"V ^ > 
 
A ?^^ 
 
 XT. 
 
LESS'QNS IN ^ 
 
 HORSE JUDGING 
 
 r 
 
 WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOE 
 
 THE SUMMERING OP HUNTERS. 
 
 * BY WILLIAM FEARNLEY, 
 
 FORMERLY PRINCIPAL OF AND LECTURER ON VETERINARY SURGERY AT THE 
 
 EDINBURGH VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
 
 LATE EXAMINER ON ANATOMY TO THE HIGHLAND AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 " Lectures on the Examination of Horses as to Soundness.''^ 
 
 WITH ILLUSTKATIONS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1879. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The author has endeavoured in the following 
 pages to place on a rational basis a subject that has 
 hitherto been taught dogmatically, if indeed it can 
 be truly said to have ever been taught at all. 
 
 The vast wealth in horse flesh, so materially 
 affected by selection of breeding stock, that is in- 
 vested in the civilized world, is the author's excuse 
 for bringing out this little work. 
 
 In the case of the domesticated animals, man's 
 protective interference entirely puts aside the great 
 natural law, the survival of the fittest, which obtains 
 with such salutary effects among non-domesticated 
 animals. Were all the horses of the civilized world 
 gathered into a field, and this field placed side by 
 side with one containing all the antelopes of South 
 Africa, the great law we have mentioned 
 would be most strikingly demonstrated ; one 
 field would exhibit the perfect, the halt and 
 the blind, a medley of beauty, and wretched de- 
 formity ; whilst the other would show only grace, 
 elegance and excess of life. 
 
 The author ventures to assert that our Govern- 
 ment would be doing great service to the nation 
 by taking under its entire control the selection of 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 breeding stock, at least in the case of horse flesh. 
 The sires should all belong to the nation, the fees 
 regulated, and the dams accepted or rejected at the 
 discretion of responsible persons placed between 
 the would-be breeder and the nation. Much has 
 been effected by exhibitions and prizes, but this 
 method holds much the same relation to the one 
 named that chance holds to certainty. At present, 
 the breeding of racing stock only approaches the 
 great law of survival of the fittest, much care being 
 taken to register results, and the representatives of 
 best results are set apart to reproduce their like. 
 A more perfect combination of scientific and logical 
 method than is followed in the reproduction of 
 racing stock does not obtain in any physicist's 
 laboratory. With no other class of horse is this 
 method applicable; hence the necessity of judging 
 by other and less exact methods, and therefore the 
 necessity of some such w^ay as has been indicated. 
 
 Lastly, it is desirable here to point out that the 
 book is not written with any intention of standing 
 in place of the thinking out process of the learner, 
 but is more as a guide to the lines along which 
 thought must be directed. By using it as a 
 guide, and thinking out the subject for himself, the 
 author believes that any one of intelligence may in 
 a very few months, by observation and diligence, 
 become a scientific judge of a horse. 
 
 The author craves indulgence as the work is 
 entirely original. 
 
 London, March, 1879. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Lesson. Page 
 
 I. Introduction . . 1 
 
 II. The Nostrils and Lips . . ... 13 
 
 „ TheMoutli 18 
 
 III. The Eye 27 
 
 IV. Face and Head 42 
 
 V. The Neck 50 
 
 VI. The Fore Extremity 59 
 
 VII. The Fore Limbs 75 
 
 „ Tlie Trunk 80 
 
 VIII. The Hind Extremities 85 
 
 IX. Hind Extremities continued 99 
 
 „ The Hock 102 
 
 X. The Wind, Colour, Height, Coat and Hair, Age . 106 
 
 The Summering of Hunters 113 
 
EXPLANATION OF SKELETON. 
 
 Vertebra. — The bones forming the neck and tail are seen to be 
 without upper processes or spines. The remainder have spines. 
 Those of the back proper having the longest spines especially at 
 the forvrard part known as the withers. 
 
 Fore Extremity. — This is explained at Fig. 8. 
 
 Hind Extremity. — 33, 34, 35, 36 is the Illo-ischium. 
 37. Femur. 38. Tibia, with the Fibula at the top of it and 
 behind it, 39. Lever bone of hock, corresponding to the human 
 lieel, and called the os calcis. 40. The Gliding Bone, called 
 astragalus, with its two large gliding surfaces well seen in the 
 right hind leg. 41. Buffer bone of hock. 45. Metatarsal bone 
 with small metatarsals (46) immediately behind it. The remaining 
 bones are the same as those of the fore lew. 
 
LESSONS IN HOKSE JUDGING. 
 
 LESSON I. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1. — In the following pages it will be attempted 
 to place a subject which has hitherto been largely 
 conducted empirically on a scientific basis. 
 
 2. — Horses are living machines like ourselves, 
 and have many things in common with not-living 
 machines which obey certain well-known physical as 
 well as physiological laws. 
 
 3.^-Their mode of progression is by a system of 
 levers, sometimes of perfect construction and ad- 
 vantageously disposed, but more often of imperfect 
 construction and placed at a disadvantage. 
 
 4. — In order that the general student may follow 
 us in our further remarks it will be absolutely 
 necessary for us to explain briefly the construction 
 of these living levers which are composed of two 
 
2 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 materials in every case, namely ; an active material 
 and several passive materials. 
 
 5. — The active materials are the so called muscles 
 of the body which we popularly call flesh or ' lean' 
 meat. These muscles, which are attached to the 
 levers of the body, and move them, in doing so 
 always act in one and the same waj^ — namely, 
 by alternately lengthening and shortening. Of these 
 two movements, one is active^ the other passive. 
 It is the active movement, that of shortening, which 
 does the work. After a muscle has shortened, or, 
 as it is termed, contracted, it allows other forces to 
 pull it out or lengthen it and it passively/ submits to 
 being so lengthened. 
 
 6. — All muscles are made up of countless bundles, 
 and these bundles are made up of fibres. These 
 fibres being about the same size in all cases, it 
 follows that the more of them the stronger will be 
 the muscle, hence the larger the muscle the stronger. 
 A muscle fibre (See Fig. 1. C D) is made up of a 
 number of squares placed one on the other as you 
 would place a pile of dice. These squares, on being 
 stimulated, change their shape, as seen in the 
 diagram. The power of changing their shape is 
 called muscular irritability, and resides somehow or 
 other in the muscle itself, or in other words every 
 fibre has irritability. This irritability is called forth 
 when a stimulant is applied. Various stimulants 
 will call it forth. If you see an animal that is 
 .newly killed and which has its skin removed, you 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 see the flesh twitch or quiver in various parts. 
 This is the contraction or twitching here and there 
 
 FIG. 1. 
 B 
 
 / 
 
 W 
 
 of the muscles, whose irritability is affected by the 
 cold air, the cold air acting as a stimulant. If you 
 now pinch one of the muscles, or prick it with a 
 pin, it will quiver or contract. The same would 
 occur if you applied galvanism to it. 
 
 The natural stimulants of the muscle are the 
 nerves (Fig. 1. n n) the little white cords which you 
 see running in various directions among the muscles 
 or flesh and which come from the brain and the spinal 
 
 B 2 
 
4: LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 cord. If yon had to apply a galvanic battery to a 
 muscle, before long you would exhaust all its irrita- 
 bility, that is, in time it would cease to contract, 
 showing that there is only a certain amount of 
 irritability in the muscle. If all the muscles of the 
 body contract at the same time, the whole body is 
 perfectly rigid or stifif, a thing we never see in 
 health, but which we see in a modified state after 
 death, and which is called rigor mortis. This 
 general stiffness, or rigor mortis, comes on as the 
 body cools : the cold acting as a stimulant as we 
 have before seen. In a few hours or days the 
 general stiffness disappears and leaves the body 
 quite flaccid, that is, the cold has exhausted all the 
 muscular irritability . In animals that are hunted to 
 death, such as foxes, that are killed after being 
 chased and able to run no further, or whose muscles 
 have lost their irritability or power of further 
 contracting, this rigor mortis, or stiffness of the 
 body after death, never takes place. So it is with 
 animals who die after long and exhausting illnesses, 
 the stiffness after death either never occurs or 
 occurs so slightly as hardly to be observed. Animals 
 killed by lightning are also never stiff after death. 
 The lightning being so powerful a stimulant 
 as to exhaust the irritability of the muscles in- 
 stantly. 
 
 7. — This irritability of muscle can be stored up in 
 vast quantities when the muscle is in what is termed 
 good tone. When we speak of a horse, a hunter for 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 example, being «i condition, we mean that his 
 muscles are in good tone, or in other words, that 
 his muscles can lay in large quantities of irritability 
 which takes hours of hard toil to exhaust. The 
 process by which the muscles are brought to ' tone' 
 is called ' conditioning/ When large quantities of 
 this irritahility have been stored, the first ex- 
 penditure of it is intensely pleasurable, and this 
 pleasurable excitment, unrestrained, which it often 
 is on first coming out of the stable, is called 
 ' freshness.' Shortly, when some of the irritability 
 or freshness has gone off, further expenditure of 
 irritahility causes neither pleasure nor pain, but in- 
 difference, and the horse is said to ' quieten down.' 
 If the exercise or work be carried to an extreme^ 
 then, as the muscular irritahility is vanishing, pain 
 in the muscles comes on which is nature's warning 
 to stop the machine, and lay in another store of 
 irritahility, 
 
 8. — The part of the muscle which contracts is its 
 red part, called its belly, (Fig. 1. 1 1) and the hard 
 white glistening continuation of the belly is called 
 the tendon (Fig. 1. 2 2). The belly of the muscle 
 is usually attached to the fixed part, while the 
 tendon is attached to the part to be moved. If, 
 however, the part otherwise to be moved is fixed, 
 and the muscle contracts, then the part to which 
 the belly of the muscle is attached has to move. 
 When the tendon is drawn towards the belly of 
 the muscle and the movements again and again 
 
6 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 repeated, the parts would become heated by friction 
 were it not that this is provided against. Friction 
 is prevented by the tendon being surrounded by a 
 sheath, containing a lubricating material called 'joint 
 oil' or technically^ ' synovia.' This ' joint oil' or 
 ' synovia' is generated by a membrane lining the 
 * sheath,' and which gets the name of ' synovial 
 membrane,' because it produces the synovia. 
 
 Some muscles do not terminate in rope-shaped 
 tendons which have to 'play' through lubricated 
 sheaths, but end in expanded sheet-like tendons 
 which need no lubricating material. We shall find 
 that the muscles of the face are of the latter 
 description, and have their sheet like tendons 
 closely connected to the skin over the lips. This is 
 well seen in ourselves in laughing. The bellies of 
 the muscles forming our cheeks contract and of 
 course swell out (Fig. 1. A)^ while their tendons 
 are attached closely to the skin of the lips, especially 
 the upper lip, so that in laughing the cheeks bulge 
 out and the lips tighten and drag backwards. 
 
 9. — The contraction of a muscle is ver}^ limited, 
 so that the tendon moves a very little distance in 
 its sheath. 
 
 So much for the active part of the lever, the 
 remaining parts are made up of passive agents in 
 the form of bones and joints. 
 
 10. — Bones are of three varieties, named from 
 their shape ; long, flat, and irregular. 
 
 The long bones are largely concerned in forming 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 the levers ; as the fore and hind limbs, which are 
 mainly composed of them. The flat bones, for the 
 most part, make up the face and head ; the shoulder 
 blade is also a flat bone. The irregular bones 
 make up the ' back bone,' called the * vertebral 
 column' which extends from the head to the tip of 
 the tail. The bones making up the 'back bone' 
 are very numerous, being seven in number for the 
 neck, eighteen for the back, five or six for the loins, 
 five for the croup, and from ten to twenty for the 
 tail. With the exception of those forming the croup, 
 which are stuck together and immoveable one on 
 the other, the remainder of the bones forming this 
 long column are slightly moveable one on the 
 other, so that were you to pass a piece of stout 
 cord down their central canal — which canal gives 
 passage to the spinal cord — and hold one end of it 
 high in the air, and shake it to and fro, it would 
 wTiggle like an eel. Other irregular bones are 
 found making up the knee and hock joints. 
 
 11.— Long bones in forming joints have to expand 
 at their ends, (see Fig. 2. ^ 1) and these ex- 
 panded ends are covered by a substance which is 
 yielding and elastic, and called ' cartilage' (Fig. 
 2. A 4) which acts like a bufi*er, and so lessens 
 concussion. The two ends of the bone are bound to 
 each other by strong unstretchable fibrous bands 
 called ' ligaments,' (Fig. 2. A 2). Oil is generated 
 just as it is in the sheath of a tendon by a synovial 
 membrane (Fig. 2. ^ 3) and is represented in our 
 
8 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 diagram by a dotted line. When a joint is subject 
 to more than ordinary concussion, as for instance, 
 the 'knee' joint, provision is made for additional 
 
 FIG. 2. 
 
 fvvi 
 
 B 
 
 cartilage by irregular bones being interposed be- 
 tween the two ends of the long bones (Fig. 2. B)^ 
 each of these bones being thickly covered on its 
 upper and lower surfaces, where the concussion 
 comes, by cartilage. So that in a section from 
 above downw^ards through the ' knee' joint, instead of 
 two buffers being interposed we find six. The bone 
 above the knee, and the bone below it being in a 
 straight line when the weight of the body is thrown 
 upon them, much concussion would take place were 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 it not for this arrangement. When bones which 
 meet and form a joint are set at an angle, then of 
 course there is less chance of concussion, and so we 
 find less ' cartilage' needed. 
 
 12. — As there are three forms of levers, we must 
 be careful to remember this, and we shall close 
 this somewhat dry and relatively uninteresting 
 lesson by a few remarks on the mechanical lever, 
 and compare it with the animal lever. 
 
 The lever is an unyielding bar, (represented in 
 the animal by bone,) capable of free motion about 
 a fixed axis, called the 'fulcrum.' To this un- 
 yieldiug bar, ' power' is applied, (which in the 
 animal lever is represented by muscle and its tendon). 
 Lastly, we have the weight, resistance, or obstacle to 
 be overcome by the power. 
 
 If the fulcrum {F) be placed between the power 
 (P) and the weight ( W), so that when the power 
 sets the lever in motion the weight and the power 
 describe arcs, the concavities of which are turned 
 towards one another, the lever is said to be of the 
 first order, (see Fig. 3, A). If the fulcrum be at 
 one end, and the weight be between it and the 
 power, so that weight and power describe concen- 
 tric arcs, the Weight moving through less space, the 
 lever is of the second order (Fig. 3, B). And if, 
 the fulcrum being still at one end, the Power be 
 between the Weight and Fulcrum so that the Power 
 and Weight describe concentric arcs, the Power 
 
10 
 
 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 moving through less space^ the lever is of the third 
 order (Fig. 3, C). 
 
 
 
 
 FIG. 3. 
 
 VL/' 
 
 A 
 
 'P 
 
 B \ 
 
 N \ 
 
 \ 1 
 
 
 F 
 
 
 A - ■ ) 
 
 F W y 
 
 ■p 
 
 F P /' 
 
 hVV 
 
 We shall now give examples of these ; first in 
 mechanical levers : — 
 
 Lever of First order = the beam of the balance. 
 
 Lever of Second order = the common wheel- 
 barrow. 
 
 Lever of Third order = the treadle of a lathe. 
 
 In the living lever we find one joint will illustrate 
 all three orders according to its position with regard 
 to the body. Let us take the hock joint, which in 
 man is called the ankle. We find, still referring to 
 Fig. 3, that we have in the living lever a power in 
 front and another behind the leg bone. 
 
 Now to illustrate oar three orders of levers, we 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 find we have only to study the hock-joint in the 
 trot. The first order is seen in the hock in the trot 
 after the foot has been lifted from the ground. To 
 bring it quickly to the ground we find the fulcrum 
 at the true hock-joint, XhQ power attached behind to 
 the point of the hock, and the weight to be moved, 
 are all the parts below the hock, including, of course, 
 the foot. 
 
 To illustrate our lever of the second order, take 
 the hock in the trot when the foot is placed on the 
 ground. AVe now find the fulcrum and weight have 
 changed places, but the power is still as in the first 
 order behind the hock. The foot being planted on 
 the ground is now the seat of the fdcriim, or fixed 
 point, and the iveight is the whole of the body which 
 is thrown on to the true hock-joint, and is the 
 obstacle to be overcome, and is being lifted and 
 pushed forward. 
 
 Lastly, our lever of the third order is seen in the 
 hock during the trot, when the hind leg is left be- 
 hind after pushing the body forward, and has to be 
 lifted and pulled forward before it can again be 
 brought forward under the body, (this is the same 
 action, and better seen, when the hind foot is being 
 lifted to knock off a fly that is irritating the bell}-)* 
 the front power is now acting, and the weight and 
 fulcrum are the same as in the example of the third 
 order, or in other words, the power is in the middle. 
 
 Summarising what has been said of the three 
 orders of lever as exemplified by the hock-joint in 
 
12 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 trotting, we have found first, that the weight is 
 all parts below the hock when the foot is off the 
 ground, and all parts above the hock when the foot 
 is on the ground. Second, when the foot is off the 
 ground and swinging backwards the lever is of the 
 first order, but when swinging forwards it is of the 
 third order, whilst it is of the second order when on 
 the ground. 
 
LESSON 11. 
 
 THE NOSTRILS AND LIPS. 
 
 13. — The nostrils are those openings over the 
 muzzle through which the air has to pass on its 
 way to the lungs, and as a horse cannot breathe 
 through his mouth, all the air he breathes must pass 
 through his nostrils, so that they must be as wide 
 as possible. 
 
 The nostrils are made up of muscle, which is 
 covered with skin and hair. 
 
 The muscles are for the purpose of regulating the 
 width of the opening. It is plain that when the 
 horse is at rest he needs less air than when walk- 
 ing, trotting, galloping, or drawing a load, and so 
 only breathes about ten or twelve times a minute. 
 In doing so, it is quite plain that the opening of the 
 nostrils need not be so wide, as when at work he 
 breathes three times as quickly. The muscles are 
 thrown into action the moment the horse has to 
 
14 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 breathe more quickly, and you will have noticed 
 the large, stiflf and wide nostrils of a horse that is 
 undergoing severe exertion. 
 
