Alleycat replied: "Ohmigosh you better call your vet but QUICK! When a horse has a leg injury, he ends up putting his weigh on the other legs which can lead to a fatal condition called laminitis. This is how Barbaro's veterinarian explained laminitis in layman's terms. It's really, really serious, so get your horse medical attention A.S.A.P. A horse walks on the tip of its middle digit. Evolutionary speaking, they adapted to walk on the tip of their middle digit. So, they’re essentially walking on the nail of their middle finger. And really what you’re talking about is the bone inside of the hoof has to be attached to that nail, what’s called the keratinized tissue, the hard tissue of the hoof. The bone is attached to that by tissue called lamina. They are inter-digitating pieces of tissue where the hard tissue goes to the—basically inanimate tissue goes to the animate tissue, if you want to look at it that way. That tissue, if it becomes damaged, which is what happens in laminitis, separates, and then you lose the connection between the bone and the hoof. And if the horse loses the connection between the bone and the hoof, it’s exquisitely painful to the horse because the horse needs that connection to walk around. So, the only way you can cure it once it’s at this point is many, many months of the horse actually growing a new hoof wall that extends down from the top, just the way you would re-grow a nail if you had your nail essentially pulled out, which I think everyone recognizes to be very painful. So, it’s a painful condition. It’s a serious condition. And it’s a very difficult, long-standing problem to deal with."