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The front and hind hooves are identical in the foal but differ visibly in the adult horse. This is good evidence of the medium-term plasticity of the whole hoof shape, as a result of variation in its use. Slow changes in hoof shape occur under any consistent change in the horse's movement pattern and under a wide variety of pathological conditions.
The hoof (including the frog - the V-shaped part on the bottom of the horses hoof) is a very important part of the circulatory system. As the horse puts weight onto the hoof, the hoof wall is pushed outwards and the frog compressed, driving blood out of the frog, the digital pad, and the laminae of the hoof.
It forms the "forearm" of the horse along with the ulna. Ulna: caudal to the radius, it is fused to that bone in an adult horse. Shoulder joint (scapulohumeral joint): usually has an angle of 120-130 degrees when the horse is standing, which can extended to 145 degrees, and flexed to 80 degrees (such as when the horse is jumping an obstacle).
The domestic horse is almost alone among extant equines in having chestnuts on the hind legs. [5] Chestnuts are absent from the hind legs of asses and zebras. [6] The majority of domestic horses have chestnuts on all four legs, as does the Przewalski's horse, [6] but a few horse breeds are reported to lack chestnuts on the hind legs. [6] These ...
Each hind limb of the horse runs from the pelvis to the coffin bone. After the pelvis come the femur (thigh), patella, stifle joint, tibia, fibula, tarsal (hock) bone and joint, large metatarsal (cannon) and small metatarsal (splint) bones. Below these, the arrangement of sesamoid and phalanx bones and joints is the same as in the forelimbs.
The frog is triangular in shape, and extends midway from the heels toward the toe, covering around 25% of the bottom of the hoof. [1] [page needed] The frog is a V-shaped structure that extends forward across about two-thirds of the sole. Its thickness grows from the front to the back and, at the back, it merges with the heel periople.
The walk is a four-beat gait that averages about 7 kilometres per hour (4.3 mph). When walking, a horse's legs follow this sequence: left hind leg, left front leg, right hind leg, right front leg, in a regular 1-2-3-4 beat. At the walk, the horse will alternate between having three or two feet on the ground.
The pastern is a part of the leg of a horse between the fetlock and the top of the hoof.It incorporates the long pastern bone (proximal phalanx) and the short pastern bone (middle phalanx), which are held together by two sets of paired ligaments to form the pastern joint (proximal interphalangeal joint).