 14. — The opening of the nostrils when the horse 
 is resting and breathing slowly is a mere chink or 
 slit, but in violent exertion the nostril opening is 
 quite round, and often reminds one of the mouth of 
 that ancient weapon the blunderbuss. 
 
 The muscles of the nostrils must be in good tone. 
 All muscles when unduly rested lose their tone, 
 but when only moderately used keep their tone. 
 Perhaps of all the muscles of the body the muscles 
 of the nostrils are the least likely to lose their tone, 
 because the horse has only to walk quickly to be 
 obliged to widen his nostrils and breathe quicker. 
 Even in illness, the fever which so often accompanies 
 his disease increases his rate of breathing, and so 
 exercises the muscles of the nostrils. Sometimes, 
 however, the muscles do lose some of their tone, 
 and then, if you take and gallop the horse severely, 
 the muscles vibrate and make a fr-r-r-r-apping noise. 
 This peculiar noise disappears when the horse gets 
 into regular work, and the muscle of the nostril 
 acquires the requisite amount of ' tone.' 
 
 When the nostrils are a shade smaller than they 
 ought to be and the horse is put to violent breath- 
 ing effort, the muscles of the nostrils render the 
 wall of the nostrils so stiff and rigid that the air in 
 passing in makes a loud blowing noise, and clearly 
 indicates want of nasal capacity. Such a one is 
 
THE NOSTRILS AND LIPS. 15 
 
 called a 'high blower.' This is always a fault, and 
 sometimes renders a horse worthless for violent 
 effort, such as hunting, racing, and drawing extra 
 heavy loads. 
 
 The nerve which supplies the muscles of the 
 nostrils with the power of movement must not be 
 overlooked. It comes from the brain and leaves 
 the interior of the skull through a canal formed of 
 bone, and close to the roots of the ears. You see 
 it in the living horse on either side as it passes over 
 the cheek near the root of the ear as three or four 
 stripes as of thick wtiip-chord running along under 
 the skin towards the nostrils. This nerve, after 
 leaving the bony canal at the bottom of the skull 
 near the root of the ears, has to pass through a 
 gland, which produces the saliva or spattle. It is 
 this gland which swells at the side of the face when 
 he is said to have got the ' vives.' In the horse, 
 should this gland swell, it presses upon the nerve 
 we are speaking of, and stops its current, and (as 
 this nerve supplies the lips, the muscle which closes 
 the eye, also the principal muscle of the cheek,) 
 when its current is quite stopped these muscles be- 
 come paralysed and cannot move the parts, so that 
 the lips hang down and swing about like pendu- 
 lums; the eye always remains open with a fixed 
 stare, and the cheek bags out and the nostrils cannot 
 become expanded. All this can be brought about 
 by a draught blowing on to the side of the head and 
 giving a ' cold' to the gland and causing it to swell 
 
16 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 and press on the nerve. This state of things usually 
 lasts from one to three weeks, or until the ' cold' 
 disappears. The lesson we thus learn is this : see 
 that the nostrils expand when the horse comes to 
 exert himself, and also see that his lips are not 
 swinging about like pendulums. Very old horses 
 sometimes have pendulous lips from debility. If 
 you are buying such a one give him a feed of ha}^ 
 and watch him to see if he can grasp the hay with 
 his lips or if he has to push his nose into it and 
 seize it with his teeth. If he has to do this don't 
 buy him, because he will spoil more food than he 
 eats from it dropping out of his mouth when chew- 
 ing: he will take twice the time to feed, and he 
 can never keep his condition. Sometimes he swings 
 the lips about in trying to seize a morsel, showing 
 that some power in them remains. If this be so, 
 present a pail of water to him and watch him drink, 
 and see if he can purse his lips naturally, or if they 
 are so powerless that he has to dip his whole muzzle 
 into the water nearly up to his e^^es. If he cannot 
 keep his lips pursed and so keep up a steady drink- 
 ing effort, don't buy him. 
 
 15. — Next, hold his nostrils open and look inside. 
 The pink, or it may be bluish red membrane you 
 see, ought to be covered with spots of water like 
 dew. There ought not to be any ulcers or abrasions 
 to be seen, or ' raw' spots of any kind. You will 
 always, however, find a very small opening like a 
 
THE NOSTRILS AND LIPS. 17 
 
 * punched out' hole, but this is natural, and no notice 
 need be taken of it. 
 
 16. — If there be any discharge from the nostrils, 
 save a slight watery discharge, it may be that the 
 horse is suffering from a ' cold/ or he may be 
 ' glandered.' The colour of the discharge must be 
 noticed, also its thickness. Then, again, you must 
 notice whether it comes from both nostrils or only 
 one. If it be from 'cold,' it may be variously 
 coloured, even green, as when the horse is feeding 
 on green food in summer. It also may be of any 
 thickness from wateriness to ropiness, and yet only 
 be from a harmless ' cold.' If, however, it be thick 
 and gluey, and sink when put into cold water, or be 
 tinged with blood, it is most likely that the horse 
 is glandered, and if so, he will inoculate you and 
 so kill you, if you are not careful. The suspicion of 
 glanders is strengthened if the discharge is coming 
 only from one nostril. 
 
 If you are buying a horse, see that a discharge 
 from the nostrils is not cleaned away when your 
 back is turned. The muzzle should have no streaks 
 of discharge upon it, neither should it be wet as if 
 sponged. 
 
 The bony nostrils is that part of the upper 
 portion of the face between the muzzle and the eyes, 
 and is immediately beneath the skin. 
 
 17.— The bony nostrils may be quite straight 
 when the horse may be said to have a Grecian nose ; 
 or they may be indented or pugged ; or they may 
 
 C 
 
18 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 be arched like a Roman nose. As capacity is so 
 essential, it is evident that the Roman nose, though 
 not the most sightl}^ is the best. A straight or 
 Grecian nose is quite enough, if not too narrow. 
 An indented or pug nose may also be capacious 
 enough, but yo\x must see that it is not narrow. If 
 3^ou suspect its capacity, you must remember the 
 point when you come to examine the ' wind.' 
 
 THE MOUTH. 
 
 18. — As we have already said all that is neces- 
 sary regarding the lips, we shall speak of the mouth 
 as that cavity which contains the tongue and the 
 teeth. The teeth are specially regarded in judging 
 horses on account of their indicating the age. 
 Horses, like ourselves, have two sets of teeth, one 
 set for foalhood and a second set for mature age. 
 The first set are called ' milk' or ' temporary' teeth, 
 the second set are called ' permanent' teeth. The 
 teeth of the same mouth are varied in position aud 
 shape, and receive different names. The front teeth 
 being called incisors or ' nippers ;' the back teeth 
 being called ' grinders ;' whilst between the two 
 sets are the canine teeth, which are called 'tusks.' 
 As the nippers and tusks are most exposed to our 
 view when we open the mouth, we pay most regard 
 to them, so that in speaking of the teeth we shall 
 mean the ' nippers.'' 
 
 17.— During the remainder of the lesson I must 
 often draw your attention to the following diagrams 
 
THE MOUTH. 
 
 19 
 
 of Fig. 4. So to begin : if j^ou examine and com- 
 pare a temporary tooth A B with a permanent 
 
 tooth C, you will see well marked differences in 
 size, shape ^ and colour. If you look at the front 
 view you will see that while the milk or temporary 
 
 c 2 
 
20 LESSONS IX HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 tooth is quite narrow near the gum (Fig. 4, B) 
 (which is represented by a straight line in the 
 figure) the permanent tooth is seen to be nearl}^ as 
 wide at the gum as at its upper or cutting surface ; 
 so that a milk tooth is said to have a neck, whilst 
 a permanent tooth has no neck. You will see the 
 permanent teeth are ver}^ little narrower at the part 
 next the gum than they are at their cutting sur- 
 face, or in other words they have no neck. Then 
 again the permanent teeth are very much larger 
 than the temporary ones, and are not nearly so 
 white. Then again the temporary teeth are quite 
 smooth on their front surface. Not so the per- 
 manent teeth. In the permanent tooth you see a 
 groove, or perhaps two grooves, running from their 
 cutting surface to the gum. 
 
 18. — Having determined which set of teeth you 
 are examining, let us now consider the history 
 of each set in its turn. 
 
 The temporary, or milk, teeth are * cut' in the 
 following order. At birth, or a few days after, 
 two central nippers appear. At six weeks old two 
 other nippers appear, that is, one on each side of 
 the two central ones. Between the sixth and ninth 
 month two other nippers make their appearance, 
 one on each side of the last ones ; and, as no others 
 make their appearance, these are called the corner 
 nippers, so that at last we have six nippers. Of 
 course, six above and six below. Having thus cut 
 the six teeth, (and we are only speaking of one 
 
THE MOUTH. 21 
 
 jaw,) the foal is as a ' yearling' said to have a full 
 mouth, 
 
 19. — During this first year, as might be expected, 
 the nippers vary in appearance; those cut first 
 coming to maturity first, so that the central teeth 
 which have attained their maturity at two months 
 present a strong contrast to the ones next them 
 at that time, which, as we have seen, are only a 
 fortnight old. When the nippers are first cut, their 
 upper cutting surface is sharp like a knife, and, this 
 surface meeting the surface of the teeth in the other 
 jaw, wears away until the broader part of the 
 tooth is come upon, and then, instead of a sharp 
 knife-like edge we get a flat surface like a table-top. 
 Every nipper thus changes, alike in temporary and 
 in permanent teeth. Therefore, at nine months old, 
 or even at twelve months old, whilst the centre 
 nippers and those next to them have more or less 
 well marked flat table-top cutting sw\faces, the 
 corner nippers have still shelly knife-like upper 
 edges. 
 
 The upper surfaces, worn flat, will be seen to 
 have two distinct colours, but this we may quite 
 disregard in the temporary teeth, and pay attention 
 onl}^ to those appearances already named. 
 
 It will be seen that during the first year the 
 nippers are nearly useless because of the uneven 
 surfaces of the teeth, some only being useable. Then 
 again the mouth is very tender during the cutting 
 of the teeth. During the second year the foal is in 
 
22 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 the full enjoj^ment of the services of his nipper 
 teeth, which vaiy mostly in the degree in which 
 they are worn down. Of course, the innermost 
 ones being first cut, first come into use and are 
 most worn down. 
 
 These temporary nippers begin to fall out or are 
 shed at the age of two and a half years, or from that to 
 three years, and are shed in the order in which they 
 came ; first, the central ones, and so on, so that 
 we may say a foal has the use of his temporary or 
 milk nippers from one year old to two and a half, 
 or in other words, so far as his nippers are con- 
 cerned, he has a ' full mouth' from one year old to 
 two and a half. 
 
 20.— It is now time we began to study the 
 anatomy of the permanent teeth in a rough and 
 ready way. We cannot get out of it if we wish to 
 be sure in telling a horse's age. Now-a-days 
 teachers discard pictures as worthless, and teach 
 by the aid of diagrams, so that you are not to feel 
 your vanity touched by our using diagrams instead 
 of pictures ; for while you would find acres of 
 diagrams in our great Medical and Veterinary 
 Medical schools, you would be almost able to carry 
 on your back all the pictures you would find. But 
 the two are judiciously combined sometimes; the 
 diagram to show the broad outlines and more 
 evident markings : the picture to exhibit the detail. 
 
 Still referring to our Fig. 4, if you examine a 
 permanent nipper tooth, when it is extracted and you 
 
THE MOUTH. 23 
 
 can see the whole of it, you see that it is bent 
 almost in the form of a crescent, (Fig. 4, E). In 
 describing the tooth, we must suppose it divided 
 into two parts ; the visible part and the invisible 
 part. The visible part is all that standing ahove 
 the gums and is called the crown: the invisible 
 part is that imbedded in the jaw and covered by 
 the gums, and is called the fang. By studying the 
 anatomy of a nipper tooth in a rough way, we can 
 judge of a horse's age by the so called ' marks' of 
 his teeth. In Fig. 4, E, is a section down the 
 middle of a nipper tooth from front to back. Let 
 the line a a represent the line of the gums, then 
 all above this is the ' crown' and all below it the 
 ' fang.' The great bulk of the tooth is seen to be 
 made up of the part indicated by the number 3, and 
 is called the dentine. This substance has a coating 
 of a substance termed ' enamel' {E 2), for the part 
 of the tooth ahove the gum or the 'crown,' but 
 wdiere the tooth gets fixed into its bony socket in 
 the jaw, the 'dentine' is not covered by 'enamel' 
 as in the ' crown,' but by a very thin layer of bone, 
 E 6, called ' crusta petrosa.' This is a long hard 
 name, but we have done with it. Now pay attention 
 exclusively to the crown of the tooth (the part above 
 the gum line a a), and you see that the enamel 
 E 2, after reaching the cutting surface of the tooth, 
 dips into the tooth and forms a little sack-like 
 cavity filled up with black material {E 5). Now 
 suppose you cut off with a saw a piece of the cutting 
 
24 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 surface, say throngli the line Ell tlien you see 
 on the surface of such a section in their order either 
 way : — 
 
 Enamel : Dentine : Enamel : I Enamel : Dentine : Enamel. 
 
 And you must remember the 'enamel' is white, 
 and the ' dentine' gray. Now see if you can make 
 out these in Fig. 4, Z>, which shows four sections 
 of a tooth, such as we made at (^11). Notice the 
 four sections of this tooth, and you see in the top 
 section the appearances we have described very 
 distinctly. You see the outer rim of white enamel 
 which is called encircling enamel : then a broad 
 circle of gray dentine : then a small circle of 
 enamel called the central enamel, and this encloses 
 the black material in the centre. So much for 
 the top section, but before drawing your attention 
 to the three sections below, I must first tell you 
 that a nipper tooth gets gradually narroiver from 
 the cutting surface to the end of its fang, and whilst 
 at its largest, from five or six years old to seven or 
 eight, its upper cutting surface is somewhat ovoid, 
 with the long axis from side to side having two 
 sharp angles in front at either end. From this 
 ovoid form it gj-adually becomes triangular, and it 
 only remains to add that the depression in the tooth 
 filled up by black material only reaches a little way 
 down the tooth, and then you will be able to refer 
 to the three lower sections of Fig. 4, Z>, to see 
 the change in the aspects of the marks themselves 
 
THE MOUTH. 25 
 
 and in the form of the tooth at each surface as the 
 teeth wear clown through age and use, from a broad 
 ovoid form to a narrower triangular form ; and, as 
 a consequence, in the very aged horse the teeth do 
 not present a compact mass when viewed from the 
 front, but are more like so many pegs with spaces 
 between them. 
 
 Lastly, on separating the lips of a horse in his 
 prime, and viewing the closed teeth from the side, 
 we see the large bold curve, as in Fig. 4, F; but 
 as age advances and the teeth w^ear away, 
 we get successsively, but of course gradually, 
 the curve G, then in extreme old age the angular 
 curve H. 
 
 21.— We saw that with the milk teeth the central 
 nippers came first, then the two next them— one on 
 either side— and finally the two corner milk nippers, 
 and at nine months old to a year at most the foal 
 had a ' full mouth ' of nippers. First come, first 
 wear out; therefore the two central milk nippers 
 are shed at two and a half years ; the ones next 
 these are shed at three and a half, the corner nippers 
 at four and a half. So that at five years old — that 
 is giving the corner teeth six months to grow 
 up to having at least a cutting if not a grinding 
 surface— the horse is said to have a full mouth. 
 
 Note. — The permanent teeth push out the tem- 
 porary ones, in order to gain the situation for them- 
 selves. If the work of pushing out is done for 
 
26 LESSOXS IN HORSE JUDGIXG. 
 
 them they come up easier and quicker. This gives 
 rise to a process of ' forwarding the mouth,' as it is 
 called, that is extracting the corner milk nippers of 
 a three year old in order to hasten the arrival of 
 the full mouth that a four year old may pass for a 
 five year old. This is a gross cruel t3% on account 
 of the work of a five year old being expected of a 
 horse only four. Should a permanent tooth not 
 push straight at the fang of a milk tooth, the latter 
 is pushed on one side but not pushed out, and so 
 remains by the side of the permanent tooth and 
 may hinder the horse feeding to some extent. 
 Such a tooth is then called a ' wolf tooth. Wolf 
 teeth are oftenest found in front of the front 
 grinders. 
 
LESSON III. 
 
 THE EYE. 
 
 22. — We now come to one of the four principal 
 things which you have to see is sound and all right 
 in buying a horse — namely, the eye. First take a 
 glance at both eyes in good daylight^ and compare 
 their size. It is of the highest importance that 
 they should be both one size, because if one is less 
 than the other it is very likely that the lesser one 
 has been attacked with inflammation which is called 
 ' opthalmia.' Now ' opthalmia ' is a disease that 
 returns again and again, and destroys the sight. 
 One of its effects is very often to leave the eye it 
 has attacked smaller than its fellow. It also leaves 
 other evidences, but these require a properly qualified 
 veterinarian to discover. 
 
 The colour of the two eyes need not be alike and 
 yet the eyes may be quite sound. The colour of the 
 eye depends upon the colouring matter in the iris, 
 a structure to be spoken of by and by. It may be 
 
28 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 absent in one iris, and brown or some other colour in 
 the other iris. The iris which contains no colouring 
 matter will be white, and the horse is thus said to 
 have a * wall ' e3^e. This white or ' wall ' eye is 
 as good as its fellow-eye, but it gives the horse an 
 odd appearance which at best is unsightly, but still 
 'wall' eyes may be quite sound. 
 
 23. — Whilst you are looking at the eyes in broad 
 daylight, notice if the eyelids are all right. Sometimes 
 they get torn with projecting nails and are injured 
 to such an extent that they cannot cover and 
 protect the e^^e. Also notice if the tears run over the 
 cheek. The tears are formed under the upper eye- 
 lid, but deep in the orbit or socket of the eye, and 
 wet the surface of the eye and then find their w^ay 
 to the inner corner of the eye and thence through 
 a canal into the nose. It occasionally happens 
 that this canal gets blocked up, and then the tears 
 cannot get into the nose and so escape. When 
 this is the case, they trickle out of the eye corner 
 and over the face, and scald the hair off. This is often 
 a curable condition, but very objectionable whilst it 
 lasts. You will say ' how is it that we do not find 
 the tears coming out of the nostrils if they escape 
 into the nostrils as they do in the horse and in our- 
 selves.' Well, because in health— except of course 
 w^hen we cr}^ — the tears are only formed in sufficient 
 quantity to keep the eye moist, just as the lining of 
 the nose only forms sufficient watery material to 
 keep it moist and no more. When there is more 
 
THE EYE. 29 
 
 than suffices for this purpose we are said to liave 
 got a ' cold.' 
 
