This article on injuring horses to fiction is part of the Science in Sci-fi, Fact in Fantasy blog series. Each week, we tackle one of the scientific or technological concepts pervasive in sci-fi (space travel, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, etc.) with input from an expert. Please join the mailing list to be notified every time new content is posted.
The Expert: Rachel Chaney
Rachel Annelise Chaney spent her childhood inhaling every scrap of horse information she could find and riding every equine she could climb on. Since adopting an ex-racehorse, she’s ridden, trained or cared for everything from Thoroughbreds to Quarter Horses, Drafts to Arabians, Warmblood jumpers to Paint barrel racers. She recently wrote a wonderful post on matching horses to settings, uses, and characters.
A reader and writer of SFF, Rachel currently languishes in the Eternal Pit of Revision. You should follow her on Twitter. Send coffee. Ignore frustrated screams.
How To Injure or Kill A Horse In Fiction
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a main character in possession of a compelling narrative is going to have a bad time. If nothing goes wrong for your MC, how can they prove they’re the best?
If your work features horses, great news! There’s no end to the number of things that can go wrong for your character. Horses hold the ironic position of being some of the toughest animals on earth AND the most fragile. Nature finds a way.
Want to fact check your fictional horse’s mishaps? Need a new way to make your main character’s life more awful? You’ve come to the right place. For a quick-and-dirty reference, think H2G:
- Hooves
- Heart
- Gut
Hooves – High Likelihood, Low Fatality
On the most basic level, horse hooves are just thicker, stronger fingernails. The difference? Horses have to support half a ton (or more!) on four tough fingernails. With every mile your horse walks, he risks damaging that fragile payload.
So let’s dig into those health risks!
Abscess – Have you ever had a blister form UNDER your fingernail? If you haven’t, picture a pocket of infection trapped under the nail, trying to break through to the surface. (Ew. I know) That’s a hoof abscess.
Hoof abscesses are fairly common and can be triggered by everything from stress to an infected cut to a sudden change in diet. An infection forms in the hoof, works its way through the tissue, and bursts out the hoof wall. Just like the Alien (1979) scene!
Because the infection forms inside the hoof, it’s almost impossible to detect unless the horse shows pain. But horses are tough customers. Many horses show no signs of distress, so you only know there’s a problem when the infection breaks through or the horse is suddenly lame. Depending on the size of the abscess, it can take days, weeks or even months for a horse to get back to normal speed – even with rest and proper treatment.
Puncture – If you’ve never seen the bottom of a hoof, you might think the whole thing is a hard, impenetrable structure. Not so! A vital part of the hoof is the frog. (Don’t forget this. We’ll come back to it!)
The frog is a softer, v-shaped pad of flesh in the center of the hoof. Kind of like the pads on a dog’s paw, the frog feels rough and calloused but can be punctured by sharp objects.
Puncturing the hoof frog can lead to soreness, limping, or even an abscess.
Lameness – A catch-all term, lameness encompasses all health issues that lead to sore feet, including but not limited to abscesses and punctures.
Making those hooves cover rough ground all day, every day? High chance of lameness!
Sloppy horseshoeing? You’ll probably shove a nail into the soft part of the hoof or crack the hoof wall. High chance of lameness!
Lameness of all types is common. If your character continues to push a lame horse, they’re in for a bad time! Like, you know, equine death.
Bottom Line: Hoof injuries are Mini-Bosses. They’re annoying, painful, and slow your progress, but are generally non-fatal. They can be deadly if they get infected or go untreated, but they are not meant to kill. Only to maim or seriously injure. If you need your character stranded or delayed, throw them a hoof issue!
Heart – Moderate Likelihood, High Fatality
In my experience, the 100% most misunderstood part of horse health is the seriousness of leg breaks. Raise your hand if you’ve ever said or heard something like this:
“When a human breaks their leg, we don’t put them down. Why do people do it to horses???”
Here’s the deal, horse physiology is different than a human’s. (Please. Hold your applause at my brilliance.) And, I know what you might be thinking. That heading says “Heart.” Why am I talking about leg breaks? Because horses are weird.
Remember that hoof frog? It’s a vital part of the circulatory system. When a horse puts force on the hoof and presses the frog down into the ground, it pushes blood up the leg to travel back to the heart.
