Need help - Can someone please explain this?
 

What exactly does this mean?

Thank you.

Right fore suspensory branch injury (lateral branch rupture).

It means that the horse ruptured the lateral branch in the suspensory ligament in the right front leg. (There are two branches - medial and lateral.) Prognosis wouldn't be very good for a full recovery due to the slow healing nature of suspensory ligament injuries and the fact that when they DO heal, the ligament is weaker due to scar tissue that typically develops.

Okay thank you.

I had no idea how many branches there were... don't know anything about this.

Poor horse had already hurt the other leg..... I just wanted to understand it a little better.

in simplest terms the suspensory ligament originates at the back of the knee and runs down to the fetlock where it splits into two branches that attach to the outside surface of the sesamoid bones and the 2 branches continue down the pastern to connect to the flexor tendon between the pastern and the foot. it's function is to support the fetlock during the weight bearing phase of stride. It's a big deal and rarely heals well enough to return to the same condition....as scarring at the injury site leads to rigidity where it needs to be supple. My horse has an old lateral branch injury I wish I had a scanner so I could post his ultrasound scan pictures....you can really see the thickening and scarring.