 24. — Having examined the ej^es in broad daylight, 
 you will have to examine them with a candle within 
 a stable with the door shut. If you can have a 
 choice, choose a stable that has a window above the 
 stable door, as it will be a further aid in using the 
 candle. 
 
 25. — Before going further we shall have to study 
 the mechanism of the eye roughly, or we shall not 
 understand what to look for and expect. 
 
 In Fig. 5. you find diagrams that will aid us in 
 demonstrating the more important parts of the eye. 
 When standing in front of the horse and viewing 
 the eye, you can see an outer circle representing 
 what is called the %vhite of the eye, and is really the 
 outer covering of the eyeball. Perhaps you will 
 understand it better if we take an example. Sup- 
 pose you take an orange, and cut a round piece of the 
 skin or peel out about the size of a half-crown piece, 
 the whole of the peel, or skin, which remains bears 
 the same relation to the orange that the outer coat, 
 or white, bears to the eyeball, that is to say the skin 
 which remains of the orange, and the white tunic of 
 the eye in each case invests five parts out of six 
 perhaps of its respective sphere. 
 
 We must make our orange do further service. 
 When we have taken out the piece of skin we find 
 the white rind underneath. Take a penknife and cut 
 a hole in this white part, the same as in Fig. b A b. 
 
30 
 
 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 the hole we cut will represent the opening known as 
 the 'pupil' through which the light passes into the eye. 
 
 FIG. 5. 
 
 The remaining broad rim of white rind (Fig 5. A 2) 
 will represent the iris. Now if you have a watch- 
 glass the size of half-a-crown, and place it over the 
 hole from which you at first cut the skin, the watch- 
 
THE EYE. 31 
 
 glass will represent that glass-like covering of the 
 QjQ which we call the ' cornea.' I fear we shall 
 have to draw rather largely on our imagination to 
 carry oar illustration further. Let us see. Sup- 
 pose you have a pair of spectacles with round 
 glasses instead of oval ones, and you could remove 
 one of these glasses, and (without rupturing our 
 artificial ' iris ') you could thrust it through the 
 ' pupil ' and place it immediately at the back of the 
 ' iris,' this glass lens would then represent the 
 ' lens ' of the eye. Just a little further stretch of 
 the imagination then no more. When you took 
 the lens out of the spectacles (in imagination of 
 course) you found it surrounded by the iron, silver 
 or gold rim which held it. You have placed the 
 lens in the orange as described, and now in place 
 of a metal rim around it, suppose we have a sheet- 
 like muscle encircling the lens and that the outer 
 edge, all round, of this sheet-like muscle is fixed to 
 the interior of the orange peel a little further back 
 than the lens. 
 
 We now look at Fig. 5, D, and we find the 
 diagram of a real eye in section. Now, you will 
 see the parts marked in the diagram as we have 
 described them. First : the greater part of the 
 outer coat (five-sixths we said) is formed by the 
 ivJdte tunic of the eye called the ivhite of the eye, 
 (Fig. 5, D 1). The remainder of the circle (our 
 watch-glass) is the ' cornea ' f Fig. 5, I) c,) then 
 behind this we have the iris D I. Then behind 
 
32 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 this again the lens D. I. with its muscle, the ciliary 
 muscle (D 2.) 
 
 Let us describe the remainder of the e3^e by the 
 aid of the lower diagram we are now looking at. 
 That very large space marked F^is filled by a 
 transparent jelly-like substance called the vitreous 
 humour. Then you see the nerve of sight as it 
 comes from the brain (D, o n) piercing the back 
 of the white outer tunic like the end of a lead pencil, 
 and when it has gained the inner part of the tunic 
 it spreads out like a sheet of tissue paper, and lines 
 the back of the white tunic inside and is known as 
 the ' retina ' (D R). In this thin filmy sheet or 
 ' retina,' close to the optic nerve, is a little body 
 called the yellow spot [D Y S). 
 
 26.— So much for the eyeball. Now let us see 
 how it is moved. The eyeball is imbedded in the 
 bony skull in a socket or case, partly of bone, called 
 the ' orbit,' and being very delicate, this bony orbit 
 is filled with fat, (Fig. 5, D), in which the eyeball is 
 imbedded. In old horses and during illness this 
 fat wastes away and allows the eyeball to sink in its 
 socket. There are five or six muscles, (Fig. 5, m m) 
 to move the eye. The ends of each muscle are at- 
 tached, one to the bony socket the other to the white 
 outer tunic. We have only two of these muscles 
 depicted in the diagram, but in real life one muscle 
 is attached to the upper part of the eye ; one to the 
 lower ; one to the inner or nose side ; one on the 
 outer side. So that when the top one contracts the 
 
THE EYE. 33 
 
 e^^e looks upwards, and so forth. There are two 
 other muscles ohliquely placed for rolling the eye, 
 but these w^e will not consider. The four muscles 
 named are called the four straight muscles, and 
 when they all contract at once, the eyeball is pressed 
 back into the socket and the 'haw' (Fig. 5, D) 
 which is a thin sheet of grissle also imbedded in the 
 fat and whose edge can always be seen on the inner 
 angle of the eye, is pressed or squeezed out of the 
 fat and made to project over the eye. 
 
 27. — We must now turn our attention to the 
 front half of the eye as we see it in the living 
 animal, because it is this we have to examine with 
 the candle in the darkened stable. Still referring 
 to the diagram, let us study the parts in their 
 order, beginning at the transparent 'cornea,' (our 
 watch-glass). 
 
 The light has first of all to pass through the 
 cornea before it can pass through the hole we call 
 the 'pupil,' and if the cornea receives any injury, as 
 it often does from the whip, spots may be left which 
 will split the light or otherwise daze the animal 
 and make him shy. If, however, these spots are 
 on the outer margin and not opposite the pupil, it 
 is plain that the light will not be interfered with, 
 or in other words, the spots are of less consequence. 
 
 Covering the outer tunic or white of the eye, there 
 is a very delicate membrane we have not mentioned, 
 but which holds many blood vessels. This is called 
 the 'conjunctiva,' and is that we see so red when 
 
 D 
 
34 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 the eyes are ' bloodshot.' If a hay-seed gets into 
 the eye this membrane reddens, and the eyelids swell 
 and are kept closed and are suffused with tears. 
 It is this membrane that is attacked in inflamma- 
 tion of the eye, so that yon must see that it is not 
 unduly red. In such horses there is a great quantity 
 of dark colouring matter in it, so that the white of 
 the eye is partly hidden behind it. This dark ap- 
 pearance is quite natural. 
 
 28. — We now come to the two most important 
 structures of the eye, and without we know a good 
 deal about them we cannot judge a horse thoroughly, 
 but may be woefully cheated in purchasing a horse 
 where we cannot call to our aid a skilled expert or 
 veterinarian. The first of these two structures is 
 the 'iris,' which acts like a curtain to a window 
 and is really the curtain of the eye. It is a very 
 delicate moving muscle, flattened like a sheet of 
 paper and ovoid, having an ovoid hole in its very 
 centre, (Fig. 5, ^5), which as we have seen is 
 the 'pupil' of the eye through which the light 
 passes. Now this hole, or pupil, varies much in 
 size. When the eye is exposed to a bright light it 
 becomes very small, but in the dark it enlarges to 
 its widest. This is well seen in ourselves, but 
 better seen in the cat. Put a cat before a window 
 and you find the pupil diminishing almost to the size 
 of a pin point. Then this muscle acts by enlarging 
 or diminishing the ' pupil.' It does so in this way : 
 Fig. 5, A, 2, represents the iris as viewed from 
 
THE EYE. 35 
 
 behind. It is seen to be made up of inner cir- 
 cular fibres and longer fibres which radiate from 
 these. When the pupil lessens, it is by the cir- 
 cular fibres contracting, but when it widens it is by 
 the radiating fibres contracting. What we have to 
 do in the darkened stable is to see that the ' pupil' 
 diminishes and enlarges freely. For this purpose 
 we cover the eye with our hand to darken it for 
 half a minute or so when we expect the * pupil' 
 will dilate ; then we place the candle close to the 
 back of the hand that is covering the eye and sud- 
 denly remove the hand and watch the pupil con- 
 tract, which it ought to do from the glare of the 
 light being too much for the eye. In a darkened 
 stable, and a candle held away from the eye, you 
 will still see the pupil widening and narrowing, 
 which is, of course, a sign that it is in good order 
 and capable of acting as a curtain and keeping out 
 bright glare which dazes the animal. It widens 
 and admits all light possible when there is not 
 much light to spare. When the pupil is very 
 widely open it gives the eye a glassy appearance, 
 and should this condition be permanent, as you will 
 have seen it, no doubt, the disease called Amaurosis, 
 gutta Serena, or glass-eye is present, and the eye is 
 worthless. It may be from disease of the brain. 
 
 Instead of being fixedly open, the pupil may be 
 fixed and quite immoveable and closed, or nearly 
 so. This serious flaw arises in this way. When 
 violent inflammation seizes the eye and attacks the 
 
 D 2 
 
36 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 * iris,' a gluey discharge may occur from the sur- 
 faces of the ' iris,' and the back surface of the 
 
 * iris' may then become stuck to the fore part of the 
 ' lens/ (See Fig. 5, /, /.) 
 
 If you refer to the diagram of the iris, (Fig. 5, A) 
 you will see two or three little black bodies hang- 
 ing down, (Fig. 5, A 4) swinging from the roof of 
 the * pupil.' These are quite natural, and appear in 
 the eyes of many if not in most horses. 
 
 We now come to the lens, which we represented 
 by taking out a glass from a pair of spectacles. 
 This lens (Fig. 5, I), I) is really placed close be- 
 hind the ' iris' or curtain, and is for the purpose 
 of focusing the rays of light so that they form 
 images on the thin membrane we have before spoken 
 of called the ' retina.' Get a pair of spectacles, or 
 a magnifying lens, and hold it in your right hand, 
 and with it throw a bright light from a window, or 
 a candle, or gas jet on to the back of your other 
 hand. Now move the lens gently to and fro, and 
 you will see a beautiful little image of the window- 
 frame, gas jet, or candle-light (whichever you are 
 using) on the back of your hand. Now you have 
 got this perfect image by moving the lens back- 
 wards and forwards between your hand and the 
 light, and you will have found that correct distance 
 is everything, that is to say, had you held the 
 lens an inch nearer or an inch further off, you 
 would not have got a sharp, clear image. Now 
 look at Fig. 5, D, and you will see that behind the 
 
THE EYE. 37 
 
 * lens' there is the V H, or space filled with vitreous 
 humour, and in front of it there is the ' iris,' so 
 that it is quite evident that the 'lens' of the eye 
 cannot be moved backwards and forwards, an inch 
 forward now, an inch backward then, as you have 
 done in your experiment, because the whole eye is 
 only about an inch from front to back, so that the 
 focusing of the image on the ' retina' by the ' lens' 
 must be accomplished in another way altogether, 
 and in this way the shape of the ' lens' itself is 
 altered. 
 
 29. — We must say a few words about the con- 
 struction of the ' lens' of the eye, or you will not 
 understand what is meant by a cataract^ so that 
 after we have seen how the ' lens' is made we can 
 see how it alters its shape in focusing. Turning to 
 the diagram Fig. 5, D /, you see that the lens of the 
 eye can be quite well represented by placing two 
 ordinary old-fashioned watch-glasses together at 
 their edges. Now if you could fill the cavity j^ou 
 thus form with stiff but very transparent jelly, you 
 would thus get a rough representation of the lens 
 of the eye. Now, in the ' lens' of the eye, our two 
 watch-glasees are represented by a very delicately 
 thin pliable membrane called the ' capsule' of the 
 lens, and so the whole ' lens' being firm, but pliable, 
 can be altered in shape by the 'ciliary muscle,' (Fig. 
 5, D 2) which is, as we have seen, attached around 
 its margin, so that when this muscle drags the lens 
 backwards against the stiff ' vitreous humour,' the 
 
38 LESSONS IX HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 foremost half of the capsule of the lens (our fore- 
 most watch-glass) is bent like a bow that is having 
 its string pulled in the act of shooting, and the 
 lens is thus altered in its convexity from being 
 shaped like B to being shaped like C, Fig. 5. 
 
 The lens of the eye is quite clear and transparent 
 like glass, when in health ; but from accident, 
 disease, or old age, it may become opaque and 
 milky, and then the eye is said to have a ' cataract.' 
 ' Cataract' may occur from a horse falling on his 
 head whilst hunting, or in rearing and falling back 
 and knocking the head violently against the ground ; 
 or by knocking the head violently against the top 
 of a doorway — any violent blow on the head, in 
 fact. It does so by rupturing the capsule of the 
 lens (one of our watch-glasses) and letting in the 
 ' watery humour' which occupies the front chamber 
 of the ej'e, and which is marked x x x x in our 
 diagram (Fig. 5, D). When the ' watery humour' 
 gets into the substance of the ' lens' through a rent 
 in the capsule, the ' lens' immediately begins to 
 swell and become milky and opaque, and in a da}^ or 
 two the whole lens is swollen and white like milk. 
 Disease causes ' cataract,' notably that disease in 
 which a patient passes quantities of sugar with his 
 water. Old age produces ' cataract,' by the lens 
 shrinking and altering its proper structure. 
 
 AVhen the ' cataract' is complete, that is to say, 
 when the whole lens is affected, you see the milky 
 white lens through the pupil, or in other words. 
 
THE EYE. 39 
 
 the opening called the pupil instead of being black 
 as midnight, has a chalky or white appearance. 
 
 But the 'cataract' may not be complete, that is, 
 only part of the 'lens' may be white and opaque. 
 A * cataract' may be no larger than a pin's head, 
 and may be situated in any part of the ' lens.' 
 
 30. — To test the lens we use our lighted candle 
 in our darkened stable. The test is called the 
 ' catoptric test,' and is very easily applied. You 
 take the candle and place it a little in front of the 
 eye, a few inches from it, when you see three images 
 of the candle-light; one upon the surface of the 
 * cornea,' one upon the front capsule of the ' lens,' 
 (our front watch-glass,) and the third still further 
 back, upon the hindmost capsule of the lens, (our 
 hindmost watch-glass). Now, after you have dis- 
 tinctly found these three images, notice that the 
 two front ones are upright like the candle-flame, but 
 the hindmost image is upside down. After quite 
 making out this fact, gently move your light from 
 side to side, and you will see that while the two 
 front upright images move in the same direction as 
 the candle, the hindmost one, which is turned up- 
 side down, moves in the contrar}^ way to the candle. 
 It is therefore evident that if the ' lens' is opaque 
 and milky you cannot see the hindmost or inverted 
 image, but you will only see the two foremost up- 
 right images. 
 
 The cataract, as we have seen, may not involve 
 the whole lens, but may be just a little speck in 
 
40 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 any part of it. Of course, if this speck be towards 
 the margin it may not split the light and so be a 
 detriment, but we never can tell how long a small 
 speck of cataract will remain small. With practice 
 you can detect these small specks by the ' catoptric 
 test,' but they are far more easily detected with a 
 little round mirror having a little hole in its centre 
 for you to look through, which forms the reflecting 
 part of every opthalmoscope. Any one can use this 
 very simple contrivance by holding it to his eye and 
 reflecting the rays of a candle into the eye — the 
 candle being held by the side of the head by some 
 one else. 
 
 We have seen that the ' iris' from inflammation 
 may become stuck to the lens and so fixed. But the 
 ' iris' being a moviyig muscle^ sometimes drags and 
 tears itself away, and in so liberating itself, leaves 
 bits of its structure upon the lens, which will also 
 appear like small cataracts. In doing so it some- 
 times tears the capsule and lets in the watery humour, 
 and so causes cataract. 
 
 This ends our lesson on the eye. It only remains 
 for me to advise close attention to what has been 
 said, and to advise the learner to take every oppor- 
 tunity of verifying his knowledge and noticing the 
 many infirmities he will meet with, and studying 
 them by the broad light which we have here 
 attempted to shed upon the subject. There are 
 other methods of thoroughly examining the eye, 
 but these are only of use to experts, surgeons, and 
 
THE EYE. 41 
 
 veterinary surgeons, who are devoting their lives to 
 such subjects. 
 
 Caution, — Do not mistake the optic nerve which 
 can be seen through the pupil of the horse for a 
 cataract, but which is distinguished by the ' catop- 
 tric test.' 
 
 iVo^e.— The whole retina Fig. 5, D R, receives 
 images except the end of the optic nerve itself. To 
 prove this close your left eye by placing your left 
 hand over it, then hold Fig 5 at arms length and 
 look fixedly at the cross, and you see the black spot 
 as well. Now, still looking at the cross, move it 
 gently towards you and as it approaches your face 
 the black spot for a time ceases to be seen. The 
 distance is generally seven or eight inches from the 
 face. 
 
LESSON IV. 
 
 FACE AND HEAD. 
 
 31. — HaviDg passed in review the nostrils, mouth, 
 and eye, we must now review the face and head. 
 We shall find that the face, as seen from the front, is 
 of paramount importance in judging a horse, because 
 the old saying, ' strength goes in at the mouth,' 
 is as true to-day as it ever was. The saying, of 
 course, has reference to the quantity and quality of 
 food that is consumed. Now, no matter how much 
 food is swallowed, unless it be of proper quality 
 and so prepared by mastication or otherwise that 
 the stomach can, in its turn, further advantageously 
 dispose of it, strength will not follow. In order 
 that large quantities of well masticated food may be 
 swallowed, the back teeth, or 'grinders,' must have 
 the following properties ; they must have large, flat, 
 and regular masticating surfaces. 
 
 But you will say what has all this got to do 
 
FACE AND HEAD. 
 
 43 
 
 with the front aspect of the face ? The reply is, a 
 great deal, but you are Dot asked to take this bare 
 assertion on trust. It is of the highest importance 
 that you should understand the conditions requisite 
 for the ' grinders' to have large, flat, and regular 
 masticating surfaces. But you will have to follow 
 the description, as you did in the case of the ej^e, 
 before you can understand. 
 
