Horse Leg Break

The cannon bone came through the hide white and terrible, and there is no argument left to have, no splint, no sling, no prayer mends a shattered foreleg in 1899. Your horse holds three-legged and trembling with its muzzle pressed to your chest, waiting on you to do the last kind thing.

• The choice and the shot are yours alone, no one else's hand should do it
• You are afoot, carrying your own saddle
• /me rests their forehead against the horse's cheek for a long moment, then reaches for the pistol

Recovery There is no recovery, only a grave, a saddle to carry, and a name you won't use again.·Doctor, urgently

Below the hock the leg swings wrong, a complete break through the cannon. The vet is honest with you: a sling and splints have saved one horse in fifty, and the fifty suffer for it. The pistol is mercy; the sling is a gamble paid in the horse's pain.

• Decide by nightfall, every hour standing three-legged courts founder in the good legs
• If you gamble on the sling, you owe the horse a nurse's vigil twice a day for 7 days
• /me stands at the corral rail, staring at the horse, hat in hand

Recovery The pistol takes a moment. The sling takes a season in the story, count 7 days of vigils before hope is honest.·Doctor, urgently

The pastern is broken in more pieces than the vet's fingers can count through the swelling. He has read of slings and plaster in the journals, but out here the arithmetic is grim, the horse cannot stand on three legs for the months it would take without foundering.

• The horse sweats and trembles, weight rocked back off the ruined leg
• You have until morning to choose, gather anyone who should say goodbye
• Laudanum eases the horse, but the leg will not bear

Recovery Most endings here are a grave by morning, if a fine vet and a sling attempt it, 7 days of vigil just to reach a maybe.·Doctor, urgently

A clean, closed break of the cannon, the one break the journals say can knit. The vet splints it in plaster, rigs a belly sling from canvas and barn beams, and tells you the truth: months in the story, a fight against founder the whole way, and a horse that will never again be fast.

• Twice-daily sling checks and leg rubs for 7 days, the founder watch is real
• Your horse lives in a barn sling, no riding it whatsoever this week
• If it heals, your horse walks sound but never gallops flat-out again
• /me adjusts the canvas sling, checking where it chafes the belly

Recovery A season in the story to knit, play 7 days of vigil, then a slow-walking convalescent. Without the sling, it founders inside 3.·Doctor, urgently

Dead lame, heat and swelling straight over the cannon, and the vet's face says everything while his hands keep probing. His verdict: maybe a crack, maybe not, he splints it as if it were and forbids the horse to move, because if a crack spreads, you will face the pistol yet.

• Absolute stall rest, hand-walk 20 steps to water and back, no more, for 5 days
• Cold water bandages changed three times a day for 3 days
• You will not know for days whether you own a lame horse or a doomed one

Recovery 5 days splinted and still to prove it's no true break, if the swelling climbs instead of falls, the hard question returns.·Doctor required

Not the cannon, the splint bone alongside it, snapped clean, a small vestigial bone a horse can live without. It is the best bad news the vet can give: painful, weeks of rest in the story, and a bony lump forever after, but nobody is fetching the pistol.

• Hand-walk only for 4 days, then walking rides on soft ground
• A permanent hard lump on the inside of the cannon, a splint every horseman will read at a glance
• /me runs a thumb down the horse's leg, feeling for the swelling's edge

Recovery 4 days of wraps and rest to turn the corner, 7 if it keeps getting bumped, the lump stays for life.·Doctor required

The vet watches it hobble a circle and shakes his head in relief, nothing grates, nothing swings. The suspensory is torn and screaming, the leg filled tight as a sausage, but it is sinew, not bone, and sinew mends if you let it.

• Walk, never trot, for 5 days, lead it over any rough ground
• Cold creek-water soaks morning and evening for 3 days
• The leg fills and stiffens overnight, ugly to look at, better by noon

Recovery 5 days of cold soaks and patience, 7 and a permanently thickened leg if you push it.·Doctor required

The prairie-dog hole got the leg but not the bone, a stone-deep bruise where the cannon slammed the burrow's rim. Your horse hops lame for a day and sulks for several more, and every horseman who sees it will tell you how nearly you walked home.

• Pronounced limp for 2 days, faint for 3 more
• No galloping across unbroken ground for 4 days, you've learned that lesson

Recovery 3 days with arnica and wraps, 5 without, the memory of the sound it made lasts longer.·Doctor required

The ankle rolled in the hole and wrenched hard, swollen by the time you dismounted, but bearing weight square. A cold mud poultice and a snug wrap have it looking honest again within days.

