Your horse’s hooves are complex structures that contain several important bone and soft tissue structures, all protected by the thick, elastic digital cushion. | Photo: iStock

Recently, Babak Faramarzi, DVM, CVA, MSc, PhD, and colleagues conducted a study to gain a better understanding of the digital cushion’s connective, nervous, and adipose (fat) tissues, as well as vascular components. He presented the results at the 2016 American Association of Equine Practitioners Convention, held Dec. 3-7 in Orlando, Florida.

“Previous studies are inconsistent, with some claiming that digital cushion (DC) is primarily a fat pad,” said Faramarzi, an associate professor at the Western University of Health Sciences College of Veterinary Medicine, in Pomona, California. “Collectively, these studies represent disagreement about the architecture of the DC. Our results showed that the composition/structure is far more complicated.”

He recently collected samples from the hooves of 24 clinically sound Quarter Horses euthanized for reasons unrelated to the study. They examined samples from four regions of the digital cushion—axial-proximal (top center), axial-distal (bottom center), abaxial-lateral (outer edge), and abaxial-medial (inner edge)—via light microscopy