 The molar teeth or grinders (Fig. 6, ^ 11) are 
 
 FIG. 6. 
 
44 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 very large cubical blocks of bone which have to 
 crush and grind down hard tough food, such as 
 beans, oats and hay, and therefore require powerful 
 agents in the form of huge muscles to worl^ them; 
 so that, you see, where you have such large blocks 
 and such large powers to move them, you must have 
 room or space sufficient for both. But it so happens 
 that lightness is also required, and greatest lightness 
 implies least material and with least material it 
 must be disposed or shaped according to well- 
 known geometrical laws; if you require the three 
 conditions in one, namel}^ size, strength, and 
 lightness, these geometrical laws are carried 
 out at the expense of room or space if not in one 
 direction, in another. 
 
 If you refer to Fig. 6, A, you will see a perfect 
 model of lightness aud strength. It is the dia- 
 gramatic representation of a section of a horse's 
 head and jaws carried from above downwards 
 across the head, somewhat below the eyes. The 
 four pieces marked 1 1 1 1, represent four molar teeth 
 or grinders, two in the upper and two in the lower 
 jaw. They have all flat table-top grinding surfaces, 
 the top one meeting a corresponding bottom one. 
 Those of the lower jaw are set in solid bone, which 
 is rendered light by being shaped like the letter V, 
 that is to say having two branches meeting below. 
 The front part in our diagram being removed, we 
 can only see the section of the two parts of the 
 lower jaw each holding a molar. Above the upper 
 
FACE AND HEAD. 45 
 
 jaw are the large passages through which the air 
 passes A x ,v, and are nearly hollow and form the 
 -back part of the bon}^ nostrils, but the cavities Y Y 
 are only there to allow of the bone being as light as 
 pos&ible, and as cavities are quite worthless. The 
 upper jaw forms an arch, having^ substantial 
 buttresses in the molar teeth and their bony sockets, 
 and whose span is of gigantic strength and ex- 
 tremely light from its hollow construction. 
 
 If you notice a horse eating, you will see that the 
 lower jaw is pressed upwards against the upper jaw, 
 and moves from side to side. If the movement of the 
 lower jaw on the upper one were a simple up and 
 down movement, then the muscles could be per- 
 pendicularly placed and their bulk onl}' allowed for, 
 but seeing that the lower jaw has to be moved from 
 side to side, the muscles have to be obliquely placed 
 and so necessitates the branches of the jaw being 
 wide apart at their hindmost part. But the lower 
 grinders are somewhat narrower than the upper and 
 so allow greater range of motion in grinding, so that 
 breadth of the upper jaw is essential as well for 
 allowing free masticating power, as for power to 
 breathe freely through wide enough openings. 
 
 32. — This then necessitates width between the 
 eyes, and width between the lower jaws. In the 
 figure illustrating this lesson you will find three 
 diagrams, B, C, B, representing front face views of 
 three degrees of width. What has been said will 
 explain why narrow-faced horses are often weakly, 
 
46 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 with narrow chests and long legs, and disposed to 
 have ' thrushes' in the ' frogs' of their fore feet, and 
 are also prone to diarrhoea. It would be beyond the 
 province of this little book to enter into a lengthened 
 explanation of these coincidences and shorter ex- 
 planations would not suffice. 
 
 33. — The side face should be deep for the same 
 reasons that the front face between the eyes should 
 be broad, that is, for roomy nostrils above and for 
 the efficient setting of the massive grinders. 
 
 34. — Length of head is not of such importance. 
 It cannot well be too short so far as the chief re- 
 quisites are concerned. When we find very narrow 
 faces, we frequently find length of face great. 
 
 35. — The so-called forehead of a horse is the 
 space bounded below by a straight line drawn be- 
 tween the eyes, above by roots of the hair of the fore- 
 lock, and at the sides by the large muscles which 
 lift the lower against the upper one. The breadth 
 of the forehead depends upon the breadth between 
 the eyes and the size of these muscles. It is almost 
 impossible to judge the size of the brain in the 
 living horse by breadth of forehead. Size of brain 
 is no index of character in either horse or man. 
 In either case, we can only judge of a brain by the 
 quality and quantity of the thought, and so forth, 
 it produces, so that we need not dwell further 
 on the physical aspects of the head. 
 
 36. — The eyes should be as large as possible, and 
 not be obliquely set in the face as in the Chinese. 
 
FACE AND HEAD. 47 
 
 In long narrow-faced horses we sometimes find this 
 obliquity of the eyes, and this is an additional 
 flaw. 
 
 37.— The white of the eye should not be too 
 conspicuous. AVhen too conspicuous it gives to 
 both man and horse a luild stare, and is an almost 
 unfailing sign of mental aberations, which lead to 
 acts which we characterise as vice, such as biting, 
 kicking, &c. The Avhite of the eye is seen, not on 
 account of there being more of it than usual, but on 
 account of the eyelids being wider apart. This con- 
 dition Ig known to doctors as the insane eye^ and is 
 seen by the least observant by attending Divine 
 worship in any lunatic asylum chapel and sitting 
 near the parson. This condition has been so con- 
 nected with viciousness in the horse, that in York- 
 shire it is a common expression among horsemen, 
 " He shows too much of the white of his eye for 
 my money." I would, however, guard you against 
 condemning all horses with this form of eye as 
 vicious, but have a special warranty against vice in 
 purchasing one, and at all times avoid such when 
 you conveniently can. 
 
 38. — The" space between the lower jaws near the 
 top of the neck cannot be too wide, for reasons we 
 have before seen. There is also another reason why 
 the branches of the lower jaw should be wide apart. 
 The top of the windpipe ends in the speaking box 
 called the * larynx.' It is much larger than the 
 remainder of the windpipe, and in men can be seen 
 
48 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 and felt as a large hard prominence which moves up 
 and down when we swallow. It is also called 
 pomum Adami, or Adam's apple. When the nose 
 is held in towards the neck by the bearing-rein 
 being over tight, this delicate box, which is made 
 up of pieces of hard cartilage, moved by numerous 
 delicate muscles, gets pressed out of shape and 
 causes roaring, or grunting, or trumpeting. 
 
 This box is quite between the branches of the 
 jaw in most positions of the head, and is a most 
 delicately organised structure, and therefore soon 
 thrown out of order, causing the above noises in 
 moving. Now there is a disease called the Strangles 
 affecting young horses, in which a gathering or 
 abscess takes place in the space between the jaws, 
 and therefore close to this delicate box, the ' larynx.' 
 During the time the abscess is ripening there is 
 necessarily great inflammation about this box, and 
 if it lasts unduly long by being treated by so-called 
 * home' remedies, or worse still by the farrier, 
 the inflammation is apt to injure the delicate little 
 muscles of which the box is partly composed, and 
 leave the animal a ' roarer.' 
 
 39. — All badly treated gatherings or abscesses 
 are apt to leave behind them two evidences of their 
 former presence, viz : thickening of the skin and 
 parts beneath, and ragged scars. Therefore, always 
 look for these between the jaws of a horse. The 
 skin in this situation should be fine, the hair silky, 
 and you ought to be able to bury your stretched 
 
THE HEAD AND FACE. 49 
 
 out hand, laid lengthwise back uppermost, in this 
 space : or, in other words, see that the space between 
 the jaws be not flush with the lower borders of the 
 jaw. 
 
 40.— The ears forming part of the head may here 
 be noticed. They ought not to be too large, indeed 
 they can hardly be too small. They vary in shape 
 slightly, but very little. 
 
 E 
 
LESSON V. 
 
 THE NECK. 
 
 The neck of the horse may be roughly stated to 
 be an oblong, having the bones of the neck or 
 cervical vertebrae as a diagonal; thus, (Fig, 7 A.) 
 
 FIG. 7. 
 
THE NECK. 51 
 
 We have thus a rough idea of its fundamental 
 structure, and shall be able further to discuss the 
 subject intelligibly. The column of bones is repre- 
 sented by the diagonal that divides the neck above 
 and below into two triangles, the upper one being 
 the larger and more clearly defined. On referring 
 to Diagram B it will be seen that this upper 
 triangle contains the great cervical ligament which 
 supports the great overhanging mass formed by the 
 head and neck. It will no doubt often have oc- 
 curred to non-anatomists, as a matter of wonder, how 
 such a weighty overhanging mass as that of the 
 head and neck gets supported, and how it is kept 
 from dropping down and dangling between the fore 
 legs. It will be seen on reference to Fig. 7 B that 
 there is a ligament occupying the upper triangle of 
 the neck which has^z^o distinct forms, a cordiform or 
 funicular portion, 111 and a lamellary portion 2 222. 
 The former is continuous, with the ligament running 
 along the upper ends of the spines of the vertebral 
 column of the back and loins, and then stretches 
 along the upper part of the triangular space of the 
 neck and gets inserted to the summit of the head at 
 the back; whilst the other portion spreads from 
 above downwards like a fan and in reality is given 
 off from the upper or cordiform portion. This fan- 
 like portion has six slips, which get inserted to the 
 spines of the last six of the bones of the neck. 
 
 In the first lesson we saw that muscle was an 
 active contractile tissue lohich could become exhausted, 
 
 E 2 
 
52 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 SO that if the neck and head were supported by 
 muscles, after a certain time, the head and neck 
 would drop. This is never the case, because they 
 are supported by the ligament we have been des- 
 scribing, which is made up of a congregation of 
 elastic fibres which are devoid of feeling, and 
 therefore are never tired and are quite as passive 
 as so much india rubber, that is, the ligament 
 stretches when anything stretches it and recoils 
 when the stretching force is removed. 
 
 The next thing I must direct your attention to is 
 that the cordiform or upper part of the ligament is 
 broad at the top, and that the skin of the neck is 
 separated from it by a quantity of fat imbedded in 
 fibrous partitions. The amount of fat placed upon 
 this ligament varies greatly. In the clean, light 
 neck of the hunting gelding this fat is barely re- 
 presented, whilst in low-bred animals, in stallions, 
 and in those which have been castrated, after two 
 years of age or after the procreative organs have 
 assumed their functional activity, this fat and 
 fibrous tissue lying along the cordiform tendon on 
 the upper serface of the neck is of considerable 
 thickness and forms a ' crest.' It is of course best 
 seen in stallions, and gives their neck its peculiar 
 shape. In the heavy, soft cart horses which are 
 largely imported into this country from Belgium it 
 is also a prominent feature. Some colts are pur- 
 posely left till two 3^ears old before castration, on 
 purpose to develop this fat and * give them a neck,' 
 as it is called. The quantity of this fibro-fatty 
 
THE NECK. 6d 
 
 substance in the neck principally, but not 
 entirely, makes the difference between a gross 
 ' fleshy' neck, and a fine clean neck, and when 
 it is stated that there is no strength in this 
 fibro-fatty mass, it need hardly be added that a 
 clean, light muscular neck is as powerful as a gross, 
 thick, heavy neck which is largely made so by this 
 stored up fat; only, of course, the possessor of the 
 latter can throw more weight into a collar, and is 
 so far preferable for draught purposes. Besides 
 judging of the quantity of this fibro-fatty structure 
 by the sight, you can grasp the top of the neck, feel 
 its thickness, and shake it from side to side. 
 
 41. — On each side of this ligament there are 
 powerful muscles which fill up this upper triangular 
 space and get attached to the bones of the neck, 
 especially to the last five of these. We have seen 
 that the bones of the spinal column have little 
 movement individually, but collectively the column 
 has considerable movement, which we likened to 
 the wriggling of an eel. There are very small 
 muscles which stretch from every bone of the 
 column to the next bone in front of it, and are said 
 to ' clothe' the spinal column. These muscles of 
 themselves cause the wriggling movement of the 
 column. The column, however, is acted upon by 
 other muscles than those little ones stretched from 
 bone to bone. These muscles are among the 
 largest and most powerful muscles of the body, and 
 bend the bones of the neck very much upwards, as 
 
54 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 in taking hay out of racks placed very high, or 
 very much downwards, as in grazing. The part of 
 the vertebral column forming the loins is also much 
 bent in galloping and leaping, but the most move- 
 ment is in the column forming the tail. 
 
 Shortly reviewing what we have said regarding 
 the movements of the back bone or vertebral column 
 we have found that it can move itself, and that it 
 can he moved. That in moving itself it does so by 
 the little muscles which clothe it, and that the 
 amount of this movement only amounts to what we 
 have, somewhat inelegantly, termed a wriggle. 
 That in being moved by muscles from without, the 
 motion is far more extensive. Lastly, we found 
 that there was m.ost movement in the tail, the next 
 in the neck, and then in the loins, so that we have 
 only to add that there is next to no movement in 
 the back, and as has been mentioned, the bones of 
 the croup are glued together and quite immovable. 
 
 Having said enough for the present about the 
 * back-bone' or 'vertebral column' in general, I 
 wish now to fix your attention upon that portion of 
 it, made up of seven bones, forming the neck. In 
 the fore part of this lesson we saw that the bones 
 of the neck ran diagonally, from below upwards and 
 forwards, and we have since seen that whether it 
 is straight or curved depends upon the action or 
 inaction of certain muscles. When the horse is 
 standing quietly at rest the elastic ligament simply 
 suspends the head and neck, and in doing so the 
 
THE XECK. 55 
 
 bones of the neck are nearly straight, having only 
 the faintest possible curve, or in other words, the 
 neck at rest is at its straightest. When the neck 
 is not at rest, the bones of the neck will be bent 
 according to the attitude of the horse, and, as we 
 have seen, the muscles filling the upper triangle, 
 being inserted into the hindmost bones of the neck, 
 are most concerned in altering its shape. 
 
 Referring to Fig. 7, B we find that the hindmost 
 side of the upper triangle depicted in Fig. 7, A 
 depends for its depth upon the length of the 
 ' spines' of the bones of the vertebral column of the 
 foremost part of the back. This part, horsemen 
 know as the ' withers.' It therefore follows that 
 the higher the withers the greater the power of 
 raising and bending upwards and backwards the 
 bones of the neck, or in other words, the higher the 
 withers the greater the power of holding up the head 
 andnech. So that with high withers, that is with a 
 deep triangle, the large muscles of this region not 
 only act with the least expenditure of power, but 
 the efficiency of space from above downwards 
 enables large muscles to occupy this region without 
 making the neck thick, because great and powerful 
 muscles can be stow^ed away in a space which 
 though narrow is very deep ; whereas for the same 
 bulk, and as we have seen strength, to be stowed 
 away in a less triangle, the space laterally has to be 
 encroached upon. So that given the same weight of 
 head, and strength and length of neck, the higher 
 
56 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 the withers the thinner from side to side will be 
 the neck, hence we find as a general thing that 
 horses with low withers have more, so called, fleshy 
 necks than those with high withers, because these 
 muscles are stowed and have to act at a greater 
 disadvantage. 
 
 THE NECK AND HEAD. 
 
 42.— We have next to consider the neck and head 
 together as weights and as fulcrums, also as power. 
 The head as a whole may be regarded as a solid 
 mass attached to the foremost part of the neck at 
 a variable angle. The upper and foremost part of 
 the bones of the neck meets the head at its very 
 top, (Fig. 7, B) that barely two inches of the head 
 is above the bony juncture of the head and neck. 
 
 By this arrangement we get a lever of the first 
 order which moves the head as a rigid bar up and 
 down, the neck being fixed and acting as a fulcrum. 
 The upper arm of the lever, we have said, is about 
 two inches in length only, and so allows it, whilst 
 moving through very little space itself, to move 
 through great space the lower and longer arm of 
 the lever made up at the head generally. The 
 head has a side to side movement also, but we shall 
 not stop to consider it in any way because we think 
 our ends may be gained without this. Again re- 
 minding you of what was said about the superior 
 triangle of the neck being occupied by muscles, 
 which get attached to Ihe last five bones of the 
 
THE NECK AND HEAD. 57 
 
 neck, and of course when acting draw these bones 
 upwards and backwards, there are positions, as for 
 example, when the horse during the act of leaping 
 a height is in a rearing attitude, and poising the 
 body the instant before taking the spring, when the 
 neck has to be drawn upwards and backwards, and 
 the muzzle drawn well in to the neck, in order that 
 the face may be conveniently situated for the animal 
 to look straight down upon the object to be leaped 
 over. In such a case the neck assum.es the most 
 marked double curve. The hindmost curve is 
 first produced in the way we have mentioned, 
 and the bones of it being fixed allows the 
 part to become a fulcrum for the muscles acting at 
 the lower side of the neck to draw the muzzle back- 
 wards. We have next the neck in one long curve, 
 and the head extended as w^hen the horse is feeding 
 out of a very high hay rack. Next we have 
 the neck straight and the head extended, as in 
 the race-horse during the hottest part of the race 
 Bearing the winning post, and, as we have seen, 
 the neck and head may be at rest and aluiost at 
 right angles. 
 
 In our first lesson we saw that muscles, when in 
 the full enjoyment of their highest functions, were 
 said to be in tone. We have also seen in this les- 
 son that muscles alter the curv^e of the vertebral 
 column, more especially those parts of it forming 
 the neck and the tail, so that it follows as a corollary 
 that if the muscles of the neck habitually act in 
 
58 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 one position more than in an}^ other position, the 
 neck will become more and more moulded into that 
 position. Hence we see the seasoned carriage-horse 
 with powerful highly developed muscles of the 
 neck, which gives to his neck a more massive ap- 
 pearance with its double curve. The bearing rein, 
 judiciously applied, effects this by compelling the 
 horse to keep his head up and his nose in, which 
 no doubt is tiring at first, till the muscles of the 
 neck get into condition ; just as in the case of the 
 raw recruit who has to keep his head up, shoulders 
 well back, and the palm of the hand open to 
 the front. The muscles in six weeks or less get 
 into tone, and there is an end to pain from res- 
 traint. 
 
 The bearing rein does this good, it causes de- 
 velopment of the muscles of the neck, and enables 
 greater weight and strength to be thrown into the 
 collar. Consequently it enables those who drive 
 pairs to have both breeding and substance. 
 
 In concluding this lesson, we have just to remind 
 the reader that the neck has two sources of bulk, 
 namely, the fibro-fatty mass which we have before 
 discussed, and the forced development of the mus- 
 cles. So that we may have both these conditions 
 in the same neck, or one only. 
 