Without consistent pressure placed on the frog, the heart cannot pump blood up and down a horse’s legs. The result? A nasty inflammatory disease that sets into a horse’s hoof: Laminitis.
Laminitis
2006 KY Derby Winner Barbaro: A high profile victim of laminitis. A year of surgeries, care, and therapy from the world’s best vets couldn’t prevent laminitis from setting into his hooves.
Laminitis is aggressive, painful and destructive. Even today, there is no cure for laminitis. The pain can be mitigated with heavy drugs. Mild cases can be treated to the point it poses no issue.
But it cannot be cured.
If your fictional horse breaks his leg so badly he cannot put pressure on the hoof, do NOT have your characters spare him, wrap his leg up like you would a human, and voila he comes back to perfect health. I’ll repeat: DO NOT DO THIS. Not only is it medically inaccurate, it’s insulting to everyone who’s had to choose between putting their horse down or watching them suffer from an incurable disease.
Laminitis can also develop if those pesky abscesses or puncture words keep a horse from walking on the injured hoof. An illness can also lead to laminitis if the horse cannot stand for an extended period of time.
Lady Eli: A rare case of laminitis recovery. Without vigilant care, the disease will resurge.
I cannot stress this enough. If your fictional horse is injured so badly he cannot put weight on all four hooves or, worse, can’t stand at all, the chances he’d develop laminitis are high. Insanely high. Snoop Dog on top of Mount Everest high. Horses just don’t survive that in real life.
BONUS FACT: Horses are also susceptible to heart attacks. While not as common as laminitis, it’s not unheard of for a horse to collapse during intense work. Survival is rare.
Bottom Line: Heart-based conditions are Side-Quest Bosses. Not inevitable but extremely difficult. Except in rare cases, they’re fatal.
Gut – High Likelihood/High Fatality
Welcome to the #1 medical cause of equine death. Forget battle wounds. Forget heart attacks. Forget exhaustion or falling over a cliff or any number of creative injuries. The most common, most effective cause of death in horses is simple digestive distress: Colic. (No, not baby colic.)
You know how I said horses were weird? It’s about to get weirder.
Unlike nearly every animal on earth, horses cannot throw up. Seriously.
Things that make humans vomit (stress, poison, sickness, eating too much/too little, extreme exercise, rapid body temperature changes) make horses colic. So what happens when a horse colics? A mild form is bloating, which may or may not work itself out. In deadly cases, the horse’s intestines twist around themselves and kink, either as an involuntary reaction or because the horse rolls in distress.
De Vedras has 12 acres of lush grass but beelines for leaves. Don’t ask. I don’t know.
So how could your fictional horse colic? Ingesting poison, being pushed to extreme lengths or forced to trek through a climate it wasn’t bred for can all result in colic. The most likely culprit? Lack of forage.
Horses can’t exist on a scoop of grain. They need 10-20 lbs. of forage (grass, hay, etc.) every day to stay healthy. Without forage, they’ll get a stomachache. Stomachache = Colic. So if your horses are traveling hither-and-yon without any forage and they DON’T colic . . . yeah, horse-knowledgeable readers are going to side-eye that.
But good news! You can improvise forage. My crazy horse suggests leaves.
Bottom Line: Gut issues are Final Bosses. It’s almost impossible to completely avoid them and the fatality rate is no joke. Good luck.
Final Note on Horse Injuries
Obviously, lots of things can kill or injure a horse. On the flip side, remember I said horses can be some of the toughest animals? It’s true. Horses shake off stuff like cuts, abrasions, heavy hits, and puncture wounds all the time!
Horses are vicious with each other, even in play; it’s where we get “horseplay” after all. They kick, body slam, and rake their teeth down each other. They’re used to surface injuries.
Biting your friend’s face is… fun?
So if your character gets in a scrape and their horse takes a few hits, don’t sweat it. Those are just Enemy Minions. Clean those cuts, get some rest, and keep moving.
Your character has bigger bosses to worry about.
*Disclaimer: No horses were injured in the making of this article. The title card horse is not dead. Just lazy.
