Diagnosing and Treating Poll Pain in Horses Poll pain can cause performance, behavior, and welfare issues for horses. Learn how vets diagnose and treat it in this article excerpt from the January 2021 issue of The Horse. Favorite ADVERTISEMENT Poll pain can cause performance, behavior, and welfare issues for horses. Here’s how vets diagnose and treat it. You can likely relate to the misery of working with a headache—that dull, nagging pain that just won’t go away. For horses, it’s probably no more pleasant. They can’t reach up and massage their temples or lie down in a dark, quiet room when the poll area, at the top of the head, hurts. So they toss their head, fight the bit, act head-shy when you approach with the bridle … whatever they can do to get away from that discomfort.