 We shall have more to say about the head and 
 neck in our next lesson. 
 
59 
 
 LESSON VL 
 
 THE FORE EXTREMITY. 
 
 The general student may not know what is meant 
 by the fore extremity, so I shall have to explain it. 
 Our arms and hands are called our upper extremi- 
 ties, our legs and feet our lower extremities. The 
 words upper and lower being used on account of 
 our upright position of body. Quadrupeds having 
 horizontally placed bodies are said to have fore and 
 hind extremities, corresponding to our upper and 
 lower ones. 
 
 43. — The horse's fore extremities are made up of 
 all three kinds of bones, long, flat, and irregular. The 
 topmost bone is a flat bone, and the only flat bone, 
 and is called the ' scapula' or ' shoulder-blade.' 
 All the other bones are of the long kind, except the 
 little bones in the so-called ' knee' joint, we have 
 before alluded to in paragraph 11, and one or two 
 little bones we shall afterwards speak of. 
 
60 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 FIG 8. 
 
 Fore extremity of horse. 
 a. Scapula, or shoulder blade. 
 h. Humerus, or arm bone. 
 
 Upper extremity of man. 
 g. Metacarpal bones. 
 12 3. Phalanges. 
 
THE FORE EXTREMITY 61 
 
 c. Elbow. h 1. Eii'st phalanx or suffraginis. 
 e. Ulna. 2. Second „ or coronal. 
 
 d. Radius, or bone of forearm. 3. Third „ or pedal. 
 f. Carpus, or knee (wrist.) 
 
 The bones of the fore extremities are of various 
 lengths, and from the top of the arm bone down to 
 the foot they gradually lessen in thickness. Also 
 please to notice that the so-called ' knee' joint is a 
 misnomer, as it is the part corresponding to our 
 wrist joint, and has the same number of bones in it 
 and of the same shape nearly, but larger. From our 
 wrist joint five lengths of bone proceed, but in the 
 horse, who is a solipede, only one length proceeds. 
 This one length faithfully represents our middle 
 finger from the wrist joint to the tip covered by the 
 nail. Now, beginning at the shoulder-blade and 
 going downwards, let us compare our extremity 
 with its homologue, as anatomists call it, in the 
 horse. You are not to be impatient and question 
 the use of it, until you have patiently waded through 
 what I have got to tell you, and then say whether 
 it is of use. The two extremities are given in Fig. 8. 
 
 44. — The scapulae of man and horse are both 
 flat bones and both triangular bones, with a very 
 strong ridge of bone running down their middle or 
 nearly down their middle. This ridge of bone serves 
 many purposes. First it strengthens the bone with- 
 out adding materially to its bulk, just as the engi- 
 neer shapes his iron which has to bridge across a 
 space and to bear great weight, and have as 
 little weight as possible. Second, you notice this 
 
62 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 ' spine,' as it is called, is less in proportion in the 
 horse than it is in man, and that in the horse it is 
 not continued into a long strong process. The rea- 
 son of this difference is that the horse only uses 
 his fore extremities to walk with ; he has no * collar' 
 bone or ' clavicle,' as it is called by anatomists. 
 Now the collar bone is a long bone at the top of 
 our chests in front, shaped like the old-fashioned 
 letter s, like this/ and it has one end placed against 
 the top and side of the breast bone, but its other 
 end meets the extreme tip of this spine of the 
 scapula and props the shoulders back, and so 
 keeps our shoulders well back at all times. Were it 
 not for this bone, when, in using our arms, we 
 stretched them forward, there would be nothing to 
 prevent our two shoulders almost meeting in front. 
 It is the relative length of this bone that determines 
 the appearance of our shoulders. If growing children 
 are allowed to sit with their shoulders huddled up, 
 the two ends of this bone are unduly pressed upon, 
 and the double curve is increased and the collar 
 bone more bent, and, as a consequence, more 
 shortened, and the shoulder blades, not being duly 
 propped back, stick out behind, and the child grows 
 up ' round shouldered.' It is owing to the slightly 
 greater length of this bone which gives French- 
 women their more graceful shoulders and chest. 
 Lions, tigers, cats, &c., use their fore extremities for 
 seizing things and holding them, so that they have 
 clavicles or collar bones like men and women. A 
 
THE FORE EXTREMITY. 63 
 
 third use of this ' spine' of the scapula is that it 
 acts as a fulcrum or fixed point for muscles, also as 
 a place for insertion for tendons. 
 
 45.— The next bone called the 'humerus' or arm 
 bone, will be seen to be exactly alike in both cases, 
 only it is relatively very much longer in man. In 
 both it is a powerful bone, but especially so in the 
 horse. Extremely large muscles clothe it. 
 
 46.— The next two bones are the radius and 
 ulna. In man, both these bones are continued from 
 the elbow joint to the wrist as separate bones, 
 but you will notice that in the horse the ulna, 
 after helping the radius to form the elbow 
 joint, coalesces with the radius, so that the 
 two in a full grown horse look like one bone. 
 This being so, the ulna is said to be rudimentary in 
 the horse. 
 
 47. — The bones of the carpus are nearly alike in 
 both, onl}^ of course, larger in the horse. We 
 shall call this the knee as usual, although, as you 
 see, it is the wrist. 
 
 48. — There are five metacarpal bones in our 
 hands, but the horse has only one which is fairly 
 represented by the metacarpal bone belonging to 
 our middle finger. You see two small metacarpal 
 bones in the horse, but these are dwarfed and only 
 rudimentary, and in the very aged, stuck to the 
 larger ' metacarpal.' Notice, though, that the tops 
 of all three articulate with the bones above them, 
 i.e., with the lower bones of the ' carpus' or ' knee.' 
 
64 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 49.— The remaining bones explain themselves 
 almost. Taking the bone in our middle finger from 
 the knuckle to the first joint, we find it correspond- 
 ing in everything but size to the long pastern bone 
 of the horse. 
 
 50. — The next bone to this again corresponds 
 with our next bone in the middle finger, but is rela- 
 tively very much shorter and broader. 
 
 51. — The last bone is very highly developed in 
 the horse, and is called the pedal or * coffin' bone. In 
 ourselves it is little more than rudimentary, on ac- 
 count of its not being called upon as a lowest point 
 to bear the weight of our body. We can very dis- 
 tinctly see the resemblance it has to the same bone 
 in the horse in the skeletons of those who, during 
 life, used their fingers in hard heavy toil. 
 
 52. — The next three bones are sessamoid bones, 
 and are very specially more related with the long 
 tendons which stretch from the back of the knee 
 to the foot. 
 
 So much for the 'bars' of our levers which we 
 saw were in the animal, the hones. Now for the 
 poivers of the animal levers which we saw were the 
 muscles with their tendons. 
 
 53. — On referring to Fig. 8, E, it will be seen 
 that we have the bones of the fore extremity hidden 
 or clothed by their muscles. This, however, is a 
 picture or a faithful representation of the parts as 
 they are in reality, and as the origins (fixed points) 
 of the muscles and their insertions (moveable points) 
 
THE FORE EXTREMITY. 65 
 
 are very ninrierous, it will be useless to describe the 
 origin and insertion of each muscle, but by the aid 
 of diagrams we can see these living levers to greater 
 advantage. I will, however, draw your special 
 attention to two things. First, you ought to get a 
 mental picture of this Fig. 8, E, in order that you 
 may be able to recognise it as seen in the living 
 horse, covered, however, by the skin. Secondly, 
 please to notice that all the parts from just above 
 the ' knee' are made up of the bellies or contracting 
 parts of the muscles with hardly any visible tendon, 
 but that from just above the knee to the foot all is 
 tendon and bone together, not a single helly of 
 muscle. Perhaps there is' a third point you had 
 better notice, namely, that of the bulky fleshy part, 
 the greatest bulk is at the back of the shoulder 
 blade and arm bone, the shoulder getting more and 
 more bulky as it descends. Look steadily first at 
 the column of bones unclothed until you can see 
 them in your mind's eye through their fleshy cloth- 
 ing, because I give you warning that we are now 
 going to represent all we have got to say further by 
 straight bare lines only. 
 
 54. — Before going any further, we must revert to 
 the dry subject of levers. Let me impress upon you 
 this universal law, that power and speed are always 
 related to each other, but that this relation is always 
 antagonistic. Expressed in other words it is this, 
 ' if you gain power you lose speed,' which is only 
 saying, of course, that ' if you gain speed you lose 
 power.' This universal law does a great deal for 
 
 F 
 
66 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 US b}^ acting as a wholesome check to our enterprise. 
 Were it not for this antagonism we should build 
 ships that w^ould convey cities instead of their pre- 
 sent modest loads, and these would run at speed 
 calculated by seconds instead of days and weeks and 
 so forth. This law has existed, and will exist, 
 through all time. We, however, try to unite the 
 two things as closely as possible; the 'Great 
 Eastern' steamship for example. This artificial com- 
 bination is nowhere more striven after than in our 
 breed of horses, the English hunter for example. 
 
 55. — We shall make this antagonism between 
 poiver and speed do us good service here. It enables 
 us to include every horse under the sun under three 
 logical divisions, namely. 
 
 1. — Horses of Speed, e.g. Racehorses. 
 
 2. — Horses of Powtt, e.g. Draughthorses. 
 
 3. — Horses of Power and Speed, e.g. Hunters. 
 
 It is apparent that the first two, being extremes, 
 will be in the minority, because most of our wants 
 require a combination of power and speed. 
 
 56. — We must just allude to one other point, 
 and that is the rhythm of movement. Let us take 
 a simp^le movement, such as w^alking, and see what 
 the fore extremities do and are down to in this 
 rhythm. It will be seen on reference to Fig. 9, A, 
 that an attempt has been made to represent this 
 rhythm by a diagram which really represents two 
 rhythms. It will be seen that either rhythm is 
 included in a parallelogram made up of two equal 
 triangles, a a' a" and a h" h"'. They are equal 
 
THE FORE EXTREMITY. 67 
 
 '" "" and 
 
 because they are on the same base, a h 
 between the same parallels a h'\ a" V" . 
 
 It will be seen that a rhythm is begun when the 
 foot is on the ground, as at h"\ and completed when 
 
 FIG 9. 
 
 the foot reaches the ground, as at a'\ and the limb has 
 gained the same relation to the body, (represented 
 by the arrow,) as at a a" Take the parallelogram 
 a' a" b'" a"\ then it will be seen that the leg is flexed 
 and extended within the triangle a" a" h"\ and that 
 the body swings forward and brings the leg from posi- 
 tion a" a" to a a"\ and this movement is accom- 
 plished within the triangle a a" a". Tt is needless 
 to remind the reader that in the walk one fore foot 
 is on the ground when the other is oif it, therefore 
 the fellow leg is bearing the body's weight whilst 
 the foot is being put from h'" to a'\ 
 
 f2 
 
68 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 In passing forward the foot from h"' to a"' the 
 leg is 
 
 1.— Flexed. 
 
 2.— Dragged forward whilst flexed. 
 
 3. — Then extended. 
 
 Now we saw that the spinal column had its own 
 intrinsic muscles b}^ which it moved itself, and we 
 saw that this movement was a wriggle, and we also 
 saw that it was moved by muscles from without 
 itself, or extrinsic muscles. So it is with the limbs, 
 they can flex and extend themselves, but they re- 
 quire muscles which have their fixed points else- 
 where to move them bodily onwards. Now, referring 
 to Fig. 9 B, we find the limb flexed as represented by 
 the right hand figure. After being so flexed were 
 it not to be dragged forward by a muscle from with- 
 out, but simply to again extend itself instead of 
 alighting at a"' it would drop somewhere on the line 
 between a'" and h'". In order to be carried from 
 the flexed position to the position a" a'", ive find 
 a long tape-shaped muscle moves it forward througli 
 the distance we have named, and that this muscle has 
 the hones of the neck and top of the head for a fixed 
 point or fulcrum. This is a very important point 
 for you to remember. A fulcrum must be a fixed 
 point, therefore when this muscle is acting, the neck 
 must be fixed because this muscle has most exten- 
 sive origin from it. Its name is ' Levator Humeri,' 
 or, in English, lifter of the arm. This is a mis- 
 nomer, because the muscle does not lift the arm, 
 
THE FORE EXTREMITY. 
 
 69 
 
 but lifts the whole shoulder bodily upwards and 
 forwards according as the nech is situated. This 
 * levator humeri' arises from the vertex of the head 
 and from the foremost four bones of the neck, also 
 through a strong elastic medium it arises from 
 the elastic ligament of the neck. After this ex- 
 tensive origin, it gets a most extensive insertion to 
 the shoulder as follows ; the spine of the scapula 
 or shoulder blade, the point of the shoulder, the 
 
 FIG. 9. 
 
 B 
 
 strong outer ridge at the top of the arm bone and 
 to the arm bone at another point near its lower 
 end. 
 
 As the free and extensive movement of the 
 shoulder mainly depends upon this muscle, and the 
 longer the belly of a muscle the greater the muscle's 
 capability for contraction, and further, as this 
 muscle is co-extensive with the neck, it follows 
 that tlie longer the neck the more extensive the shoulder 
 movement. Again, as this muscle is attached to 
 
70 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 and runs parallel with the bones of the neck and 
 its fibres are also parallel with the bones of the 
 neck, it follows that the shoulder will he dragged 
 hodily along the line of the hones of the neck. 
 Therefore, a horse having his head well up will 
 necessarily lift his shoulders bodily upwards and 
 forwards, whilst he will only drag his shoulder 
 forwards whilst galloping with his neck and head 
 nearer to the ground. 
 
 Never forget that the shoulder is always dragged 
 bodily in the line of the neck. For high action then 
 the first requisite is that the head and neck be held 
 well up or the shoulder will not be lifted well up, 
 and so forth. 
 
 57. — Flexion and extension take place by means 
 of the muscles belonging to the limb and not from 
 muscles having their origin elsewhere. By re- 
 ferring to Fig. 9, B^ we see a fore limb in exten- 
 sion^ and see also that all the powers (p) are applied 
 in front of the limb. In flexion we see Fig. 9, B, 
 that all the powers are applied at the hack of the 
 limb. Looking at either of these figures we see 
 that in every case X\iq power is placed very much 
 nearer to the fulcrum than the weight, the weight in 
 each case may be regarded as all the parts beneath 
 its respective fulcrum, so that it is evident that 
 speed is gained at very extensive sacrifice of power 
 In all horses' limbs, no matter what their length and 
 strength, there is always this relation of power to 
 fulcrum, so that in all horses' limbs extent of move- 
 ment or speed is provided for more than power. 
 
THE FORE EXTREMITY. 71 
 
 58. — The shoulder blade has two distinct move- 
 ments. We have seen that it is dragged forward 
 b}' the levator humeri muscle. Its most extensive 
 movement is that of its lower end which gives to 
 the whole blade a pendulum movement. Both these 
 movements are effected by this muscle for the most 
 part. 
 
 59. — The arm bone has also two movements. 
 It is dragged backwards and forwards b}^ the levator 
 humeri muscle. Its greatest movement, however, 
 is a pump-handle movement, having its fulcrum or 
 fixed point at the shoulder point. 
 
 60. — It will be seen on reference to Fig. 9, C, 1, 2, 
 that we have two fore limbs in flexion. The figures 
 are alike, but placed at different obliquities. On 
 comparing the two it will be seen that with the same 
 
 FIG. 9. 
 
 amount of flexion the ' action' will be high or low 
 according to the angle formed hy the body with the 
 scapula or the limb's most fixed part. By further com- 
 
72 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 paring 1 and 2 it will be seen that 1 looks upwards 
 and forwards, but that 2 looks forwards only. 
 There is just one other point we noust be clear 
 upon, and that is the relation of the long axis of 
 the fore limb to the long axis of the body. Let us 
 agree in regarding the long axis of the fore limb at 
 the normal when the horse is standing straight on 
 both fore limbs which must be perpendicular when 
 on level ground. It will now be seen that the long 
 axis of the fore limb is not necessarily at right 
 angles with the long axis of the body. We have 
 divided horses into three classes, and adhering to 
 this division we find on referring to Fig. 10, that 
 the angle formed by the long axes before referred 
 to in the two fleet horses ' Fisherman' and ' Saun- 
 terer' are greater than a right angle, thus enabling 
 the horse to ' cover more ground,' as horsemen 
 term it. But on reference to the diagram of the 
 Clydesdale horse, it will be seen that the two axes 
 are at right angles. I have chosen the three from 
 that most excellent work on the horse by Mr. 
 Walsh (Stonehenge). In the greatest speed the 
 long axes of the body is of necessity tilted down- 
 wards and forwards. In the heaviest draught the 
 weight has to be thrown forwards into the collar, 
 and the long axis of the body also thrown slightly 
 downwards and forwards ; but very much less so 
 than in the former case. Where high ' park' action 
 takes place, the long axis of the body must be up- 
 wards and forwards. These things being so, it 
 follows that for either speed or action, or both, the 
 
FIG. 10. 
 
 Clydesdale Horse. 
 
74 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 fore limb must be placed bodily well forward, and 
 have its long axis well in advance at its base. 
 The horse is then said ' to cover plenty of ground.' 
 This necessitates, as we have seen, plenty of obli- 
 quity of the shoulder blade, or in other words, the 
 top of the blade must be well back and the shoulder 
 point well forward. In heav}^ draught, the centre 
 of gravity must be thrown well in front of the fore 
 limbs, and kept in this relation to the rest of the 
 bod}^ and the long axis of the limb throughout 
 looks downwards and forwards, and its extension 
 forward at the base never gets beyond the perpen- 
 dicular. 
 
LESSON YII. 
 
 THE FORE LIMBS. 
 
 Having come to some general conclusions regard- 
 ing the fore extremity, it will be easy for us now to 
 go quickly over a consideration of each part separ- 
 ately. 
 
 61. — The shoulder blade must in all classes of 
 horses be of good length and breadth to afford space 
 for the attachment of the many powerful muscles 
 which take their origin from it. In the race horse it 
 must be placed very obliquely, in order that the 
 great length of arm required can be placed suffi- 
 ciently downwards and forward, so as not to inter- 
 fere with the saddle girth. The arm bone, and 
 consequently the arm must be longer than in any 
 other class of horse, and the angle between it and 
 the scapula also be very great. The fore-arm also 
 of the racehorse must be long. These conditions 
 necessitate that the * knee' of the racer be very near 
 the ground, and as the pasterns must be duly long, 
 
76 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 and, when walking, be rather upright, in order that 
 the weight of the body in fast galloping may not 
 unduly bend them— it follows that all this length of 
 parts is at the expense of the metacarpal bones, 
 which must be proportionately shorter than in any 
 other class of horse. Indeed the metacarpal 
 bone cannot be too short and stout in the race 
 horse. 
 
