THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY?

One of the hoary chestnuts in movie and TV westerns is the somber occasion where the cowboy's horse stumbles in a prairie dog hole and breaks his leg. Inevitably, the grim-faced rider will approach the equine with solemnity, stroke the animal's forehead, and then fire a bullet between its eyes.

In a time and place where one might be a hundred miles from the nearest vet, such an action does seem to make sense. However, with today's mobility, communications, and medical facilities, is death still the panacea for a broken limb on a horse?

Sadly, for the most part, the answer is "yes." Unlike humans, dogs, and cats, whose legs are supported by relatively thick bones, muscles, and sinew, horses have spindly little leg bones--especially those high-performance horses bred to go fast. The fact that a horse can weigh 1200 pounds (544 kilograms) puts an intense load on those bones even when the horse is stationary. When the horse's leg bone breaks, it usually shatters into dozens of pieces, and there is nothing left to knit together in a cast.

Complicating this task is the fact that horses evolved as prey animals, not predators, and their one method of defense is to run away fast. They remain standing almost all of the time in order to make a quick getaway and can even sleep on their feet. It is unrealistic to expect that a horse will calmly take to bed rest for months on end while its leg heals.

Consequently, although vets today can sometimes treat greenstick fractures on horses (where the bone is cracked but not broken), the acceptable remedy today for most horse leg fractures still is euthanasia. Those who have tried to buck this trend, such as the owner of Barbora, who won the Kentucky Derby in 2006 and then broke his rear leg, have usually regretted the decision and, as in the case of Barbora, eventually followed through with putting the animal out of its misery.

For the inspiration for this factoid as well as a more thorough treatment of this topic, check out Roger Schlueter's column in the Belleville News-Democrat.

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