole there at all. So if you ever feel this, even once in a while, that’s a sign something’s misaligned, that’d be a great time to start looking for why.

Dr. Tucker (00:14:38.16)
Number 15, carrot stretch difficulties. You know carrot stretches, where you hold a carrot and see how far your horse can stretch their neck around to get to the carrot. I have seen some smart horses start doing carrot stretches just randomly anytime they see a carrot. They have been trained well. Now, I had someone call me out because their horse could not do a carrot stretch as far back as their neighbor horse. Guys, it’s not a competition, all right? You can do carrot stretches. They’re perfectly fine. And all you want to do is make sure your horse can do it symmetrically, right and left sides of the neck. If your horse can only go to the shoulder on one side but can stretch way back to the hip on the other side, that’s asymmetrical, that’s a problem. That’s a sign that something is likely misaligned somewhere, and you want to chase that down for your horse to get that fixed. Horse secret number 16. My horse doesn’t know he has a hind end. This is another comment I’ve heard lots of times. So don’t feel alone if it feels to you like your horse doesn’t even know he has a hind end.

Dr. Tucker (00:15:43.20)
This typically happens when there’s a misalignment between the lumbar and sacral junction. That’s an important point for the spinal cord, and sometimes it’s just off a little bit. It’s not causing pain, but it’s just a little disconnection where your horse doesn’t quite know he’s got to hide in. One time, I aligned a horse and the person said the next day when they launched the horse, the horse was going on a lunge, and he literally kept moving on the lunge but turned around to look at his butt as if he didn’t know that was there before. And now he’s like, What is following me? I don’t know how he was living up until that point, but he didn’t seem to know there was a hind end. So if he doesn’t know, how on Earth can you collect with the horse or change leads or any of that stuff? It’s all on autopilot, they don’t know it’s there. So if it feels like your horse doesn’t know he has a hind end, it’s a possibility, and it’s just a misalignment, and you can get that fixed. Understanding all these issues would be much easier if our horses could just communicate with us.

Dr. Tucker (00:16:44.18)
Well, they can. I have proof, which is in one of our upcoming videos, so please subscribe so you won’t miss it. Horse secret number 17, one-sided drool. One time, I had a client call me because her horse was only drooling, as she said, on one side of the mouth when she was riding. So normally we’d like to see a little bit of saliva or spit on both corners of the mouth, and she only had that on one side. So it was great that she called. This was a very easy fix. It was simply a TMJ misalignment. Now we’ve already talked about the TMJ being back here, the hinge of the jaw. And if it’s misaligned, the horse really can’t move its jaw properly. And of course, that affects the bit and that affects the drool. And that’s how it all happens. So if you If you have one-sided drool, then feel free to call your body worker, chiropractor, or TBT practitioner. It’s very easy to get that fixed up for your horse. Horse secret number 18, balance and breathing. So this lady called me because her horse was having difficulty breathing, only going downhill. And I said, Did you mean uphill?

Dr. Tucker (00:17:50.14)
Because that would make a lot more sense. You’re going uphill, you need more air. No, it was difficult for the horse to breathe, only going downhill. Isn’t that curious? But here’s why you need to look at the whole horse as a big picture. The sternum of this horse was misaligned. Sternum is the front breastbone of the horse, the base of the thoracic cavity or the bear. That was misaligned. Sternum is attached to the diaphragm. The diaphragm is in charge of breathing. So really, this case was quite simple. All I had to do was align the horse’s sternum, which aligned the diaphragm, and then he can breathe perfectly. Horse secret number 19, long and low. Many people are familiar with the term long and low, where you have your horse just stretch out and that feels really nice to the horse. But some people have told me their horse just doesn’t like it. They won’t even do it. Well, what could be going on? If your horse just won’t go long and low, even on a lunge line without a saddle or a rider, then that’s a key sign that there’s misalignments. Typically, they’re in the neck or the wither area, but they could also be in the low back, and that just makes it uncomfortable for the horse to stretch all the way out.

Dr. Tucker (00:19:06.07)
So if you’ve got a horse who doesn’t like long and low, then you have a problem to solve, and this can be easily fixed. Horse secret number 20, lead swapping. Lead swapping is very common. In fact, some horses can go perfectly in one direction, but to the other direction, they’re constantly lead swapping. You may know this as cross-firing or counter-cattering, anything where the horse’s legs aren’t doing what what you’re supposed to be doing. So this is a simple fix. This is usually just a sacrum misalignment. The nerves from the spinal cord go along the back to the sacrum, and then they go down the legs. If the sacrum is misaligned, the nerve transmission isn’t working perfectly. And so the horse doesn’t have the right information, and he screws up his back legs. Very easy to fix. Just call your alignment person, chiropractor, body worker, TBT practitioner. Don’t get that. Totally straightened up for you and your horse. Bonus Number 21, joint supplements. Do we really need them? So for those of you who stuck around, let’s talk about that. Do we really need joint supplements? Many, many people want to know about this, right? Because they’re expensive.

Dr. Tucker (00:20:10.13)
And if you start an oral joint supplement product, you got to do that for at least two months to know if it’s going to work for your horse. And then the other thing is that if your horse is on a joint supplement product, guess what? They stop making their own joint stuff. And so whenever you take your horse off the joint supplement, it seems like your horse might be stiffer or even lame because it takes, gosh, another 30 days for your horse to ramp up production of their own joint fluid. But how do you find out if your horse needs it? What I recommend is to do one injection of IV legend. Now, there’s lots of injectables, there’s lots of oral products, but if you just do one shot of IV legend from your veterinarian, then that will get you 80% of whatever you’ll with any product. If you just do one shot, I know they’re going to tell you you’re supposed to do a series of them, but just do one. If your horse has no improvement, if one shot, joint supplements is not your problem. If your horse has a fantastic improvement, definitely, you’re sure it worked.

Dr. Tucker (00:21:18.04)
I mean, we’re talking the very next day. Then, yes, your horse can benefit from joint supplement products. But you really want to know, do they need it? Do they don’t? Because there’s always that feedback cycle of if the horse is getting it, why is he going to make it? So try a one shot of Ivy legend first. So I hope that was a helpful tip. You can do it. You are the one who knows your horse best, and you have the right instincts, even the instincts to ask questions and get the right information. Save this video to watch again if your horse has any of these issues happen. At least with this, you have somewhere to start. But remember, these are only ways to get to the symptoms. There’s only one way to heal your horse at the root and forever. That’s TBT. To see the unbelievable testimonials of my students who use TBT, check out this video so you can watch their stories here. If you feel ready to learn TBT, go to the link in the description and find the course. I also send helpful tips twice a week in my newsletter. The link is below.

Dr. Tucker (00:22:13.06)
Thanks and see you next time.