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E Q U I N E D E N T I S T RY — A N I N T R O D U C T I O N
Dental Terminology and Identification
Areas of the oral cavity can be identified according to location i.e when describing the area associated with the
cheek we refer to it as buccal, the area associated with the tongue as lingual, the roof of the mouth as palatal
and the lips as labial. The contact or chewing surface of a tooth is referred to as the occlusal surface. Areas
towards the front of the mouth or towards the front of a tooth are referred to as rostral while areas towards the
rear of the mouth or tooth are referred to as caudal. When looking at the incisor teeth the aspect nearest the
centre of the jaw is referred to as mesial while the aspect moving away from the centre is refereed to a distal
Individual teeth can be identified using a number of methods. Each method has its own merits and the key
aspect is that the practitioner correctly identifies the tooth regardless of method used.
The three systems:
• Anatomical system
• Cheek Teeth System
• Modified Triadan System
The Anatomical system assigns the anatomically correct name to the tooth along with its position in the horse’s
oral cavity e.g the upper right fourth premolar (URP4).
The Cheek tooth system is similar to the anatomical system however the cheek teeth (premolar 2-4 and molar
1-3) are referred to as cheek tooth 1-6 e.g the (URP4) as above would be referred to as the upper right third
cheek tooth.
The Modified Triadan system assigns a specific number to each tooth (including deciduous teeth). This system
has been adapted from human dental recording and assigns an individual three- digit number to each of the
adult and the deciduous teeth. The system is divided into four quadrants beginning with the right upper arcade
this arcade is on the practitioners upper left when viewed facing the horse’s incisors from directly in front of the
horse. This arcade is referred to as the 100 arcade each tooth starting with the central incisor is then given a
number e.g. 101, 102… etc, including teeth that may not be present such as wolf teeth and canines. Moving in
a clockwise fashion the other arcades are numbered 200, 300 and 400. Deciduous arcades are numbered starting
with the right upper arcade and start 500, 600, 700 and 800.
Ageing
The accuracy of dental ageing decreases with age... “the longer I do this the less accurate I
become”.
Dental ageing can be divided into four aspects:
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Time of eruption
Rule of Thumb
Occlusal surface
Age indicators
Time of eruption
At birth or shortly after horses have 4 incisors and 12 cheek teeth, the middle incisors erupt at 4-6weeks of age
and the lateral incisors erupt at 6months. Adult central incisors erupt at the gum line at approx 2.5yrs and are
in wear 6mths later, middle adult incisors erupt at 3.5yrs and laterals at 4.5yrs. Wolf teeth if present erupt
between 6 - 12mths, while canines erupt between 4–6 yrs of age. Canines are simple brachyodont teeth
containing no coronal cement or enamel folding and having limited time of eruption. Equine molars have no