Horse's Legs

[Lesath]

Quick question: In a horse’s back leg, what tendon would have to be severed in order for only the legs to be paralyzed?

Don’t worry horse lovers, I’m not going to attempt this in real life. I need the information for a story.

[Darwins_Finch]

Offhand, I’d say that severing the perforans tendon would probably be debilitating. This tendon runs along the anterior edge of the “cannon bone” (the lowermost part of the leg; analgous to our metatarsals), from just above the ankle to the hoof. The flexor pedis perforans muscle controls flexion of the foot at the ankle (the “backwards bend” in the leg). It also acts as a locking mechanism to help the animal remain standing when at rest.

Of course, severing the distal end of the gastrocnemius would probably accomplish the same thing (think having your “Achille’s tendon” severed…).

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Text and pics. Pick a tendon. I have no clue. Whatever you think sounds good, I guess.
http://education.vetmed.vt.edu/Curriculum/VM8695/naw/ligtenmus/Tendonnotes.html

Why can’t you just say, “He slashed the horse’s tendon”, instead of needing to say, “He slashed the horse’s superficial flexor tendon”?

You want the horse completely crippled and unable to walk at all? It looks like just slashing a single tendon won’t do that. Horses are hard-wired to keep moving, no matter what kind of appalling leg injury they may have just suffered.

http://www.wiwfarm.com/ifthshft8.htm

The superficial flexor tendon runs down the back of the leg and divides just below the fetlock. It then attaches to the lower portion of the long pastern bone and the short pastern bone at the pastern joint. **In the hind leg, this tendon has little muscular function **(remembering that tendons attach muscle to bone, and act more like a ligament of the “stay apparatus”). In short, the stay apparatus is the system of ligaments that allow a horse to sleep standing up.

In True Life Adventure Stories, they always have the wolves “hamstring” the helpless cow. Horses have “hamstring” muscles, too. Is that what you’re talking about?

http://www.horseracingcenter.com/glossary/t.shtml

Tying Up - Muscle cramps and stiffness that is mainly concentrated in the horse’s hamstring muscles, i.e. the three strings that make up the hamstring muscles are the semitendonusus [sic], semimembrinosus, and the biceps femoris.

(It’s actually spelled “semitendinosus”.)

So, if you wanted to hamstring a horse, you’d cut at numbers 36 and 37. This diagram doesn’t show the semimembrinosus.

http://www.aqha.com/horse/about/muscles.html

Anyway, that’s right below the horse’s “ass cheek”, just below the curve and just above the hock. It doesn’t involve any of the big lower leg tendons at all.

[Darwins_Finch]

Correction: the flexor pedis perforans controls flexion of the toe, not the foot as a whole.