What’s a Splint?

There is a bit of benign confusion about the area of the horse’s legs that house what most horse owners call the “splint bones.” On each side of the metacarpal or metatarsal bones (cannons front and back) is a small bone that is commonly called the “splint bone.” Each is attached to the cannon by an interosseous (between bone) ligament, thus the two small bones “splint” or support the large bone. (Now, probably for the first time, you know why that area got its name.) For many years, horse owners and veterinarians thought these were just remnants of toes from the prehistoric horse, but the splin