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I admit, I was quite alarmed to see the title of this article in the subject line when I got an email saying there was a new post! Nobody wants to kill horses! But this post was fantastic. I was reading facts out loud to my coworkers. I worked on a horse farm as a teenager and was taught most emphatically about caring for hooves, but I never knew the real depth of consequences. Well done! I’ve got a new perspective on how to represent horses as “well-written characters.”
I’m glad you read past the alarming title! I didn’t realize how very DEAD De Vedras looked in the title picture until after the article went live. 😀
I too worked with horses as a teenager yet knew next to nothing about the consequences of bad care. Rules like “don’t give them cold water after a workout” seemed unimportant before I learned about colic!
If you have any questions about health/general care/anything, I’d be happy to answer if I can.
I have been thoroughly enjoying your horsey posts, Rachel! They have been so helpful as I research horses for my fiction. I also appreciate the humor!
In my story, for plot purposes, I need my heroine to choose a horse on her birthday but be unable to take the mare home for at least a few weeks. The mare, Gwen, might have an injury (such as a hoof abscess!) but I’d rather not injure her if I don’t have to). Perhaps Gwen is simply too young and/or needs more training? My heroine (who’s 17) will be a beginning rider. Which scenario makes more horse sense? If the mare’s young age is a good delay, how old should she be? 3? 4? I’m thinking she’s a Morgan horse.
Thank you for any insight/ideas!
I’m thrilled these articles have been helpful! I’ve tried to think of information that’s useful without being “nit-picky” or boring, so it’s awesome to hear that you’re enjoying them. (There was only so much humor I could fit into an article on injury and death, but I try.)
Alright, so your question. Thank you for asking it. I hope this answer is helpful:
PART ONE: The Delay
If what you’re going for is a minor delay between your MC seeing the horse and taking her home (which is what it sounds like), I think your best option is a quarantine situation. Time-wise, an abscess would work fine because they usually resolve in a week or two. The problem? It’s not common for someone to purchase a horse that’s currently lame from an abscess. Your MC wouldn’t be able to test-ride the mare, and a vet wouldn’t be able to give it a clean bill of health.
Gwen being young/needing more training isn’t a scenario I’d recommend. Most horses take months to reach a “next level” of training and YEARS to noticeably mature. A few weeks would make little/no difference in the horse’s abilities, manners or maturity.
The Quarantine Solution: Different areas of the world have different strains of equine diseases/viruses and accompanying vaccinations. I.e. – in the U.S. (and especially in the South), the mosquito-transmitted West Nile Virus is common. Before horses are moved/purchased/put with new horses, they have full health check and bloodwork.
I’d suggest have Gwen be a recent import from a stable/part of the country where a virus outbreak happened. She doesn’t have to be sick, but it would make sense that she can’t be moved from the stable until the quarantine passes and she can have bloodwork drawn/run (this screening is called a Coggins, by the way).
A few weeks would be a reasonable time to wait for quarantine. Bloodwork takes a few days, max. She passes the vet check/bloodwork and BAM! Gwen can come to her new home.
PART TWO: Age
As I said above, horses take a bit to mature. If your heroine is a beginner, I’d recommend 8-10 years old MINIMUM. (A mature 8-10). Horses live 25-30 years, so Gwen and your MC would still have plenty of life together.
I adopted De Vedras when he was 4, but I knew when I got him that I wouldn’t be riding much/at all for a while. I was a beginning rider. He needed time to mature and get training, so I did a lot of ground work with for years. Not much riding. He’s 8 now and still a bit bratty under saddle sometimes. (And on the dependable scale, he ranks above 90% of horses I’ve met.)
A Morgan’s a good breed! I’ve never worked with one personally, so I can’t give first-hand info. But they have a reputation for being solid, versatile horses. Your heroine isn’t going to win any top-level Dressage, Jumping, or Eventing on a Morgan, but they’re great, little riding horses.
Let me know if I didn’t cover something or if I need to clarify anything. Thanks!
Your posts haven’t been boring at all! I’ve had light bulbs going off in my head as I think ‘So THAT’S why!’
Thank you so much for your thorough responses to my questions! I should have specified that it’s historical fiction (1860 South Carolina). So there may be a vet, but he will not be doing any bloodwork! Quarantine would also be problematic.