• A visible head-bob at the trot for 3 days
• Wrap the fetlock before every ride for 3 days
• Walk the steep and stony stretches on your own feet

Recovery 3 days poulticed and wrapped, 5 if it works unwrapped.·Doctor advised

The knee twisted taking the bad step and filled with fluid overnight, puffy, warm, and stiff for the first mile until it works loose. Old horsemen call it a popped knee and prescribe liniment, rest, and shorter days.

• Stiff first mile every ride for 4 days, walk it out gently
• Liniment rub morning and night for 3 days, the smell announces you everywhere

Recovery 4 days of liniment and light work, 6 of stubborn swelling without.·Doctor advised

The stumble slammed the shoulder and something in the big muscle pulled. The horse tracks short on that side, swinging the leg stiffly instead of reaching, sound at a walk, sorry at anything more.

• Short-strided on one front for 3 days, no loping circles that direction
• Rub the shoulder down after every ride for 3 days

Recovery 3 days of rubdowns and easy miles, 5 ridden hard.·Doctor advised

The scramble out of the hole left a gash across the cannon and a leg that filled tight by morning. No crack beneath it, just torn hide and bruised bone sheathing that needs cleaning, wrapping, and a few slow days.

• Clean and rewrap the gash daily for 4 days
• The horse rests the leg's toe when standing for 3 days
• A thin scar down the cannon when the hair regrows

Recovery 4 days wrapped and clean, 6 with a proud-flesh scare if left open.·Doctor advised

It caught itself with one mighty heave of the hindquarters, and something back there paid for it. The horse dips low on one hind at the walk and refuses to square up under a rider's weight for a few days.

• Mount gently and sit light for 3 days
• The horse stands hip-shot, resting the sore side, whenever you stop

Recovery 3 days easy, 4 if you make it climb hills.·Doctor advised

One long heart-stopping stagger, three strides of scramble, and your horse caught itself. It walks out of it with a scuffed knee and a hot temper, and you walk the next mile because your legs demand it.

• A scuffed, hairless patch on one knee
• The horse is snorty and quick to spook for a day
• /me dismounts on shaking legs and checks each of the horse's legs twice

Recovery A day for the scuff and the nerves both.·No doctor needed

You felt the leg drop into the hole and your stomach dropped with it, but the horse pulled free, and by the time you led it a hundred yards the limp had faded to a memory. A little heat in the fetlock tonight, gone by tomorrow or the day after.

• Faint stiffness first thing for 2 days
• Cold-hose or creek-stand the leg tonight

Recovery A day or two, less if you soak it tonight.·No doctor needed

The hole took its toll on the hoof wall, not the leg, a chunk chipped from the edge that makes the horse footy on gravel until a farrier can rasp it smooth and reset the shoe.

• Tenderfooted on stony ground for 2 days or until a farrier trims it
• Visit a farrier before any long ride

Recovery A farrier fixes it in an hour, 3 tender days of growing out without one.·Doctor advised

The stumble launched you over the shoulder into the grass, and the horse trotted a circle and came back to look down at you, entirely sound and possibly amused. Your pride took the only real injury; the horse has a green smear on one knee.

• Grass stains on horse and rider both
• The horse gets suspicious at that stretch of trail for 2 days

Recovery Nothing to heal but your dignity, give it an evening.·No doctor needed

The dog hole swallowed the hoof to the fetlock and your heart stopped, but the leg came free straight and clean, and twenty cautious steps later the horse is striding out like the whole affair was beneath its notice.

• Check the leg again tonight just to be sure
• You dismount and fill in the dog hole out of spite

Recovery None needed, luck carried the whole bill.·No doctor needed

A stumble at speed, a lurch that threw you onto the neck, and then, recovery, four sound legs beating retreat from the dog town. When you finally pull up, the horse is lathered and trembling and utterly unhurt.

• Walk the last stretch home to cool the shakes out of both of you
• /me pats the lathered neck with an unsteady hand

Recovery An evening of good hay and quiet.·No doctor needed

The foreleg plunges into a badger set to the knee at a dead gallop, the fall that snaps horses in half, and somehow your horse tucks, rolls clean over its own shoulder, and comes up standing with you still half-aboard. The vet will later feel every inch of that leg twice and pronounce it the soundest broken-leg-that-wasn't he has ever billed nobody for.

• Not a scratch on the horse, witnesses will argue about the physics for years
• Your horse walks wide around every burrow from now on, and so do you
• /me looks from the hole to the horse and back, and takes off their hat to it

Recovery None, though you may need a drink.·No doctor needed