At the speed of 200 mph, a horse can kick with a force of 1,200 pounds per square inch. Some horses can kick with a force of up to 2,000 pounds. That's much stronger than a punch of any professional boxer on the planet. Horse kicks are naturally strong because of their size.
“Kicks by other horses remain the leading cause of fractures to long bones, such as the tibia and radius,” shared Catherine Whitehouse, M.S., of Kentucky Equine Research (KER). Kicks are also to blame for orbital fractures, coronary band wounds, and hematomas.
Horseback riding accidents and injuries caused by horses carry a high risk of severe trauma. In addition, a horse's kick can transfer a force of more than 10 000 Newtons to the body, causing fractures of the skull or other bones as well as devastating damage to the intestines.
A kick from a horse, if it catches you right in the abdomen, chest, or head, can definitely kill you. Being hit with a full-force kick is similar to being hit by a small car going 20 mph. The estimated force of a full-force kick is upwards of 2000 PSI.
Fragmented wood caused by a kick can cut a horse; a horse could get his hoof caught in a kicked hole in a wall; and, if he succeeds in breaking down enough wall, he (and other horses) could escape their enclosure. “Imagine the horse that kicks through the wall that separates him from the feed storage room,” Fürst said.
A horse's kick is extremely powerful and can cause severe, even fatal injuries. Many riders have experienced broken bones, deep lacerations from a hoof, and even cardiac arrest if the kick landed on their chest. It is also extremely possible to suffer from head injuries that can be fatal if the impact was extreme.
For 30 seconds, you may see a horse grimace or limp in pain, then walk out of it. Failure to bear weight after a few minutes or when lead can signal a more severe leg injury. The most frequently injured areas are the limbs, resulting in lameness. Fractures from kick do occur.
Strongest Kick: Zebra — Kicks With About 3,000 Pounds of Force. Due to the power of its kick, a fully grown zebra is able to kill an adult male African lion with one blow. Between the well-known force behind the kick of a red kangaroo and a giraffe, you might be surprised to read that the zebra beats them both.
The jaw strength (masseter muscle) of a horse is about 500 psi (pounds per square inch) Humans are usually less than 200 psi, while a Pit Bull measures 235 psi (#3 dog breed in jaw strength).
While it is true that the maximum output of a horse is around 15 horsepower, when you average the output of a horse over the course of a work day it ends up being around a horsepower. Watt defined this amount as "the amount of work required from a horse to pull 150 pounds out of a hole that was 220 feet deep".
Hitting. Hitting a horse with your hand, or any object is rarely an effective method of correction. The horse is unlikely to understand that you are punishing it for unwanted behavior and it may become fearful, or rebellious, depending on its nature.
Zebras With a Deadly Kick
They defend themselves by using their powerful hind limbs to kick back at predators. It is thought that they can deliver up to 3,000 psi and that they have the most powerful kick in the animal kingdom.
A horse has more weight behind his kick than the kangaroo. However, that said, the kangaroo has velocity and inertia that the horse doesn't have. Neither one would be good. Being kicked by a kangaroo can open you up the same way a deer's hoof will because of its sharp edges.
Emergency room personnel have likened the destructive potential of an equine kick to that of the impact of a small automobile moving at 20 miles per hour. A kick can shatter bones and traumatize soft tissue. In fact, medical journals document people going into cardiac arrest after sustaining a kick to the chest.
Even a draft horse can't generate much more than a hard shove abou a foot behind it. If they can get full extension of its legs though, they can kick much, much harder. horses also kick much higher than a cow.
Most horses are strong enough to pack or pull heavy loads. Their strength is part of their makeup. Horses have evolved by natural selection to have thick muscles, a large heart and powerful lungs. Yet over the centuries, people have also bred some groups of horses to be even stronger.
As a general rule a horse on average is able to carry a rider which is the same as or approximately 20% of the horse's weight. For example, if a horse weighs 1000 pounds then this horse can easily carry someone that weighs 200 pounds. Still, this number varies depending on the horse's build and musculature.
Horses generally have excellent heart health due mainly to their herbivorous diet. Contrary to widespread belief, horses seldom suffer from heart attacks. Horses do occasionally suffer from heart disease, though, and this risk increases with age.
A kick when it is properly executed is much stronger than a punch since it is a longer lever, uses stronger muscles, and accelerates more mass. All of these factors put together generate maximal impact energy through higher momentum, resulting in kicks being stronger than punches.
The results show that the elephant wears the crown in the animal kingdom – but only slightly. Elephants had a win rate of 74%, just fractions of a percent ahead of their single-horned cousins – the rhinoceros – in second place, also on 74%. Not far behind in third place is the grizzly bear, at 73%.
The epidermal layer of horse skin where pain receptors are located is of similar thickness to that in the human, and is just as richly populated with pain-sensing nerves. The concept of the thick-skinned horse not feeling whip blows is a myth.
The estimated kicking force of a horse is 2,000 pounds per square inch with an average speed of 200 miles per hour.
Most injuries people suffer while working with horses occur because the horse was too close to them. Think about all the times people get hurt by horses. The horse bites them, kicks them, strikes at them, runs over the top of them, etc.