Human Body vs. Horse Body: Surprising Differences and Similarities!

in this first episode we are going to introduce you to the basic parts of the

horse, to help us we will have Maria and Luso.

There are two main reasons why you should know the parts of the horse.

The first, is to understand the language that is spoken between horse people, like

veterinarians, farriers and instructors. The second reason, which is even more

important, is that you must have knowledge of horses in order to properly

communicate and care for them. You may chatter all day with your horse

but the most meaningful dialogue is based on non-vocal clues. Horses are

reading our body language all the time and we should also do the same with them

in order to understand what they are telling us. During the entire series you

will gain essential knowledge about the parts of the horse and how this can help

you to understand and communicate with them. Now we are going to look at the

parts of the horse and we will start with the head. The muzzle is the part of

the horse's head that includes the area of the mouth, nostrils, chin, lips and

front of the nose. The muzzle is very mobile and sensitive, the skin is almost

hairless and has whiskers to help the horse sense things that are close to his nose.

The nostrils are the external openings of the nose and are very flexible.

Horses only breathe through their nostrils,

they cannot breathe through their mouth like we do. The nostrils can flare open

to allow more air to pass. The lips are also part of the muzzle

Horse's lips are sensitive and very mobile for grazing and drinking, but they also

serve other purposes, as will be shown in a future episode. Horses also have a

chin groove behind the lower lip similar to us.

Next comes the jaw the long skinny portion that contains the teeth.

Let´s take a peek inside. If we compare our jaw to the horses jaw we can see that theirs

is more elongated than ours, actually the whole skull is more

extended and the reason for that will be explained in a later episode.

In the front of the head is the bridge of the nose, similar to ours, which is a bony

portion of the face after the nostrils. This area may be convex also known as a

Roman nose like in the Baroque horses, it can be concave also called dish face

like Arabian horses or it can be straight which is the most common.

Moving to the side of the face we have the projecting cheekbones which can be

easily felt below the skin. Following comes a flat large portion which are the cheeks.

Below the cheeks is the throatlatch where the head attaches to the neck.

The eyes... There are some aspects of equine anatomy that have similarities to

human anatomy, but the eye is not one of them, the most basic difference is

because humans are predators and horses are prey animals so the eyes of humans

are placed frontally and close together and can focus quickly on objects both

near and far, as a prey animal the horse's eyes are placed laterally which

allows them to have both binocular and monocular vision and this works well for

grazing and watching for predators coming from either side. The forehead is

the upper part of the face extending from the pole until the top of the eyes

and is covered by a forelock which is a tuft of mane that falls above the forehead.

Horses have very mobile ears they can swivel them around, point them forward,

pull them up or flatten them back. The horse naturally directs his ears,

separately or together, towards the focus of his attention. The pole is the area

immediately behind the ears and the underlying bones are: the top of the

skull bone and the first cervical bone of the neck

and is marked by a slight depression. In this area there are many nerve endings

and so it is very sensitive. The neck is the area between the head and the

shoulder. The neck has seven vertebrae, the cervicals, these enable the horse to move

the neck in many directions, it is very flexible. While the horse's neck is much

longer than ours, we both have the same number of neck vertebrae. Both the human

and the horse cervical vertebrae have the same names and similar types of

movements, the difference is due more to orientation: horizontal for the horse and

vertical for us. For example, when you say no,

you move your head left and right, but when the horse makes this movement it

rotates his head side to side, because he stands horizontally. The chest is also

called the breast is the front portion of the body between the shoulders.

The mane runs from the pole to the withers it grows from the top part of the neck

and this part of the mane is called the crest. The withers are located above and

just behind the horse's shoulders. As we can see, the withers are the top of the

dorsal process of the horse's spine. The shoulder is made up of the scapula and

associated muscles and it runs from the withers to the point of shoulder which

is the joint at the front of the chest. Although it is named point of shoulder

this bony point is not part of the shoulder blade, it is actually the

protruding head of the humerus. Unlike us the scapula is not attached to the

rest of the skeleton through the collarbone, there is no bony connection

between the foreleg and the rest of the skeleton. The foreleg is attached to the

body strictly by muscle.These muscles are attached primarily to the scapula

and also through the humerus. The arm is the humerus and goes from the point of

the shoulder to the elbow. The horse's arm is inside his body although it has a

fair range of movement, it is not free moving like ours. The range of motion

of the horse's upper arm is limited, as ours would be if someone were to tie a

rope around the chest and upper arms, leaving the arms free only from the

elbows down. The elbow is the joint of the front leg

at the point where the belly of the horse meets the leg, it is the same as

the elbow in humans. The forearm, the area of the front leg between the knee and

the elbow consisting of the fused radius and ulna. We have these two bones

separated but in the horse they are fused. The knees are the largest joint in

the front legs above the cannon bone, these contain the carpal bones.

The following parts that we will see are common on all four legs. So, the cannon

bones, the area between the knee in the front leg or the hock in the back leg

and the fetlock joint. The fetlock joint is the horse's ankle joint, sometimes

called the ankle of the horse. At the fetlock joint grows a tuft of hair

called fetlock. Between the fetlock joint and the hoof there are two bones called

the pasterns. There is a long pastern and a short pastern also named proximal phalanx

and intermediate phalanx, just like ours. The last bone in the horse's leg is the

coffin bone, also called the distal phalanx, this bone has the shape of a

hoof. Now let's compare the horse's leg to the equivalent structure in humans. The

joint we call the knee in the horse is about halfway down the front leg. The

joint we call the knee in humans is about halfway down our legs. But are these the

same joints ?

