Breaking point

Most owners will never experience a fractured bone in their horse, but breaks can and do happen, so improving your knowledge of them is a good idea.

While in the past, the prognosis for a horse with a broken bone was very poor, today developments in veterinary medicine mean that many horses make a good recovery.

Did you know?

The most common sites for a broken bone in a horse are the legs, mainly due to their vulnerability and the stresses and strains put on them.

Cause and effect

There are two main ways that a horse fractures a bone. Many breaks occur as the result of a single impact or injury, such as being kicked, a severe fall, getting a leg stuck in a hole or an accident in transit.
All bones are slightly flexible and can absorb some degree of impact of bending, but are likely to fracture when they are bent too far, or the impact is too great. This type of fracture is like bending a stick, when the stick will bend a little but will eventually snap.

Other fractures occur following repetitive strain injury during regular, intense exercise. They affect specific parts of the skeleton that are being put under extreme stress and are therefore often called stress fractures. These types are more common in racehorses and other high-performance athletes and are uncommon in leisure horses.

With a stress fracture, during each period of intense exercise the bone suffers a little damage and gradually becomes weaker. Eventually, it’s no longer strong enough to cope with the load it’s taking and a fracture occurs. This type of fracture is similar to repeatedly stretching an elastic band to its limit, gradually weakening it until it eventually snaps.

Did you know?

When talking about bones, fracture and break mean the same thing. A fracture is not a type of break, but rather the medical word used to describe a broken bone.

Learn more about fractures and the treatment options in December Horse&Rider, out now!