Man and horse: brothers in arms

Abstract

It is a long‐standing academic tradition to accept the appointment to a chair by giving an inaugural lecture. The name of the chair to which I was appointed nearly a year ago is Equine Musculoskeletal Biology. In the next 30 minutes I would like to say a few words on all 3 components of this name: equine, musculoskeletal and biology, in the hope of clarifying both what is meant by these terms, and the relationships between them. We shall start, as we ought to, at the beginning.