You may have heard that horse legs are brittle, which may seem true since horses tend to break their legs more than any other part of their body. However, horses don’t break their legs so often because they are brittle, but because they use them more than any other part of their body.
Think of it this way: you are much more likely to break your arms or legs than you are your sternum, That’s because your limbs are more involved in the things you do, and thus at higher risk of being damaged. A horse uses its legs for just about every single thing it does in its life.
That being the case, bones in the leg are the most common ones for a horse to break. The unfortunate reality is just that those bones that are most likely to break are also the most important ones a horse has. Nearly any leg bone break is a serious issue for a horse.
Now, even though horse bones are quite dense, this does not mean it doesn’t have stronger and weaker bones in its body, comparatively speaking.