Inside Nature's Giants: The Racehorse

A couple years ago, I read a post on Fran Jurga's Hoof Blog that featured a documentary of an anatomical investigation of the racehorse. And then earlier this week, the video popped up again in my YouTube recommendations. So naturally I watched the whole 45 minute video again, because it's seriously that cool.

The documentary is hosted by Veterinary Scientist Mark Evans as part of the "Inside Nature's Giants" series, and covers a wide variety of topics. Particularly, it explores racing history and lore (including details on famous horses), the evolutionary history of the horse, racehorse breeding and training, and extensive discussion of bio-mechanics.

And it all revolves around a full dissection of a 4 year old racehorse. Particularly neat details in the dissection include:

• examination of the fore limb joints and soft tissue structures
• a cross-section of the lower leg, including hoof capsule (omg so cool)
• review of internal organs (such as intestines, larynx, trachea, lungs {HUGE}, heart {also HUGE}, and spleen)
• assessment of musculature

screen shot. hope you're not squeamish about this... i just think it's SO COOL OMG

It's hard not to get a little weirdly enthusiastic about the blood and guts too, since the vets working on the dissection are clearly loving their job and are super knowledgeable (plus there's plenty of awkward nerdy banter too, lol).

So I'm sharing in case you're into that kind of thing and have a spare hour this weekend - I highly recommend checking out this documentary!