Many people longe as a regular part of their training program, and often the speed at which these horses are exercised is likely great enough to cause damage. | Photo: iStock

Q. Does frequent longeing (or even just longeing in general) have any negative effects on a horse’s joints? ​

A. While anecdotal evidence exists to support a relationship between circular exercise and joint disease, there is a dearth of controlled studies examining such and, thus, recommendations to the industry can only be made hesitantly.

At Michigan State University we will soon be starting a project designed to quantify how much damage is done depending on the size of the circle and the speed at which an animal is exercised. Why is this a concern? When horses are exercised on a turn, the size of the load-bearing surface gets reduced substantially, with a corresponding increase in load on the load-bearing part of the joint surface