Parts of the Horse
Learn and Compare

The parts of the horse aren't too hard to learn. If you hang around a barn too long and don't know them, you may find yourself left in the dust! Equine enthusiasts are notorius for speaking in "horse."

"He's got a locked stifle" or "She's cut her gaskin" can sound like a foreign language if you don't know what those parts are!

Not to worry. The chart below has all the basics labeled, and you can also print it off so you can learn at your own pace.

Click on the picture to view the parts in full size or print as a .pdf file

You may also want to go here if you are looking for more downloadable anatomy pictures.

Can you Compare any Parts of the Horse with People?

You can't compare the two because we stand on two legs and horses stand on four! You may believe that, but we are not as different as you may think!

• Our knees are comparable to the horse's stifles
• Our heels are are our partner's hocks
• The foot of a person is the rear cannon bone on our equine friends. On the front legs their cannon bone is like our wrist to the first knuckle. The splint bones are remnants of the other palm bones.
  
• Their hoof is like our fingernail. It grows from the coronet, while our fingernails start at the cuticle. In the horse it is the primary weight bearing structure, much like our feet are to us.
  
• The knee on the equine is what we would call our wrist
• The ears of our equine friends hear much better than us. They also have the ability to move more, allowing him to hear things better from any direction.
  
• They use their buttocks for movement, as do we.
• Unlike us, their eyes have great peripheral (side) vision. Their vision is in an arc shape with a small blind spot at the front of the nose and directly behind the tail.
  

Return to the home page from parts of the horse to find other intriguing articles about horses