 62. — For draught horses the shoulder blade has 
 need of being extremely broad, and placed more up- 
 right, in order to fill the upper half of the collar 
 well when the body is thrown forward. The arm 
 bone must be also short and stout, and at a less 
 angle with the scapula. These conditions will enable 
 the arm to be placed further back, and the fore legs 
 generally to be placed ivell under the body, if pos- 
 sible, a little behind the perpendicular. The re- 
 maining long bones of the limb from the elbow 
 downwards cannot be too short and thick in order 
 that the horse may be on short powerful legs. The 
 fore-arm and the shins thus appear of nearly equal 
 length. 
 
 63. — The third class, of which the hunter is a 
 type, must have a lengthy scapula, of good breadth 
 and set well back. The arm must be in length 
 longer than in the draught horse, but not so long- 
 as in the race horse. It also must be placed at an 
 angle with the shoulder blade greater than the cart 
 horse, but less than in the race horse. The fore- 
 arm must be of medium length, also the shin. 
 
 64. — The knee in all classes must be very large, 
 
THE FORE LIMBS. 77 
 
 that is very deep and very broad from side to side in 
 order that it may be well provided with buffer 
 material as described in paragraph 11. It must not 
 be narrow from before backwards at its lower part, 
 or the horse will be what is known as ' tied in at 
 the knee.' 
 
 65. — All the bones above the knee being clothed 
 with muscle, we have to see that these are large and 
 in good tone. By referring to Fig. 8, E, we see at a 
 glance what the form of the parts must take in per- 
 fect development. From the knee downwards, how- 
 ever, we have for the most part bone not so 
 clothed, but clearly defined in outline. The meta- 
 carpal must be stout in all cases ; very broad from 
 side to side, and of good size from behind forwards. 
 The powerful tendons at the back of it must 
 also have the same general outline as the bone in 
 front of them, and they must stand out in clear re- 
 lief from the bone. The outlines of the bone and 
 tendon cannot be too distinct. The suspensary 
 ligament which is an unyielding structure attached 
 to the back of the metacarpal bone and again to the 
 back and sides of the phalanges and so slings the 
 fetlock joint, is well seen between the metacarpal 
 bone and the tendon, and can be felt in its lower 
 third above the fetlock joint. 
 
 ^^. — The pasterns must be broad and massive. 
 They must have plenty of length in the race horse, 
 and be rather upright when the horse is standing, 
 or only walking, in order that the fetlock joint may 
 
78 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 yield well in the gallop, and in doing so may not 
 come too near the ground. 
 
 In draught horses they must be less upright, and 
 they must be short and very stout. 
 
 67. — The feet of all horses must have the same 
 general characters. The fore feet must be some- 
 what oval with their long axes from side to side ; 
 the hind feet too must be somewhat oval, but their 
 long axes is from behind forward. The wall of the 
 foot in front must be in a line with the front outline 
 of the pastern when the horse is standing. The line 
 formed at the top of the foot where the hair and 
 hoof meet must be nearly at a right angle with the 
 front line of the foot and pastern, so that the heels 
 will neither be too high and the foot ' boxy' nor too 
 low, and thereby tender. The sole of the foot must 
 be well arched, and the frog large, wedge shaped 
 and unbroken or ragged. The foot must also have 
 a bright shining gloss upon it like our own nails. 
 Shoeing-sraiths ought not to be allow^ed to remove 
 more of this bright substance than they can help at 
 the time they are rasping the turned ends of the 
 nails, with which they fasten on the shoe, as it is 
 this glue-like substance which keeps the fibres of 
 the hoof from splitting. They ought never to 
 be allowed to pare the sole of the foot and so 
 weaken the arch on which the column of bones 
 rests. After duly warning the shoeing-smith 
 against the infringement of these rules, horse 
 owners should instantly dispense with the services 
 of one who abuses the rasp and drawing knife. In 
 
THE FORE LIMBS. ' 81 
 
 order to detect abuse of the rasp, horse owners shie is 
 forbid the smith to put grease upon the hoof, a upper 
 gloss over the injury he has inflicted with thmd the 
 Grease or hoof ointment may be put on aft^ework 
 inspection has been made of the parts. lungs. 
 
 (jS. — The fore limbs should be set on, so must 
 when the horse is standing the limb may neaiuch 
 be turned in nor out. The breadth of the shouhdliQ 
 as seen from the front will vary according to thcds 
 muscularity, but much more according to theis 
 relative position with the trunk. This depends" 
 upon the chest being cone-shaped. The chest of thei 
 horse is somewhat cone-shaped with the apex 
 of the cone pointing forwards, and the base pointing 
 backwards. It is evident that the further the 
 shoulders are from the point of the cone the further 
 will they be apart from each other. The fore legs 
 of the horse are sometimes said to appear ' to come 
 out of one hole.' They may, as we have seen, be 
 quite as muscular as shoulders set wider apart. 
 Width of shoulders is desirable for collar work, so 
 that the fore legs have need of being placed wider 
 apart. We shall say little of ' action' because that 
 is involved in the more general consideration of the 
 limbs ; but we must remark that when the foot is 
 lifted in flexion, the lower part of the limb should be 
 also straight with the long axis of the body when 
 viewed either from the front or rear. The foot 
 turned out when lifted and flexed is said ' to dish.' 
 
 The fore limb of the racer does not necessitate 
 close action, or as it is termed ' daisy cutting' action. 
 
78 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 yieldlon is very limited, not on account of the limb 
 come so formed as to preclude it, but the animal 
 
 In c seldom occasion to lift his feet, on account of 
 they rnearly always on level unbroken ground, that 
 
 67.- and conservation of energy alike tend to close 
 genei action. With horses used for speed and power, 
 whath, as we have seen, includes most horses having 
 thego over mixed ground, higher action becomes 
 loibitual, and in going fast on uneven ground they 
 fnust habitually lift their feet well, and keep thom 
 'well in advance of the body, or they must stumble 
 i.xnd fall. Draught horses too go over all kinds of 
 ground, and get into the habit of lifting their feet 
 well from the ground, but in their case slower speed 
 gives them time to rectify a false step that would 
 bring the subject of quicker movement to the ground. 
 Then their limbs are placed more under the body 
 and, being shorter, the action takes place under the 
 body and not in front of it. 
 
 THE TRUNK. 
 
 69. — We must now pass in review the trunk 
 of the horse, by which we mean the ' chest' and 
 ' belly.' 
 
 70. — The chest, as has been before observed, is 
 cone-shaped, having the apex of the cone pointing 
 forward and its base backwards. This cone shape 
 is very effectually hidden from our view in the liv- 
 ing horse by those large muscular and bony masses, 
 the shoulders, being placed by the side of the apex of 
 
THE FORE LDIBS. 81 
 
 the cone and extending backwards. The cone is 
 made np of bones, having the backbone and upper 
 end of the ribs for a roof, the ribs for sides and the 
 breast bone for the floor. This bony framework 
 contains those vital organs, the heart and lungs. 
 In animals used for speed and power the chest must 
 be very large, because speed and power expend much 
 oxygen, which the lungs have to procure for the 
 blood from the atmosphere. As the blood feeds 
 upon oxygen and consumes more when the body is 
 in active movement, it is necessary that the heart 
 be large and strong to receive and send the blood 
 in large quantities to its airing or feeding ground, the 
 lungs ; also that the lungs be large to receive both 
 it, also the air from without, which has to meet the 
 blood and deliver up most of its oxygen to the blood, 
 and in return receive impurities from the blood and 
 carry them from the lungs. Besides being large 
 and strong, the heart and lungs have to submit to 
 quickened rhythmical movement during the exercise 
 of speed and power, therefore we have to see that 
 the walls of the chest, which we saw were formed 
 by the ribs, are freely moveable. 
 
 71.— The belly contains the organs for the con- 
 version of food into the substantial elements for re- 
 pair of the waste of tissue which the body is always 
 undergoing, but which goes on more quickly when 
 the animal is in greater activity. These organs are 
 for the most part, the stomach and intestines witli 
 the largest gland of the body, namely, the liver. 
 
 G 
 
82 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 The stomach of the horse is comparative!}^ small, 
 but the intestines are very large, and are of necessity 
 liejyt distended hy residual gas, which it is one of the 
 functions ofthe healthy body to keep evenly balanced 
 in regard both to quantity and quality. This con- 
 stant distension of the intestines by healthy gas 
 causes that roundness and tension of the belly we 
 see so well marked. When the horse is in hard 
 condition, there is a minimum quantity of healthy 
 gas in the bowels. This can only be when he is 
 living on highly nutritious diet in a concentrated 
 form, such as oats and hay. Should an animal, as 
 in summer, be living on less nutritious diet, and 
 this engulphed in coarse watery non-nutritive 
 material, causing the digestive apparatus much 
 w'ork, then this residual gas is for the time greatly 
 increased, whilst the powers are taxed to their 
 utmost, and it not unfrequently happens that these 
 fail in balancing the quantity of this gas, and so 
 ' windy colic' results. It is then for us to ask first 
 of all what the horse we are purchasing is living 
 upon. If it is green food, we expect to find a larger 
 belly than when living upon harder and more 
 concentrated food. When the gas in the bowels is 
 much less than common, it gives to the animal an 
 unsightly appearance, and he is said to be ' tucked up 
 in his flanks ;' but I must caution you here against 
 being deceived in the import of this. If a horse is 
 pained in moving his hind legs, he will be tucked 
 up in the flanks on the side on which the lame leg is. 
 
THE FORE LIMBS. 83 
 
 and tucked up on botli flanks of course, if lame on 
 both hind legs. In this case, the gas in the bowels 
 may not be proportionately less, unless he is other- 
 wise in bad health, but it is more compressed and 
 pushed forwards, and encroaches upon his breathing 
 area. Some horses have habitually an appearance 
 of less residual gas in their bowels even when 
 in health. This gives their belly an unsightly 
 tucked up appearance, but it is not in itself a blemish* 
 It will occur from overwork and is one of the best 
 indications we can have to stop off work, or 
 moderate it ; because, as we have reason to know, 
 this gas must be present in sufficient quantity to 
 maintain the digestive apparatus, so that it is merely 
 pressed out of its legitimate area by the over-worked 
 abdominal muscles, and presses upon the heart and 
 lungs which causes these organs to work under 
 undue pressure from the rear, and which will almost 
 invariably end in inflammation (pleurisy) of their 
 serous covering, called the pleura, if not stopped ; 
 because the pleura invests the lungs, and turns again 
 upon itself and lines the ribs, and during' breathing 
 the two pleuras have to rub over each other, and if 
 the lungs are unduly pressed upon from behind this 
 friction increases and leads to inflammation. 
 
 72. — The trunk at the top has the back bone 
 running its whole length, and we saw that each bone 
 of the back had a bone sticking up called its spine. 
 We further saw that it was the great lengtli of these 
 spines in the fore part of the back which mainly 
 
 G 2 
 
84 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 constituted the withers. The spines of the back 
 are not all the same length, but require to be long, 
 in order that the horse may have a strong back. 
 The ribs must be long, so as to give depth to the chest, 
 and they must be well rounded, otherwise the horse 
 will be what is termed flatsided. This condition 
 limits the extension of the lungs from side to side, so 
 they have to extend backwards and encroach upon 
 the alimentary organs, more especially the stomach, 
 and this renders the animal less strong than he other- 
 wise would be. 
 
 73. — The bottom of the chest at the girth place 
 and between the fore legs is clothed by the very 
 large ' pectoral' muscles, which in horses used for 
 great speed are very highly developed, so as to give 
 this part a very deep appearance. When these 
 muscles are large and the withers high, the fore part 
 of the trunk is very deep. 
 
 On referring to the horses depicted in Fig. 10, 
 which represents our two extremes — speed and 
 strength — it will be seen that in horses used for 
 speed the chest is very large, and with the large 
 powerful muscles gives the fore hand its massive 
 appearance; while the belly is very small indeed. 
 This gives to the trunk its downwards and 
 forwards a.vis, as seen by our line. The draught 
 horse on the other hand, has, if anything, the chest 
 smaller than the belly, so that there the two 
 cavities are more of a size, hence the almost hori- 
 zontal axis of the trunk. 
 
LESSON VIII. 
 
 THE HIND EXTREMITIES. 
 
 Named from above downwards the bones of the 
 hind extremities are : 
 
 The Innominate Bones. 
 Femur. 
 Patellae. 
 
 Tibia. 
 FibiJa. 
 Tarsal Bones. 
 Metatarsal Bones. 
 
 Two Sessamoids. 
 Suffraginal Bone. 
 Coronal „ 
 
 Navicular Bone. 
 Pedal or Cotlin Bone. 
 
 74.— The ' innominate,' or nameless bone, is so 
 called on account of its bein^^- like nothing but itself to 
 
86 
 
 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 which anatomists can compare it. It is scientifically 
 termed the ' pelvic girdle.' The word pelvis means 
 a basin, and, save in mankind with his upright trunk, 
 scarcel}^ applicable to the lower animals, seeing that 
 it is neither shaped like a basin nor properly acts as 
 such in them. A very small portion of it called the 
 true pelvis assumes more of the character and 
 functions of a basin, and holds and protects the 
 bladder, unimpregnated womb, &c. 
 
 This bone in forming the foundation of what are 
 called the * hind quarters' must be thoroughly mas- 
 tered in all its aspects here pointed out. 
 
THE HIND EXTREMITIES. 87 
 
 The bone is made up of two symmetrical halves,* 
 each half being made up of three distinct bones 
 which become inseparabl}^ united in adult life at 
 their lower middle portion. These are called 
 'ilium' 'ischium' 'pubis.' We find the 'ilium' 
 making up b}^ far the largest part of the bone, and 
 is all the part in front of the joint, and on which 
 we have placed the "f shaped figure. It also helps 
 to form a part of the cavity of the joint. The 
 'ischium' is all the part behind the joint from 4 
 to 3. It also helps to form the joint. The ' pubis' 
 is not well seen in our figure but is a small flat part 
 which with its fellow unites the two halves of the 
 bones together. It concerns us here so little that 
 we shall not further notice it. 
 
 lb. — The ' ilium' is irregularly T shaped. 
 The two ends of the top of the T are rough and 
 prominent, the external end at 1 more especially so, 
 and is that ' point' in Mark Twain's horse which he 
 hired in the Sandwich Islands, situated behind the 
 saddle on which he hung his hat. The other end 
 of the T at 2 is also rough, but not nearly so pro- 
 minent, yet it too is conspicuous in some horses. 
 This top of the T i« ^I'^t and very broad and con- 
 cave from one end of the top of the T to the other. 
 As it approaches tlie joint it becomes narrow and 
 nearly round like a long bone, and like a long bone 
 widens out to help to form the joint. 
 
 7G.— The 'ischium' part of bone (between 4 
 and 3) is seen to be quite like a long bone in its 
 
 * Our description applies to eitlier half. 
 
88 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 centre in being round and narrow, and widens ont 
 in front to help to form the joint, and also widens 
 out behind, and forms a large rough prominence, 3, 
 we see by the side of the root of the tail. 
 
 77.— The 'ilium,' and 'ischium' being practi- 
 cally^ all one bone, we will refer to them as such, 
 and call the united structure the ' ilio-ischiiim.* 
 The ilio-ischium plays the most important part in 
 the formation of the hind quarters as we shall see. 
 We have seen that it has three points all large and 
 rough, and which give origin to large muscles. 
 Now we find these points extremely useful, indeed 
 indispensable landmarks in ju(\ gin g the hind quarters. 
 If point 1 be placed high up on a level with point 2, 
 it gives the hips a rugged coarse appearance, as in 
 Fig. 12, the large rugged point being all the more con- 
 spicuous. Then again if point 3 be placed very low 
 down, it gives the quarters a drooping appearance 
 therefore we have to regard the relations of these 
 three points to two axes, one axis is the long axis 
 of the body generally, and may be represented by 
 the line a h, which we shall call the axis of the 
 antero-jyosterior obliquity ; the other axis is repre- 
 sented by the dotted line between points 2 and 3 
 which we shall call the axis of the lateral obliquity. 
 
 Seeing that point 2 is fixed always, being bound 
 down by unyielding ligaments to the solid portion 
 of the back bone, called the sacrum, and the sacrum 
 is as we have seen a part of, and a continuation 
 of the back bone, it follows that when this ilio- 
 
THE HIND EXTREMITIES. 
 
 89 
 
 ischium alters its relation to the line a h (axis of 
 antero-posterior obliqaity) it is the point 3 which 
 is affected and lifted up so as to form straight 
 quarters as in the Arab ; drooping quarters as in the 
 cob and trotting horse, or a medium as in the hunter 
 class. 
 
 Again, when the lateral obliquity is affected we 
 may regard the points 2 and 3 as being fixed, or 
 what is better, regard the dotted line 2, 3 as a door 
 
 FIG. 12. 
 
 FIG. 13. 
 
90 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 post on which the bone ilio iscJiiam is swung, then 
 it is evident that it is the point 1, and with it the 
 joint 4 that is affected, the former most so, and we get 
 the level ragged hips well seen in the 'bus horse, where 
 the point 1 is on a level with point 2, and where the 
 widest part of the quarters is at the top (Fig. 12), 
 or we have point 1 much lowered as in Fig. 13 seen 
 in the higher breeds, w^here the breadth of the quar- 
 ters is much lower down. Notice of course that as 
 it is point 1 which determines the breadth of the 
 quarters in all cases, the quarters will be widest at 
 the top or lower down according to the relative 
 position of point 1, to the axis of the lateral obliquity 
 (dotted line 2, 3). 
 