Basically I want my heroine to have an excuse to visit a nearby farm where Gwen is for sale, where my heroine will also meet a very handsome groom. 😉 I shall have to do some more brainstorming on how to get my heroine, her horse, and her love interest where and when I need them.
A “great, little riding horse” is exactly what my heroine needs. Thank you for setting me straight on an appropriate age for a beginner’s horse!
Are there any books or films about horse behavior and horse/human communication you’d recommend?
Wow, I am so sorry this took a week for a response. First I was running everywhere, with work up to my neck, and when I finally had breathing space to respond, the place I was staying for a mini-vacation had spotty WiFi. But I am back!
All right, so not to the Quarantine. I think 1860’s JUST puts you outside the realism of a quarantine. 😀
Alternate Idea: Weaning off a Foal. When mares have foals, there a time period where the foals stay with the broodmare for bonding/feeding purposes. But (like with puppies) the foals have to be weaned off their mothers – usually when the foal is 6 months old. (In the wild, the mare would eventually kick the foal off on her own, but we tend to speed up the process so the mares don’t get mad.)
If Gwen had a foal almost at the age of weaning, it would make sense that your MC would wait a few weeks to take her home.
I don’t have any particular books or films about horse behavior and horse/human communication. I’ve accumulated knowledge from a bunch of different places over the years + what works in REALITY (vs. Theory) with my horses. I’m planning on writing an article on Horse Behavior and Human Handling! Is there anything in particular you want me to address?
If you have book-specific questions, you can always DM me on Twitter!
Sorry, again, for the delay!
Please forgive all the typos. *facepalms*
No worries! I understand that life happens! And so do typos! I appreciate your willingness to help.
This project is a family saga which I began when I was 14, when I knew next to nothing about writing a novel or the 1850s, let alone horses. I’m now *cough* well into my 30s. So I’m still trying to get my bearings on how to revise my crazy 14-year-old ideas into something stronger.
My heroine’s love interest isn’t exactly a horse whisperer–I don’t plan to have him gentling any “problem” horses. But I do want him to be good with horses and for them to respond positively to him. So I’ve been looking into how he would greet horses to put them at ease–both horses who are new to him and horses he works with every day. How might they show affection for him, and how might he show affection for them? Perhaps you could address greeting and affectionate gestures in you article?
The blog won’t let me reply under your other comment. (I think we have too many on the same thread! :D) So I’m responding underneath this one.
THANK YOU for asking about showing affection. I hadn’t even thought about addressing that, but it’s a great question since horses show feelings/act completely different from other, common pets.
Since I’m working on an article on the most common horse mistakes right now and won’t get to the horse behavior one until after that, I thought I’d go ahead and answer the affection question here for you.
Most people are used to dogs showing affection vocally or with blatant excitement. Like, when we’ve been gone a while. I go ANYWHERE for any length of time and my dog will whine, bark, howl, yap and scamper around happily when I get home. When I go visit my horse, he’s equally excited to see me, but he shows it VERY differently.
Horses communicate A LOT through body language and touching. They’re prey animals, so they aren’t nearly as vocal as dogs (no matter what the movies tell you!), but they are all about that touch! If I sit in front of De Vedras’s stall while I’m working, he’ll touch me every few minutes like clockwork.
Nose in hair. Whiskers on face. Tongue on my shirt. Snorting in my ear. I’ll be covered in Thoroughbred smell the rest of the day! The gentle touches are his way of a) showing affection and b) reassuring himself I’m there and am going to take care of him.
If you watch some horses that are bonded/trust each other in a field, you’ll see that they do the same with each other. While they all will touch, it’s more common for a lower-rank horse to touch a more dominant horse for reassurance. De Vedras will randomly reach up and nuzzle the hip of his buddy El Paso (the guy biting at him in the article) all the time.
So for your book, a good greeting gesture would be a soft whicker/snort when they see him or (if they’re not in the barn) coming up to the gate/barn as soon as they see him. When they’re with him or he’s standing beside them or anytime you want to show affection, gentle touching/nuzzling would do the trick!
