Getting a kick out of a horse

Some time ago there was a front page story in the Christchurch Press about injuries caused by horses  and the cost to the tax payer. The story was headlined  ‘Hellish toll of hooves’ but it failed to mention the main reason for the toll– ie the metal shoe that is so often nailed to the hoof.  

A horseshoe can best be compared to a knuckleduster on a human fist in that it adds weight and rigidity to a comparatively light and flexible structure.  In so doing, it hugely increases the ability of the hoof to inflict major cutting, crushing and cracking injuries to both soft tissue and bone.

More Accident Compensation Commission claims result from riding accidents, than for rugby.  Most involve riders falling from horses but the most expensive are those that require extensive and complex reconstructive surgery.  Being kicked or trampled in the face and head will almost always fall into that category.

A horse’s kick can transfer a force of more than 10 000 Newtons to the body. Medical trauma personnel have likened the destructive potential of an equine kick to that of the impact of a small automobile moving at around 30 kms per hour. A kick can shatter bones and severely traumatize soft tissue externally and internally. Medical journals document people going into cardiac arrest after sustaining a kick to the chest.

A Swiss study of traumas inflicted by horses concluded that the equestrian community may underestimate the risk of severe injuries attributable to hoof kicks, especially while handling the horse.

The horse has evolved a highly specialised foot bone for its single digit. The equine pedal bone and its protective covering of horn has very high tensile strength but is very light. This conserves energy which, for a prey animal whose main defence is flight, is an important consideration.

A metal shoe can more than double the weight of the hoof capsule.  This has major consequences for all the forces that act on the horse hoof and limb – ground reaction force in particular.

The horse without shoes not only has a lighter, flexible hoof at the end of its very powerful hind limbs, it has a better sense of the velocity and therefore the strength of its kick. 

The horse may strike out with its front legs but it is the hind limbs which deliver most force. The hind limbs are the horse's engine – the propulsion unit, and they are also a major defence mechanism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCG7HWdRtkQ

The worst kick is from one or both back legs – delivered when the target is right behind the horse and at enough distance that the limbs can reach maximum velocity. Being ‘double barrelled’ by a horse has a special meaning for all horsefolk. You don’t want to have it happen to you and if it does, you want to the horse to be shoeless.

A horse than means to hurt you will do so if it connects. And they can be astonishingly fast and accurate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqZ4UUDoZGs

Leaving aside the extreme provocation of having a red hot branding iron applied to its rump, a horse that kicks without warning means to do harm especially if they kick out at head height. Such a horse is either feeling very threatened and wants to get in first, or it is being aggressively dominant.

However, most horses do a lot of threatening before kicking. There’s almost always a lot of horse talk going on that many humans are not aware of, choose to ignore or worse, answer back in a manner that escalates the potential for conflict.

Horses which are kept in highly stressful situations, are in pain or anxious about pain, and / or are badly trained are far more likely to kick without warning. I have never been kicked by one of my own horses yet I quite often trim their feet sitting on a box with the hoof in my lap.  They are barefoot, live in a herd and are well trained and at peace with the world.

Aside from kicking, there are stamping, trampling type injuries – ranging from the very common standing on a toe through the slamming of a hoof onto a foot to being run over by a fast moving horse.  A race horse can gallop at around 50 kms an hour– and it can weigh upwards of 500 kilos. Its kick may feel like being hit by a small car at 30 kms an hour – being trampled must feel like being run over – and over – by a small car.

Dr Hiltrud Strasser, an outspoken advocate of keeping horses barefoot, suggests that, such are the dangers of shod horses, people riding or working with them should have to wear protective head gear. Given the numbers of major facial injuries inflicted by horse’s hooves, perhaps this should be full face helmets. We have laws which require cyclists (motorized and non motorised to wear helmets, why don’t we have a law requiring the same of people who are riding and handling horses which have the equivalent of knuckle dusters attached to their feet?

Just a thought ….