Knowing basic horse anatomy is important to be able to properly follow directions from instructors when talking about certain parts of the horse . Gain an understanding of basic horse anatomy with the help of a Certified Horsemanship Association instructor in this video on horse anatomy.
Hi my name is Maryjo Turnbull and I'm here at Silver Buckle Ranch in Brush Prairie, Washington. Today we're going to talk about some basic parts of our horse. This is my student, Ivy, and she's going to help us demonstrate and point out different parts of Black who is here to help us too. So this is Black and as before we talked about how to approach a horse so when we approach a horse we always approach to his shoulder so one of the very important parts of the horse you need to know is the shoulders so Ivy can you show us his shoulder? Put two hands on, good job. Another really important part that we always want to be able to point out is of course his neck so what's his neck, good job and some real basic stuff we know his muzzle is the really soft part right here, his eye, of course and they really like to be rubbed right underneath their eyes. See how it shuts it makes him really relaxed and then of course their ears and we learned earlier that the ears are really important in teaching us and telling us how they are feeling and if they are paying attention to us today. The next thing that's really important for beginner riders to know is some of the basic parts of the leg. So we would want to know where the knee is, so can you point out the knee? Good job and then the cannon bone, Ivy do you know where the cannon bone is? Good, it's right here in front. This would be the cannon bone and so what would this part be? This is the fetlock and the fetlock is kind of like our ankle, correct. This part is called the pastern and this is the coronet band right above the hoof and this is the hoof. So it's really important that we know these basic parts so if we feel there is anything wrong with our horse's leg or foot when we go talk to our instructor we would be able to help describe what we are seeing or finding. So the front leg parts correspond to the back legs. The only thing that is a little different in the back is that we have the hock. Do you know where the hock is Ivy? Yea, it's the big bone in the back, right here. This is the hock. It's a lot like our elbow. It works just like our elbow. So again we have in the back, the hock, the cannon bone, the fetlock is this part like our ankle, the pastern and the coronet band and then the hoof is right below the coronet band. Some other basic parts if we want to just talk about the hoof for a moment. The beginner riders are always going to learn how to clean the hoof. So I need a hoof pick. If we had, if we're looking at our hoof we know of course this is Black and he has a shoe on and when we clean the hoof we're going to be cleaning out all the debris and looking for rocks but in part of the hoof is called the frog, that's this V shape right here and we always want to be able to clean the hoof out between the frogs looking for any rocks or anything that might be wrong with the hoof. So this is the frog and this is called the balls of the hoofs, see these little pudgy parts right here? Those are called the balls of the hoof. Alright, other than that the other really basic parts of course we have are the back which is under our saddle and the barrel of the horse. Sometimes you'll hear people call this the stomach but we call it the barrel and then we have the girth area which is where our cinch goes for our saddle. It is also called the heart girth and then we have the hip, the point of the hip and of course the tail and the behind. So these are all pretty important parts to know when we start out with horses so that when we are talking to our instructor or our instructor is giving us directions and they are talking about parts we'll be able to listen and follow directions to the best of our ability.
