Laminitis is one the most common and debilitating conditions affecting horses worldwide. Reliability of standard diagnostic methods such as radiography is variable specifically in case of subclinical laminitis, before onset of the characteristic clinical signs. However, prognosis is favoured when diagnosis is obtained during the earliest possible phase of disease development. Hypothesis was made that the condition could be detected in a random population of horses that were certified healthy but did not undergo laminitis diagnosis before death. Histopathological examination of lamellar tissue from dorso-sagittal wall biopsy of 31 ex-vivo front hooves were performed. Results showed that 100% of the lamellar samples presented with at least one pathological change. Based on the average grading of the 5 histopathological parameters evaluated, 67.7% of the samples were above 1 out of 3 on a laminitis severity index. Conclusion can be made that the occurrence of undiagnosed laminitis is high in Croatia and investigation over possible causes such as living conditions of those regional breeds should be conducted. Further experimentation on a different study group with more history data and a complete lameness examination is necessary. Furthermore, histopathological examination is a recommendable diagnosis method for laminitis, which can be performed without inclusion of structural pathology parameters while maintaining accurate results. Generally, biopsy of lamellar samples also in live horses when laminitis onset is suspected, would likely result in earlier and more certain diagnosis during pre or subclinical phases of the condition development. However, practicability of the method is lacking and histopathological diagnosis of laminitis in live horses in likely to remain rare.