Hoof Anatomy
I’d like to share with you my knowledge of the hoof. Like many horse owners, I have spent much of my time raising, training, competing and just messing around with horses. Yet, my understanding of the hoof was very limited. My desire to keep my horses barefoot led me to study natural hoof trimming techniques, and thus the complexities of hoof anatomy and hoof mechanism.
Let’s start with some basic anatomy. We’ll begin at the back of the hoof:
The heel buttresses are made up of the rear most hoof wall, as it turns the corner and becomes the bar. This is the initial landing zone for the hoof. It’s interesting to note that in the wild horse the heels are so low that they look like one structure with the heel bulbs, which also make contact with the ground on impact.
The frog functions as support, traction, and acts as a sensory center for feeling the terrain beneath the horse. A healthy frog will be firm and large, reaching two-thirds of the way across the hoof, towards the toe.
Collateral grooves describe the junction between sole, bar, and frog. This is the area you clean out with your hoof pick. The coronary band is the soft area around the top of the hoof capsule.
The sole, covering the bottom of the hoof capsule is ideally concave in shape and a minimum of 1/2 inch thick. In a barefoot horse you will see an arc-shaped callus form at the toe. This is extra support and protection for the front perimeter of the coffin bone (P3 or pedal bone).
The white line is the connection between the hoof wall and the sole, made up of small tubules called laminae. From the bottom of the hoof it looks like tiny fingers and is more of a yellow color than white.
The outer most structure is the hoof wall, which serves to protect the inner structures. Looking at the bottom again, the inner part of the wall has no pigment and will appear to be a white line. This is called the water line (go figure). It is most easily seen in a dark hoof with a thick wall. The hoof wall is often mistakenly thought of as the main support for the horse. This however is not the case. In general, horses do not live and work on hard flat surfaces, so all parts of the hoof are designed to work together in sharing the load.
For a better understanding of the hoof, I would recommend reading “The Sound Hoof” by Lisa Simons Lancaster, available at http://amazon.com or http://www.star-ridge.com. Next month I’ll talk about the hoof mechanism.