Introduction to the Equine Accessory Nerve

Introduction to the Equine Accessory Nerve

You normally think of the cranial nerves as belonging to the head but the Accessory Nerve is a major driver of the shoulder.

Most people have never heard of it but horses show it everywhere.

CN XI — the accessory nerve — runs the trapezius. All of it. When it's compromised, the dorsal neck loses its muscular support, the ventral chain wins by default, and the horse starts inverting. You see it as a ewe neck, a dropped topline, a shoulder that stops swinging, a neck that resists lateral flexion. It gets labeled a conformation problem and treated accordingly. It's not. It's typically a nerve problem.

This webinar covers:

→ What CN XI is, where it runs, and where it gets into trouble

→ What trapezius compromise actually looks like clinically

→ The jugular foramen pinch point and what's crowding it

→ How ewe neck develops as a neuromuscular pattern, not a conformation label

→ MFR, craniosacral, and TCM approaches for the CN XI pathway

If you've been working on necks that won't release, scapular asymmetry that keeps coming back, or ewe neck that never fully resolves — this is why.

Webinar on June 6, 2026 at 10:00 AM Eastern Time USA

Replay is included with this webinar.