10/16/2026
Backside Basics: Common Lower Limb Issues 🐴
The lower leg of a racehorse takes a tremendous amount of stress during training, and learning the difference between the common bumps, fillings, and soft-tissue changes you see is an important part of developing your eye around horses.
Bucked shins are most commonly seen in younger horses in training. They involve soreness and inflammation along the front of the cannon bone as the bone is adapting to the stress of speed work. You may notice heat, tenderness when you run your hand down the front of the cannon, swelling, or a horse becoming shorter or more uncomfortable in its stride.
A popped splint is inflammation around one of the splint bones, usually creating a firm bump along the side of the cannon. When it is active, it may be warm, sore, and swollen. Once it becomes an old, “cold” splint, the bump may remain even though it is no longer painful. Location matters because some splints can also irritate nearby soft-tissue structures.
A bowed tendon usually refers to injury or inflammation of the superficial digital flexor tendon. Instead of the back of the cannon feeling flat and uniform, the tendon may look or feel thickened, swollen, or curved outward. Acute bows may have heat, pain, and lameness, while an older healed bow may remain visibly thickened long after the active injury has resolved.
A high suspensory lesion affects the upper part of the suspensory ligament near its origin just below the knee. These can be harder to see from the outside because the injury may sit deeper in the limb. Horses may show subtle lameness, soreness after work, or changes that are easier to detect with a hands-on exam and diagnostic imaging.
A suspensory injury can occur anywhere along the ligament, including the body of the suspensory or its branches closer to the fetlock. Depending on the location, you may see swelling, heat, tenderness, filling near the back of the cannon, or swelling around one branch of the fetlock. Suspensory injuries can range from mild strains to more serious fiber damage.
Windpuffs, or soft filling around the fetlock, are extremely common. Some horses develop chronic, soft, cool windpuffs that remain fairly consistent and do not bother them. What becomes more concerning is a new change — especially if the filling is hot, painful, suddenly larger, uneven between the legs, or accompanied by lameness.
The biggest skill isn’t memorizing every diagnosis. It’s learning what each horse normally looks and feels like, then recognizing when something changes.
Run your hands down the legs every day. Compare left to right. Pay attention to heat, swelling, filling, tenderness, thickening, and changes in movement.
Early recognition does not mean diagnosing the problem yourself — it means noticing the change early enough to get the trainer and veterinarian involved.
