This is an excerpt from Equine Disease Quarterly, funded by underwriters at Lloyd’s, London, brokers, and their Kentucky agents.

Horses often are victims of accidental injury. Their gregarious nature, social hierarchy, heightened flight response, and handling and confinement by humans puts them at increased risk of trauma. A fairly common and usually catastrophic injury of horses is trauma to the head resulting in fracture of the skull.

The head of a typical adult horse weighs in excess of 40 pounds. This, coupled with the long neck placing the head well outside the center of mass, causes the head to strike the ground with tremendous force during a fall. Also, the speed and strength of a horse can result in severe impact of the head against an object when rearing or running.

Over the past five years, the University of Kentucky Livestock Disease Diagnostic Center has diagnosed 34 cases of skull fracture, with a yearly average of 6.8 cases. These were diagnosed in several breeds, with Thoroughbreds predominating. The affected horses ranged in age from 2 days to 23 years. Most cases were adult horses, but yearling and younger horses were affected as well