 The hip joint is largely affected by both obli- 
 quities. It will be highest in straight quarters, 
 and lowest in drooping quarters. The length of 
 the thigh bone is the same in all positions 
 of the joint so that the stifle joint will be lowest 
 and furthest advanced nnder the body in droop- 
 ing quarters. This condition is most favour- 
 able for fast walking and trotting, but little 
 favourable for galloping, because the more 
 the quarters droop, the more is the femur or 
 thigh bone directed forwards and downwards, and 
 having a limited motion, and placed almost at 
 right angles with the ilio-ischium, its movement 
 backwards is therefore less, and incapable of being 
 stretched well back in the gallop. The femur is 
 placed at right angles, or nearly so, with the ilio- 
 
THE HIND EXTREMITIES. i)l 
 
 ischium, so that its arc of motion will be the further 
 advanced the more drooping the quarters. 
 
 To judge the length of the femur in the living 
 horse, you draw an imaginary line from the promi- 
 nence at the tail to point 1, then the head or top 
 of the femur is at the end of the first third of this 
 distance, and the other end is quite well repre- 
 sented by the depression or notch, formed at the 
 stifle joint. The femur is a very thick bone, and 
 very powerful, and clothed by the large muscles of 
 the thigh. It extends from the socket on the ilio- 
 ischium, whilst the lower end is placed upon the two 
 bones below (tibia and fibula) with the patella or 
 knee-cap in front, and thus forms the largest joint 
 in the body called the stifle joint (our knee joint.) 
 
 78. — One bone only, the tibia, reaches from the 
 stifle joint to the hock joint (See Fig. 14). It is a long 
 bone with two ends. The upper end as aforesaid helps 
 to form the stifle joint, and is rather a large end. The 
 lower end is small^ and with the astragalus forms 
 the true hock joint. The length or shaft of the 
 bone is not round, but has three flat sides'; one side 
 looking backwards having upon it the bellies of 
 large muscles corresponding to the calf of our own 
 leg. Another surface looks inwards and for- 
 wards, and is covered by skin only, as seen in 
 Fig. 14, just as in ourselves, and in us is called the 
 shin, and can be felt as a bony surface from our 
 stifle or knee down to our hock or ankle, where it 
 ends in a very sharp bony point in both cases called 
 
92 
 
 LESSONS IX HORSE JUDGIN'G. 
 
 FIG 14. 
 
 1. The large muscles of the thigh. 
 
 2. Tlie lower part of the hock at the usual seat of spaviu. 
 
 3. The patella, or " knee-cap," immediately below this the 
 depression is over the joint. 
 
 4. Muscles at the back of the tibia, corresponding to the 
 " calf" of oui* leg, 
 
 5. Point of hock. 
 i). Curb place. 
 
 7. Bellies of muscles on outer aspect of leg. 
 
 8. Space, the seat of " thoro-piu." 
 
THE HIND EXTREMITIES. 93 
 
 the inner maleolus. Make an effort to remember 
 this prominent bony point called the inner maleolus, 
 because it forms a prominent land-mark in describing 
 the hock. The remaining side of this bone looks 
 outwards and forwards, and is covered by powerful 
 muscles, Fig. 14, 7, which if you grasp your right 
 leg with your right hand in front, half way between 
 the knee and ankle, and then raise your toes without 
 moving your foot or leg you will feel to contract. This 
 outer surface then is covered by the bellies of the 
 muscles which lift the toes upwards, and in the horse 
 lifts his foot forward. We have spoken of an inner 
 maleolus^ implying the existence of an outer maleo- 
 lus. The outer maleolus is formed by the lower end 
 of the ' fibula' in ourselves, but in the horse the 
 ' fibula' is only rudimentary, and does not reach down 
 to the hock, or ankle, but is merely a spicula of bone 
 having no function or use whatever. 
 
 79.— The hock* (our ankle) is a highly important 
 joint on account of the frequency of its break-downs. 
 It is placed wider, and forms an angle with the 
 large bone, the tibia, which transmits the weight of 
 the body on its upper surface, and is pku^ed over, 
 and is in a line with tiie long bone below, the meta- 
 tarsal bone, which has to meet the weight of the 
 body at this point, and form a support for it every 
 time the body has to be propelled forward. We 
 must never lose sight of the lact that the angle is at 
 
 * Tlic student should procure the bones of ii sound hock. Any 
 horse-slaughterer's man will procui'e and prepare these for a 
 sliilling or so. 
 
94 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 the bottom of the tibia, and at the top of the hock, 
 and tliat the direction of the weight of the body is 
 represented by the long axis of the tibia. This 
 direction of weight is easiest combated the less the 
 angle formed at the hock, just as a straight upright 
 pillar will bear a greater weight than one which has 
 a bend or angle in it, and the greater this bend or 
 angle, the less able is the pillar to support weight 
 put upon it. The weight of the horse is, we have 
 said, transmitted through the tibia, and is not a 
 dead weight so to speak, that is to say it is not like 
 the steady downward pressure of a weight having 
 no other influences save gravity on the one hand 
 and the resisting medium on which it rests on the 
 other. It may be compared to the pressure exerted 
 on the end of the village urchin's bow when he has 
 planted one end on the ground, is bonding the 
 wood with his right knee whilst he holds the bow 
 firmly pressed to the ground with his left hand, and 
 is dragging the string upwards to the notch or 
 catch with his right hand. In such a case the end 
 resting on the ground is pressed downwards with 
 the left hand, and is dragged upwards through the 
 medium of the string with the other. Such a 
 weight differs much from a so called dead weight. 
 Excluding the long bones above and below which 
 meet the hock, and regarding only the intrinsic 
 bones of hock, we can divide them into three sets 
 according to their functions ; namely— 
 1. The gliding bone. 
 
THE HIND EXTREMITIES. 95 
 
 2. The lever bone. 
 
 3. The buffer bones. 
 
 The gliding bone is called the astragalus, and is 
 a large cubical block which carries the two large 
 gliding surfaces, on which glides the small end 
 of the tibia. These two large gliding surfaces have 
 a screw-like form which causes the parts be- 
 low the hock, when the toe is lifted, to move out- 
 wards. Then again this gliding surface is almost 
 parallel with the long axis of the hock and parts 
 below. Then again, and this is very important to 
 remember, when the foot is on the ground, the leg 
 at its straightest, and the very small end of the tibia 
 resting upon the top of this large gliding surface the 
 hock appears large, but when the leg is lifted, and 
 the small end of the tibia slides necessarily to the 
 bottom of this large gliding surface, the hock looks 
 small, therefore it is the relation of this large glid- 
 ing surface to the small surface at the lower end of 
 the tibia which determines the apparent size of the 
 hock. It follows that a bent hock which appears 
 smaller may he as large as a straight hock ivhich 
 appears larger. 
 
 The lever bone or ' calcaneum,' is placed at the 
 top of the hock at the back, and is a lever of 
 the second order. The end of the long arm of this 
 lever is called the point of the hock, and corresponds 
 with our heel. It has attached to it the tendon 
 (called ' Tendo Achilles') of the large muscle whose 
 belly forms the so called calf of our leg. All de- 
 
96 
 
 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 pends upon the length of this lever whether the 
 ' calves' are large or small because the longer this 
 long arm, the less will be the strength required to 
 w^ork it. Niggers have small calves to their legs 
 very often, because their heels are so long. A well 
 bred European with his short heels (arm of lever) 
 requires a powerful, ergo large, muscle to icork it, and 
 so can boast of 'having a good leg.' The 'calf 
 of the horse is ver}- much concealed on account 
 
 RG. 15. 
 
THE HIND EXTREMITIES. 97 
 
 of the large muscles of the back of the thigh being 
 inserted into the back and upper third of the tibia 
 surrounding the 'calf to some extent. The muscles 
 on the outer side of the tibia (Fig. 14, 7) called the 
 gaskin muscles well seen in Fig. 1 5 are extremely pro- 
 minent, and measureable with the eye, and as we have 
 seen, extend the toe and foot. Little notice then need 
 be taken of the long arm of the lever under considera- 
 tion. With a long lever arm, and the same bulk 
 and strength of 'calf required for a short lever arm 
 attached to it the hock would be torn asunder. 
 This, as we have seen, cannot be the case. The 
 weight surface of the lever is applied against 
 the astragalus. The fulcrum concerns us most, as 
 it is fixed by means of ligaments which are some 
 times torn or otherwise injured, and which swell 
 and inflame in consequence, and the horse is 
 then said to have ' sprung a curb.' The place of 
 this occurrence is marked at Fig. 14, (3. 
 
 The ' irregular ' bones or buffers are placed at 
 the lower part of the hock, and are two tiers having 
 joints between them. They are very much jarred 
 when the hock is flexed smartly as in that quick 
 fascinating hock action we sometimes witness, and 
 then the inner ones undergo change and tlirow out a 
 soft plastic material which in time hardens into bone, 
 and is called ' bone spavin ' or a ' jack.' Much de- 
 pends on the size of these buffer bones .If they are 
 large they serve their purpose, and we may have a 
 good hock. They form the whole of the lower part 
 
 H 
 
98 LESSONS IN HOKSE JUDGING. 
 
 of the hock so that we must look for this part to be 
 large in every way. 
 
 80. — The bone below the hock is called the meta- 
 tarsal bone, and is like the metacarpal bone of the 
 fore leg only it must be thickest from before back- 
 wards. 
 
 81. — The remaining bones are for the most part 
 like those of the fore leg. 
 
LESSON IX. 
 
 HIND EXTREMITIES, continued. 
 
 The hind extremities are the propellers of the 
 body, and the fore extremities are the weight bearers 
 roughly speaking. The same general remarks which 
 were made regarding the fore extremities apply 
 equally to the hind ones. The ilio-ischium repre- 
 senting the scapula, &c. Where we find the bellies 
 of groups of muscles, there we find bulk and 
 rotundity. Those who have an eye for the beauty 
 of curves will find pleasing curved lines in the out- 
 lines of a horse in condition. Tlie absence of these 
 beautiful curves is well marked in horses not in 
 condition. For example, standing at the' side, but a 
 little behind a hunter in condition (see Fig. 15). 
 we see prominently among other curved lines the 
 most beautiful curves formed by the outlines of the 
 muscles of the hind-quarters and leg ; indeed to all, 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 LI^]SSONS IX HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 whether judges or lovers of horse flesh or not, this 
 profusion of elegant and varying curves set forth on 
 
 FIG 
 
 1. Outer point of ilium. 
 
 5. Point of hock. 
 
 2. Point of ischium. 
 
 6. Curb place. 
 
 3. Stifle joint. 
 
 7. Gaskins. 
 
 4. Calf of leg. 
 
 
 a shining coat, grace of movement and the fire of 
 excess of life, gives a thrill of pleasure which 
 possibly no object in nature can surpass. These 
 
HIND EXTREMITIES. 101 
 
 beauties are not surpassed by the most perfect 
 female (human) figure, and seeing that in our social 
 life these latter are hidden, undoubtedly a hunter in 
 highest condition, prepared for the chase, is per- 
 haps the most entrancing of sights. Look out 
 then in judging a horse for beautiful curves. There 
 are some— but they must be first rate judges — who can 
 afford to lose sight of these curves in purchasing what 
 they term a poor horse, i.e., a horse not in condition. 
 When this is so, they must see to the relative length 
 and hulk of the levers (bones) being what is desir- 
 able, also that the joints are large and flat, and of 
 course an absence of blemishes. If the bones of the 
 extremities are of proper length and stoutness, 
 then — except of course in disease — the muscles will 
 either be in good condition, or will be capable of 
 being made so, and they will be massive and present 
 bold beautiful curved outlines. 
 
 The ilio-ischium should be broad so as to present 
 abundant surface for muscular attachment. If the 
 T shaped upper surface looks upwards from the 
 quarters being ' ragged' from point 1 (Fig. 11), being 
 on a level with point 2, then the body of muscles occu- 
 pying this space will present a curve with a convexity 
 looking directly upwards {see Fig. 12). -But should 
 point 1 be much lower, the convexity of the curve looks 
 outwards and upwards {see Fig. 13), and the curve 
 formed— as seen when standing behind — in the 
 latter case between point 1 and the stifle joint will 
 be less broken, and therefore the more elegant. 
 
102 LESSONS IX HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 The depth of the thigh is well seen from behind, 
 but it appears deeper, if not really so, in snch as 
 have straight quarters for reasons we have before seen. 
 There is just one other obliquity of the innominate 
 bone which we have as yet not mentioned. It obtains 
 between the two symmetrical halves of the innominate 
 bone, in other words, between the two ilio-ischia 
 bones. When these bones are much divergent in 
 front and their after points converge, a very de- 
 fective ' setting on' of the hind limbs results and 
 the hind limbs look outwards. This being so, the 
 hocks are closer together, and the horse is said 
 to be 'cow hocked.' The ilio-ischia bones ought 
 to be as parallel as possible, so that the hind limbs 
 look straight forwards and backwards, when the 
 horse is standing. In moving, the hip joint and 
 the screw-like astragalus cause the limb naturally 
 to assume the slightly outward aspect. In ourselves 
 this is so, and the dancing master or drill serjeantis 
 not to be thanked that our toes are a little out-turned, 
 because as the hip joint is constituted, they could 
 not be otherwise. 
 
 It is hoped that the above remarks will form a 
 good guide to those who are desirous of thinking out 
 for themselves the numberless points to be observed 
 m horse judging. 
 
 We shall now close these remarks with a few 
 observations on the hock. 
 
HIND EXTREMITIES. 103 
 
 THE HOCK. 
 
 82. — Of all the joints in the body this is the most 
 important. We must refer the reader to our de- 
 scription of the bones in Lesson VIII, and remind 
 him that according to the size of the individual 
 bones alone the apparent size of the hock does not 
 depend, but more upon the angle at which the tibia 
 impinges upon the astragalus. This is well seen in 
 extreme flexion, when the hock seems to disappear 
 leaving nothing but its so called point in view. 
 The lower fourth or more of the hock is made up of 
 the buffer bones in front and at the sides, conse- 
 quently it is these which give the lower part of the 
 hock size. They must be large but not necessarily 
 coarse, but they may be large and coarse and of un- 
 equal size in the two hocks and yet be quite healthy 
 and free from ' spavin.' The top of the metatarsal 
 bone on which they mainly rest must also be large. 
 When this latter is small we have a grave defect ; 
 but when it is not only small, but forms with the 
 buffer bones of the hock an angle, we have a very 
 grave defect called ' curby hocks.' 
 
 The hock should present on its inner surface a 
 hig^ flat, square appearance, and when a horseman 
 speaks of liking a big, flat, square hock, he refers 
 to the inner aspect of the hock. The boundaries 
 of this so-called square are as follows : the internal 
 maleolus or lowest inner point of the tibia ; the 
 extreme point of the hock ; the front part of the 
 head of the tibia ; lastly, the head of the small 
 
104 LESSOXS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 inner metatarsal bone. These points form the 
 four points of the square, and the sides are the 
 imaginar}^ lines between these four points. The 
 reader will find further information about the 
 hock in my work entitled "Lectures on the Exam- 
 ination of Horses as to Soundness." It is not within 
 the scope of the present work to speak of morbid 
 conditions — such as spavin, curb, ringbone, splint, 
 and so forth, which is better left to the work referred 
 to, but we must caution the reader against an ap- 
 pearance of ' curb.' When the head of the outer 
 small metatarsal bone is large, it gives the side 
 aspect of the really- good well made hock a ' curbed' 
 appearance, because the line from the extreme point 
 of hock to the fetlock at the back should be quite 
 straight, and is straight in all except badly formed 
 hocks and such as have 'curbs.' Even when the 
 head of the outer small bone named is large and 
 breaks this line when viewed from the side, the 
 straight line is still found when you approach the 
 hock and run your fingers down the middle line of 
 the parts behind. 
 
 The angle at the hock we saw was formed by the 
 tibia impinging upon the astragalus, and we 
 further saw that the less this angle, the weaker 
 the hock. The hind legs must therefore be as up- 
 right, or rather as straight as possible, in order to 
 be as strong as possible. But we have already seen 
 that power (strength) is universally gained at the 
 expense of speed, which, in turn, can only be obtained 
 
HIND EXTREMITIES. 105 
 
 by quickness and extent of motion of the parts most 
 concerned in speed, so that straight hind limbs are 
 stronger but have less of that quick perfect flexion 
 or hock action which has such an attractive ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 The front and back of the hock must also have 
 plenty of breadth. The point of the hock short of 
 being ' capped' cannot be too broad. 
 
 83.— The metatarsal bone must be short and 
 stout, and the hock as near the ground as possible. 
 This bone is thickest from before backwards, and as 
 the back tendon must have the same characters as 
 we described in the case of the like structure in the 
 fore limb, it follows that these parts will be altogether 
 deeper from before backwards. As in the case of 
 the fore limb, the tendon must stand out distinctly 
 from the bone, and the suspensory ligament be well 
 defined. 
 
 84. — The pasterns must also have much the 
 same qualities as those of the fore limb in each class 
 of horse. 
 
 S5. — The foot also must have the same general 
 characters as the fore foot, but the long axis of its 
 oval is always from before backwards. The hind 
 foot does not call forth the fraction of the amount 
 of care as is the case with the fore foot. It is less 
 often unsound, and its unsoundness less frequently 
 leads to the same disastrous results. It is well 
 however to look to it much in the same manner as 
 in the case of the fore foot. • 
 
LESSON X. 
 
 THE WIND, COLOUR, HEIGHT, COAT AND HAIR, AGE. 
 
 The term ' wind ' is used by horsemen to signify 
 the respiration or breathing capabilities. It is no 
 part of my object here to describe defects in the 
 ' wind,' and how to detect them. This is done in 
 my work entitled " Lectures on the Examination of 
 Horses as to Soundness " so that only normal or 
 healthy breathing, or ' wind,' will here be described. 
 
 When a healthy horse of average size is standing 
 quietly in his stable, he breathes from eight to ten 
 or twelve times a minute. I here use the term 
 breathes in its popular sense, which all, I believe, 
 understand. If the back of the hand and fingers 
 be placed against the ribs, just behind the elbow, 
 the heart will be felt to knock the side in beating 
 about four times the breathing rate, so that a healthy 
 horse having a pulse of thirty-six per minute will 
 
THE WIND. 
 
