What does it mean when a horse drops its pasterns and could you give me a picture of it?

Question

What does it mean when a horse drops its pasterns and could you give me a picture of it?

Answer 1

These photos and website explain it much better than I could. http://www.angelfire.com/bc/curlygait/Ea...

http://www.angelfire.com/bc/curlygait/sp...

Answer 2

hmmmmmm never heard of that i would like to know too :)

Answer 3

If you look at the pasterns in a normal leg, they make a rather large angle to the ground, I'd say around 75-80 degrees. When they drop their pasterns, the ligaments holding the "ankle" at that large angle lengthen, thus closing the angle between the pastern and the ground. The best way to look at it is to look at dressage horses when they are doing the passage... look at their pasterns when they are doing this. They drop down naturally to absorb the shock of their hooves hitting the ground. When a horse "drops its pasterns," their ankles look like that when they are standing still, and their legs have lost the ability to absorb that shock.

The link below has a good video of the passage, and a good picture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_(dr...