Daniel Engber’s Explainer column at Slate.com never fails.

Today’s question–one asked by many I’m sure– is why is a broken leg a death sentence to a horse?

Isn’t that just lazy medicine? I bet in Canada they save horses with broken legs.

And so on. They won’t shut up about this issue on NPR. It’s like one of the producers placed the deed to his house on Eight Bells and is now trying to process the whole thing.

According to Engber, horses aren’t quite like humans. For one thing, horses are so big that the amount of antibiotics needed to get an infection under control would probably box the horse’s kidneys and liver. Also horses have skinny lower legs, with fewer blood vessels, meaning that any break can cut off delicate blood vessels and deprive the limb of blood flow. Another issue is that trainers and vets find it hard to keep a horse still. One solution is to suspend the horse in water. Unfortunatly, this option has had very limited success.

I bet you wanted to know all this. I sure did.

Actually, I am ashamed that I got this far in life not knowing why horses with broken legs were usually euthenized. I mean, during college when relatives asked me what my college major was, I used to tell them Animal Husbandry…because that just seemed easier than trying to explain how my college didn’t have majors.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to wrap your head around the no majors thing if you haven’t lived it? Harder than you’d think.