Response to Gleerup: Understanding signals that indicate pain in ridden horses

Determining the reasons for pain in ridden horses is challenging, because of the many variable factors, including primary musculoskeletal pain, tack-induced pain, or rider-induced pain. Field-based studies clearly have limitations. Assuming that those limitations are acknowledged, behavioral observations that are repeatable among horses, and that show differences between nonlame and lame horses that are reduced when lameness is abolished by diagnostic analgesia, may be useful indicators of pain.