Back

A Bad Back in the Saddle

Horseback riding is one of the riskiest sports for serious spinal injury. This is especially true for horse riding as a profession. Jockeys often push themselves past their limits, and horses can kick with up to a ton of force and move as fast as 40 mph. One researcher has even observed that more accidents happen per hour on horses than on motorcycles.

In this study, the authors looked at the long-term effects of horse riding on the neck and low back of professional jockeys. Thirty-two jockeys in three different age groups were observed for 13 years. Though the jockeys' number of years riding depended on their age, they all rode for an average of 5.5 hours a day. Most of them (75 percent) reported some injury during their careers. 

The authors examined the jockeys and took X-rays of their necks and low backs. The results were compared to those of "normal" adults, who were also divided into three age groups.

Nearly half of the jockeys reported some pain in physical activities because of horse racing. The jockeys mostly felt pain in the low back, or in both the low and upper back. The oldest group of jockeys (over age 35) felt pain in the whole back after physical activity.

The X-rays showed that jockeys showed more signs of abnormal, or degenerative, changes in their spines, than normal populations of the same age. This was especially true of the jockeys over age 35, who had more degenerative changes than any other group. Overall, jockeys' degenerative signs tended to show up more in the low back than in the neck.

Horseback riding brings the risk of direct spinal injury from falling from a horse. This study shows that spinal deterioration may also happen in jockeys. This deterioration can result from both repeated injury and long-term stress on the spine. More research is needed to find out how these problems affect a jockey's future, both professionally and with day-to-day activities.

References: Athanassios Tsirikos, MD, et al. Degenerative Spondyloarthropathy of the Cervical and Lumbar Spine in Jockeys. In Orthopedics. June 2001. Vol. 24. No. 6. Pp. 561-564.

Back