trouble dissecting many to many relationship

[Dawn Del Guercio]

Hello,

I am a brand new user learning php, msql, and best practices for database creation.

I am creating a horse database and am confused about handling the following issue.

Among other characteristics, I want to have the ability to record leg markings.
Every horse has four legs. Each leg may have zero to many leg markings.
There may be none to many leg markings on none to many legs.

Horse 1, right foreleg, has a sock AND a coronet
Horse 2, right foreleg has no markings
Horse 3, right foreleg has a stocking

The other side:
A sock may be found on none to many horses, on none to many legs.

I'm not sure what classes/entities I need to create to satisfy my needs for all the information while not creating unnecessary tables...

(This is all too much like numeric permutations- I never liked permutations-- they hurt my head!)

Thank you in advance.
Dawn in NJ, USA