Video: Horse Anatomy: Back Legs & Hooves

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Horse anatomy includes hocks, gaskins and pasterns, features owners and riders should learn to converse with specialists. Learn about horse anatomy and parts of a horse's back legs and hooves from a ranch owner in this free horse care video.

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Video Transcript

The back leg of a horse is a very sturdy structure that utilizes all that energy from the hind quarter and creates a lot of movement through the horses body. We like to look at the structures of the back hoof leg in recognizing their function and why it's important to understand the names and the uses. When we start up here with the gaskin, this large muscle, we then go down and along these tendons we find the hock. We've talked about how the hock is similar to our ankle, so just like our heel, we have the bulb of the hock right here. Then we come down and we have the cannon bone that leads into the fetlock joint, which then continues to connect with the pastern. The pastern of the horse is what we consider the shock absorber. If we want to look for the good confirmation in the health of that pastern to ensure that we get a good smooth ride. We also may find that we have the chestnuts like on the front of the horse, as well as the urva back here where we find that against along with the longs hairs of the fetlock joint. If we look at the hoof, picking up the hoof from the side, we would find, we'll pick this one out. That while we pick the hoof, we're looking for the structures and this horse does not wear back shoes, that we can identify. The two grooves alongside the triangular piece, which is the frog. We have the frog, the two grooves alongside that we cleaned out, and then we have the sole of the hoof. We want to see all of those parts to be healthy, strong and elastic in their nature. You have the heel of the hoof that also includes a heel bulb.

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Horse Anatomy: Back Legs & Hooves

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