Why do horses have to be humanely destroyed if they break their leg during a race?
They usually aren’t. I’ve seen horses in the wild break a leg, heal up, and survive without human intervention. But it depends on the fracture. If the skin is broken, infection is the biggest danger. It is very difficult to treat bone infection in a horse, and that is the major cause of death in bone fractures. The second danger is laminitis. In nature, the horse carries his weight on the center of the foot, called the frog, and the foot bone directly above it called the coffin bone. Horseshoers have a bad habit of trimming the frog too short so the horse carries his weight on the outer edge of the foot where the shoe is. When the horse is standing for long periods of time on three legs, the connection between the outer hoof and the coffin bone is stressed and can break down. This can result in the coffin bone coming loose in the hoof and cutting through the bottom of the hoof, a condition called founder. This is big cause of death in a seriously injured horse. One big consideration is