If you want to show a STRONG bond, my horse will curl his head around me and “hug” me with his neck if he’s had a bad day and I’m making it better. El Paso does the same with my mom after she spent 2 years healing his hooves. They will also try to “groom” us with their teeth sometimes when we’re grooming them. They think they’re helping (since that’s what bonded horses do with each other). WE think it’s painful to have horse teeth on your back and push them off! 😀
What marvelous insights into horse behavior/psychology! Thank you, thank you, Rachel! I also look forward to your next article!
Excellent article! I basically had the understanding (from working mainly with Thoroughbreds) that treating broken legs had to do with the difficulty of keeping them from reinjuring themselves. The laminitis potential more broadly explains why it is so uncommon for a horse to survive a broken leg. Thanks!
– Kay
Thanks, Kay!
Thoroughbreds? Yes, please! All OTTBs over here.
You’re absolutely right about reinjuring. If I remember correctly, that was why they had to put Ruffian down after her surgery.
Reinjuring and laminitis are pretty closely linked., I think. The longer a horse can’t put pressure on the hoof, the higher the chance laminitis will set in. So if he/she reinjures the same leg, the extra time in a cast or sling could be the difference between avoiding laminitis and succumbing to it.
Thank you for this series of articles. They’re just great. In my WIP I need my heroine delayed by helping a horse and so I have the horse suffering from colic. I’ve watched YouTube videos to see how it’s relieved but since this is historical fantasy could you suggest what could be used instead of a plastic pipe through the nose. Thanks again.
First of all, I apologize profusely for getting back to you on this a month late. I somehow missed seeing the comment when you posted it. *hides face in shame*
About your situation: the problem with colic (as I’m sure you know since you’ve researched it) is that it’s a catch-all term for stomach ailments that can range from minor to quickly fatal. There’s also, as you note, not many ways of dealing with it.
When my mother’s horse got colic, we called a vet who gave him a relaxer shot, put the plastic pipe down his throat and helped him “throw up.” It worked great. He was fine within hours and glared at us for food and water. Unfortunately, not many other solutions are available – even today. (Surgery can be performed for horses whose intestines twist, but you’d have to be CLOSE to an equine medical center to get this done in time. And it’s pricey.) Even today, a lot of people have to have their horses put down when they colic.
So you’ve got a Historical Fantasy where surgery and modern solutions (i.e. relaxer shots) are not an option. Hmm. There were “natural remedies” for colic for centuries, but most of those have been disproved by the equine veterinary community. For instance, it was common to keep a colicking horse walking so he couldn’t roll in distress and get his intestines. But walking the horse won’t fix the colic. Sometimes, people keep walking their horse until the colic works itself out on its own, but that’s more coincidence than fix.
In your case, I’d suggest either A) have the heroine walk the horse but KNOW that that won’t fix the colic or B) go with a different horse malady for your heroine to fix. Something like a hoof issue could work because hoof issues are fixable but totally foreign to anyone who doesn’t know how to deal with them.
A hoof abscess would put a horse in debilitating pain, make them limp badly if they move at all, and believably go unnoticed by someone who didn’t know the signs of an abscess. Your heroine could pick up the hoof the horse doesn’t want to put weight on, notice a bulging part on the sole where an abscess is trying to break through, and wrap the hoof in wet rags and walk the horse to draw the infection out.
Usually, an abscess close to the surface will pop within hours of being soaked. Most horses experience considerable improvement/lessening of pain at that point. The puncture could be then cleaned and the hoof kept wrapped for a bit to prevent dirt from getting in the puncture. Within days, the horse would be right as rain!
Is that a scenario that helps?
Thank you! It’s got great potential – the magic words were debilitating pain and go unnoticed for days. I imagine a stableboy would recognise the signs but hopefully and realistically not immediately, unlike my heroine who can pinpoint exactly where the pain is coming from. I think it might work! Thanks again!
Awesome! I’m so glad I could help.
Let me know if you have any other questions relating to this or any of my other horse articles.
I’d also recommend writers check out Judith Tarr’s articles on horses for further (VERY extensive) information on horses. She’s both incredibly knowledgeable and has a great imagination for how to fit equines into SFF settings. https://www.tor.com/author/judith-tarr/among other homes of hers on the internet.