Remember that the horses front leg is the equivalent to your arm and his back

leg is the equivalent to your leg. So the knee on his front leg cannot possibly be

the same joint as your knee which is on your leg. What then is the comparable

part of the horse's front knee ?

Well, it's your wrist. However as we proceed down

below the wrist we find some significant differences between the horse and the

human skeleton. Instead of having five fingers, the horse has just one, the

cannon, pastern and coffin bones are adapted from the center finger,

the splint bones are vestigial digits on either side. So, the leg from the fetlock

down is actually a long finger. The tip of its finger is protected by a tough

outside covering that comes into contact with the ground and is called the hoof

wall, it is a much larger and stronger version of the human finger nail,

actually it is made of the same material called keratin.

So the hoof is the foot of the horse and the hoof wall is this outside covering

which is the equivalent to our fingernail. Have you ever heard the expression no

hoof no horse... well it's true, without healthy hooves the horse is

uncomfortable and unable to train or work. In order to provide correct care

for the horse's hooves, owners need to have an understanding of their

construction. We will go into details of the hoof in future episode.

Before moving away from the legs we must not forget the chestnuts which are a hornlike

growth that appear on the front legs of a horse above the knee and on the back

legs below the hock. They can be large or very small. The chestnuts are believed to

be vestigial toes of the ancestral horse that lived roughly 50 million years ago.

The back, is the area where the saddle sits, it begins at the base of the

withers and extends to the last thoracic vertebra. The loin is the short muscled

area joining the back to the croup, it extends over the lumbar vertebrae and so

has no ribs to add support. The back and loin need to have strong muscles in

order to carry the weight of the rider. The croup is the top line of the

hindquarters beginning at the hip, extending over the sacral vertebrae and

ending at the dock of the tail. The solid part of the horse's tail is called the

dock and it contains the tail bone, which is the hard part inside the tail. It is

the continuation of the horse's spine. The horse's tail is made up of 16 to 20

vertebrae which explains why it is so maneuverable.

By contrast our tail is made up of 4 or 5 small vertebrae which are fused

together and referred to as the coccyx.

But as you look at the horse's tail you will

see something quite different, a fountain of hair that appears to sprout right

from the horse's hind quarters. The barrel is the large area below the back,

it contains the rib cage. The basic design of the rib cage is similar for

both horses and humans. It is comprised of the sternum or breastbone, the

thoracic vertebrae and the ribs themselves. The function of the rib cage

is to protect internal organs, like the heart and lungs. The heart girth is the

area behind the elbow of the horse where the girth is fastened, this area should

be where the barrel is at its greatest diameter in a properly conditioned horse.

The abdomen or belly, is the broad area underneath the horse, between the elbow

and the flank. The flank is where the hind legs and the barrel meet, the area

right behind the rib cage and it goes up to the loin. The hindquarters is the

large muscled area of the hind legs. Inside the hindquarters lies the pelvis bone,

this bone has some prominent points: point of croup, point of hip, and point of buttock,

The buttock is the part of the

hindquarters below the root of the tail, the thigh is the part of the

hindquarters where the femur lies. Stifle corresponds to the knee of the human

however the human knee is straight when we are standing and the stifle is angled

when the horse is standing. The gaskin is a muscled area of the hind leg above the

hock and below the stifle, it is the same as the calf of a human and the

underlying bone is the tibia. The hock is the joint of the hind leg and is similar

to a person's ankle joint. The point of hock is the most prominent part of the

hock, it is comparable to our heel. If you were a ballerina your stance would be

more like that of a horse up on your toes, in fact the modern horse stands

only on one of its toes. The parts below the hock and below the knees are

the same on the 4 limbs and have already been mentioned earlier in this episode.

If we were to stand like the horse we would need to do it like Maria

where she is only touching with the middle digits on the floor, which is

quite impossible for us, but as you can see the horse is quite similar to us.

So pretend you are the horse and are on fours, have you ever thought what it

would be like to have a rider on your back. Imagine someone sharply poking

around your back, you will immediately try to move away from this and so hollow

your back and pull your head upward this is the sort of thing we do to our horses

when we don't sit to the trot correctly, when we bump heavily on the saddle at

the canter, when we kick the horse to make him go faster or when we pull the

range to make him slow down. Just like your reaction was to become tense, hollow

your back and raise your head, the horse will have very much the same behavior.

Now instead, imagine that someone is doing a soft massage along your back, it feels

very pleasant and in this case your reaction will be to raise your back,

stretch and arc it up like a cat. You certainly will not cringe from the

sensation, you will enjoy it. If you could give that kind of sensation to your

horse when you are riding him, his reaction would be quite similar.

He would also arc his back, stride freely, head down and eyes quiet.

The bond between horses and us will grow both physically and emotionally as our

knowledge about them also grows. In this episode we shared some basic knowledge

we hope it was helpful and you enjoyed it. In the next episodes of this series

we'll give more detailed information about the parts of the horse. So see you

in the next episodes. Bye!