 107 
 
 breathe about ijine times per minute. In all cases 
 there ought to be this ratio 1—4 or thereabout. 
 Should this ratio be absent to any marked extent, 
 such for instance as a breathing rate of fifteen, and 
 a pulse rate of forty, disease is present. Exercise in 
 moderation increases both pulse and respiration, both 
 are quickened, but the ratio is more or less retained. 
 Anyhow, when the horse comes to stand and rest, 
 the ratio in health is soon re-established. In very 
 small horses, such as Shetland ponies, the pulse may 
 be forty or fort3^-four per minute, and the breathing 
 eleven, but there is still the ratio 1—4 in health. 
 Many things disturb this ratio, disease, fright, grief, 
 joy, &c., by quickening the pulse, and affecting less 
 the breathing. 
 
 In order to acquire dexterity in judging the ' wind' 
 it is best to get a horse known to have perfect 
 ' wind' into a grass field, and have him slowly trotted 
 round you in a circle about the size of an ordi- 
 nary horse-rider's circus. Noise must 7iecessarily be 
 made in breathing, but there ought to be no dis- 
 tress exhibited, no difficulty in getting breath, no 
 noises except soft blowing — no whistling or grunt- 
 ing. After a reasonable time, long before the 
 animal shows signs of distress, he should be stopped, 
 and notice be taken lioiu long the breathing is in 
 quieting down. This time is easily judged if the 
 examiner will judge the horse by himself— if healthy 
 —as the same length of time is required after the 
 same proportion of exertion in the two cases. In 
 
108 LESSONS IN HORSE JLTDGING. 
 
 the aiitnran when the horse has on a long coat he 
 will feel distress earlier, and congestion of the lungs 
 will be more easily induced. If exercise be not 
 followed by quieted respiration some defect is 
 present. Of course if undue exercise has been 
 taken, then the lungs, although healthy, may have 
 become congested. Again, attention should be 
 given to the movements of the ribs on either side. 
 The ribs should expand freely on both sides. In 
 some diseases of the lungs one may become ' deaf,' 
 or a great part of one may be so, then the work is 
 thrown on to the sound lung, and the breathing 
 capabilities so much decreased. This shows itself 
 by the affected side having more limited movement. 
 As a general thing, fat, gross subjects have a 
 diminished breathing capacity, therefore they are 
 sooner distressed, and their breathing does not 
 quiet down so soon after exertion. Pregnancy 
 encroaches still more on the breathing capacities. 
 Horses used to going out of a walking pace are 
 more likely to have good breathing capacities than 
 those used for slow work. With draught horses, 
 pulling a load will give a better idea of breathing 
 capabilities than any other exercise— care being 
 taken that the collar fits well and does not bear on 
 the wind pipe. 
 
 Some strike and threaten a horse up against a 
 wall, or while standing in his stall with a stick. 
 Such a proceeding does not try the ' wind,' but will 
 in some cases elicit the peculiar grunt or roar in 
 
COLOUR. 109 
 
 ' roarers,' and thus save further trial. Further than 
 this the test is useless and misleading. 
 
 COLOUR. 
 
 There is an old saying that a good horse cannot 
 be a bad colour. This, like most sayings, has a germ 
 of truth in it. Were we to have a free choice, in all 
 cases we should select our colour as follows : the 
 best colour undoubtedly is dark brown, with black 
 points ; the next best colour is bay with black points. 
 Light chestnuts are good ; but dark chestnuts are 
 objectionable, as it is notorious that after seven 
 years old their fore feet are often contracted. 
 Greys and whites are not bad colours. Black is a 
 hardy colour, white stockings if they exist largely 
 on the same horse are objectionable, especially 
 if the absence of pigment or colouring matter ex- 
 tends to the horn of the feet. Of all colours, yel- 
 low or Cleveland bays, piebalds, and dark red chest- 
 nuts are the most objectionable. In the choice of a 
 horse, however, the purchaser should ask himself the 
 question ; — does the horse's colour offend the eye ? if 
 not, and if the horse be otherwise desirable the 
 colour ought not to be an obstacle. 
 
 HEIGHT. 
 
 Having regard to most speed, we should have the 
 largest dimensions possible, and therefore the 
 greatest height compatible with perfection in sym- 
 metry. The greatest power also requires the 
 
110 LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 
 
 greatest bulk. A combination of speed and power, 
 as exhibited in our type the hunter, has its highest 
 expression in horses about fifteen and a half hands 
 high ; half a hand more or less being unessential. 
 
 THE SKIN AND ITS APPENDAGES. 
 
 The skin of the thoroughbred is extremel}^ thin 
 and delicate, and allows the veins to be seen 
 through it, and is covered with fine hair. That 
 of the draught horse is thick. That of the 
 hunter, or power and speed representative, is a 
 mean between the two extremes, and shows as 
 clearly as most things whether the horse in question 
 inclines to being w^ell bred and thin skinned or 
 the reverse. 
 
 Much mane and tail is a sign of low breeding. 
 A slight silky mane, with or without a little wave in 
 the hair, is a desirable thing. The same may be 
 said of the tail. 
 
 AGE. 
 
 Horses, as a rule, are considered at their best at 
 from five to ten years of age. Much depends on the 
 age at which they are put to work. The author 
 has in his mind's eye a case in which a gentleman 
 used to break his horses at four, but did not begin 
 to use them until eight. These horses, to the 
 author's own knowdedge, were at their prime from 
 eight to twenty years of age. 
 
AGE. 
 
 HI 
 
 As horses are now treated, their ages may be com- 
 pared with that of man as follows : — 
 A horse at 5 equals a man at 
 
 10 
 15 
 20 
 25 
 30 
 35 
 40 
 
 20 
 40 
 50 
 60 
 65 
 70 
 90 
 105 
 
 This calculation supposes both subjects to be 
 well treated, or, as the Americans would saj^, 
 '' having a good time of it." 
 
 This is just another point in which Government 
 interference would be beneficial. Horses ought not 
 to be required to work or earn a sixpence until five 
 years old. Not that there are not employments in 
 which they could participate without serious injury 
 to themselves before that age, but because these 
 employments are so scarce, and it would be so 
 difficult to draw the line were it left to individual 
 opinion on the subject as to be practically impossi- 
 ble to admit the exception with benefit. 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 Perhaps of all subjects connected with fox hunt- 
 ing, speaking broadly, there is none on which 
 opinion is less settled than the one relating to the 
 management of the hunter during the interval 
 which must necessarily elapse betw^een one season 
 ending and the commencement of the next. Nor is 
 this to be wondered at when we come to consider 
 the subject in all its bearings. We have to take 
 an organism in high condition in April and replace 
 it in high condition in October, to give rest to 
 tissues which have been exercised to their utmost 
 capacities throughout the " season," and to take 
 judicious means in renovating such parts as have 
 suffered unduly from the duties which have been re- 
 quired of them. We have said judicious means. 
 Means are taken in all cases almost without ex- 
 ception, and were we to have to name the most 
 frequent means, we should without hesitation point 
 
 I 
 
114 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 to the blister-pot and firing-iron. We will en- 
 deavour to point out as we go along how much these 
 means are abused by showing in their true light the 
 conditions w^hich are usually considered as calling 
 them forth. There can be no doubt that our present 
 plan of summering hunters in boxes instead of out in 
 the open, exposed to fierce heat, flies and vicissitudes 
 of the weather is a step in the right direction ; but 
 let us see how far this is so, judged by the light of 
 our day. 
 
 At the risk of being tedious we must begin at the 
 very foundation of our subject, and first mention 
 matters wdiich seem to have little or no bearing on 
 the case in hand. 
 
 First then we must bear in mind that horses, like 
 all animals soever are, as bodies, made up of two 
 sets of tissues — 
 
 1. Master tissues. 
 
 2. Servant tissues. 
 
 Then, again, w^e must remember that the only power 
 in the universe which animals possess over matter 
 is to move it from one place to another. Thus all 
 that a horse can do is to move a part or the whole 
 of himself from one place to another ; or to move 
 some matter outside himself — his rider for instance 
 — from one place to another. This is a great idea, 
 and if we grasp it thoroughly, all the rest of our 
 reasoning is easy. We repeat, the only power we 
 have over matter is to move it. Now about our two 
 tissues. We have called them master and servant 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 115 
 
 tissues, because the master tissues move the matter, 
 and the servant tissues supply them with nourish- 
 ment, and support them in their task. The master 
 tissues are three : — 
 
 1. Bones 
 
 2. Muscles 
 
 3. Nerves ; 
 
 whilst the servant tissues are very numerous, and 
 may be briefly stated to be all the parts of that 
 complex apparatus which produces, maintains and 
 keeps pure the blood. For example, and speaking 
 widely, as here we can only do, to produce the 
 blood, seeing that it is converted food, we must 
 have a converting apparatus — lips to take it into 
 the mouth ; teeth to grind it ; saliva to soften it, &c. ; 
 a set of actions to swallow it ; a receptacle — the 
 stomach — in which it can be turned over, kneaded 
 and further mixed with fluid ; a set of actions carry- 
 ing it into the intestines whence that part of it 
 which is fit is taken by a set of carrying vessels 
 from the intestines into the blood stream. This 
 blood stream in order to nourish the master tissues 
 has to be kept well supplied with drains principally 
 four— viz. the kidneys, the skin, the lungs, and the 
 bowels. These drains must always be open and 
 properly " trapped." Let the blood stream get too 
 full, the kidneys drain off a good deal of its watery 
 bulk if it is cold weather, whilst the skin will do so 
 in hot weather ; let the blood stream get impure by 
 noxious gases, the lungs will be the draiu through 
 
 I 2 
 
116 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 which these gases will escape, the skin and bowels 
 assisting the lungs in their task, and so forth. 
 There is just one other means by which the blood is 
 drained of impurities in this way. The blood is an 
 extremely complex fluid, and holds different forms of 
 nourishment for different tissues. At the risk of 
 appearing ridiculous we will say that it holds 
 potatoes for the bone tissue ; cabbage for the muscle 
 tissue, cauliflower for the nerve tissue, and so forth ; 
 £0 that each tissue in taking from the blood what it 
 requires to nourish itself acts as a drain, that is to 
 say, it takes from the blood a substance which it 
 requires, but which the other tissues do not require. 
 If then any tissue fails to take from the blood that 
 which the blood is holding for its special benefit then 
 that tissue fails to act as a drain, and the blood is 
 holding a substance which actually is an im- 
 purity—matter in the wrong place— and which, not 
 being wanted, the blood stream has to rid itself of 
 through one of the other drains we have mentioned. 
 We will let the reader peep behind the curtain just 
 a moment by hinting that the muscles in a hunter, 
 resting in a box, are not requiring, and therefore 
 not taking their *' cabbage," and so the " cabbage " 
 is an impurity in the blood which the blood has to 
 rid itself of. 
 
 Resuming our line of thought we see what a com- 
 plex mechanism our servant tissues really are, but 
 which we can briefly and widely state to be made 
 up of three parts, viz. : — 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 117 
 
 1. A supplying apparatus. 
 
 2. A containing apparatus. 
 
 3. Drains. 
 
 During the " season," both these tissues are taxed in 
 the conditioned hunter to their utmost, whilst 
 between " seasons " the master tissues are largely 
 thrown — as an engineer would say — " out of gear." 
 What a change ! Can it be matter for surprise that 
 so many mistakes are made in " throwing out of 
 gear," and maintaining at " low pressure," such a 
 complex machine, and then from " low pressure " 
 restoring it again to that state which shall stand the 
 highest pressure ? Our surprise, when we come to 
 think of it, is first that it can be done at all, and 
 next that it is done so well. From the above 
 consideration it will be seen that our subject has to 
 be considered under four heads, viz. : — 
 
 1. Throwing the horse out of condition. 
 
 2. Maintaining and giving the most perfect rest 
 to the whole organism whilst in this lowered con- 
 dition. 
 
 3. Repairing and strengthening those parts of the 
 master tissues which have '• given way " during 
 their highest use. 
 
 4. Restoring the organism from this lower to the 
 highest condition. 
 
 We will now make a few remarks on the 
 "master" tissues. These, as we have said, 
 are three — bones, muscles and nerves. The bones 
 
118 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 form stout uiiNielding arms of levers ; the muscles 
 are the powers which move these arms of levers, 
 and the nerves transmit the current which sets in 
 motion the muscles. The bones form joints by ex- 
 panding their substance at the part where the joint 
 comes ; then the ends of the bones which form a 
 joint and which press upon each other are covered 
 with a rubber-like substance called cartilage, which 
 acts as a buffer, and lessens shock from conpussion ; 
 then again, oil has to be supplied to lubricate the 
 inner surfaces of the joints to prevent friction. The 
 muscles, in getting attached to the bones which 
 they have to move, have to do so by an intermediate 
 substance called tendon, and, as muscles move 
 bones by alternately lengthening and shortening the 
 tendons have to glide up and down through sheaths 
 which are lined by a surface which secretes oil or as 
 it is called synovia. We see then that we have two 
 sets of oiling apparatus — one set to oil the joints, 
 and another set to oil the tendons. It is this ap- 
 paratus which gets out of order so largely during 
 the hunting season and gives trouble in the form of 
 windgall, thorough-pin, bog-spavin, &c., all names for 
 precisely the same condition, affecting the same struc- 
 ture, only at different parts of the animal machine. 
 
 We will now proceed to enumerate the four heads 
 already mentioned :— 
 
 1. — Throioing the Horse out of Condition. — This 
 is extremely easy to do, because the same qualities 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 119 
 
 which enable a conditioned hunter " to go anywhere 
 and do anything" enable him also to have an abrupt 
 change in diet. Almost, though not quite, the same 
 may be said regarding the housing or protection from 
 atmospheric changes. It is evident, of course, that 
 this cannot be done all at once without injury. The 
 skin, which has been groomed and kept in a perfectly 
 active state through many months, cannot be ex- 
 posed to cold night air all at once without damaging 
 the lungs and perhaps the bowels. The skin, we 
 have before remarked, is an important "drain," 
 which cold air and filth closes, and therefore its 
 work has to be performed by one or other of the 
 other drains — the lungs, for example; and as no 
 organ can carry on its own duties and have the 
 duties of another organ thrown upon it all at once 
 without coming to grief more or less, therefore we 
 find the lungs suffering when the body surface is 
 suddenly exposed to unusual cold, and we have 
 congestion of some parts of the air-passages or 
 the lungs, or both, following such abrupt exposure, 
 and cough at the very least resulting. 
 
 Of course, we are here dealing with the hunter 
 that has to be put by, so to speak, for the summer. 
 There can be no question that there is no gain in 
 any other way in thus radically changing the whole 
 constitution of the horse. If the condition could be 
 maintained during the summer — that is to say, if 
 one could afford to keep a heavy staff of grooms, 
 and either exercise the horse oneself, or command 
 
120 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 the services of those who would apply just the 
 proper amount of exercise, far short of course of the 
 violent intermittent exercise of the hunting season — 
 then, no doubt every other means would be most 
 advantageously superseded. It must not be sup- 
 posed that it is to the advantage of the '^ master" 
 tissues to be thrown completely out of work. To 
 take an extreme case : let a prizefighter, in training, 
 put his healthy arm in a sling, and thus keep it 
 motionless for six weeks, and then compare it with 
 its fellow. See its diminished size, feel the flabby 
 softened biceps. Muscles, so far from being 
 benefited by being completely rested, are actually 
 the worse for it. The individual fibrils, which in 
 the multitude go to make up the muscles, not only 
 shrink, but have a tendency to become degenerated 
 into fat, and get removed by absorption into the 
 blood-stream. The mean between these two ex- 
 tremes (hunting condition and idle rest) is, as one 
 would know beforehand without much consideration, 
 the best. During the season, the hunter's muscles 
 have been in the habit of storing up vast quantities 
 of energy, called by physiologists "muscular energy." 
 The higher the condition of the muscle the more of this 
 energy will it store up. The first expenditure of this 
 stored up muscular energy, we may remark in pass- 
 ing, is intensely pleasurable, so that on first putting 
 the muscles in motion — liberating the energy —in 
 coming out of the stable, friskiness, which goes by 
 the name of freshness, is displayed, uncontrollable 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 121 
 
 in many cases, in spite of the better judgment of 
 the subject of it. It is only healthy fibre which can 
 store up this energy. Fibre largely degenerated 
 into fat can store up next to none, and as we have 
 said, the fibre may be altogether removed by absorp- 
 tion. Then a mean between these two extremes is 
 found in doing whatsoever tends to keep the muscle 
 fibre in its integrity, and in at least some tone. 
 This integrity and this tone is quite easily kept at 
 half-tone. This half-tone will not bear the storing- 
 up process, accompanied as that process must be by 
 full feeds of corn. If the muscle-fibre is not in full 
 tone, it cannot take its quantum from the blood — it 
 has not the power to do so ; indeed it does not want 
 it, and, as we have before pointed out, the blood gets 
 loaded with the material it carries for the half-tone 
 muscles, and which the half-tone muscles cannot 
 drain out of it; and this material, in making its 
 escape through the other drains, stimulates them, 
 and so irritates them, as seen in the skin, in which 
 it sets up an itching condition, especially at its most 
 dependent parts at the hind heels. As muscle at 
 half-tone requires less nourishment of a stimulating 
 kind, it follows that the hunter when thrown into 
 half-condition, will not bear nearly the quantity of 
 hard corn, and is all the better for having his hay 
 diluted with green meat one-third. Supposing, how- 
 ever, that it is not convenient to keep the hunter in 
 gentle work and at half pressure through the sum- 
 mer, and he has to be shelved, this can be done 
 
122 THE SUMxMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 as abruptl}^ or as gradually as is convenient. 
 
 2. Maintaining and giving the most perfect rest to 
 the ivhole organism whilst in a lowered condition. — 
 Long ago hunters were turned out graduall}^ into 
 the fields, there to pick up their own living ; to be 
 irritated and lashed into fur}^ with the hot sun and 
 flies by day, and to be pierced through and through 
 In the cold, the rain, and dews during the night. 
 Some have recourse to this practice still, but provide 
 a shade to sleep in and to retire to from the sun and 
 flies, and perhaps provide once a day an armful of 
 hay and a feed of corn. We shall here stop to point 
 out this as a very risky practice. When a horse is 
 running out at grass he is very easil}^ choked with 
 oats. He gulps them down half masticated ; the 
 first mouthful passes into the stomach, but the next, 
 after passing to the farthest end of the gullet nearest 
 the stomach, sticks there, and the next mouthful is 
 lodged on the one next before it, and so forth, until 
 the gullet is crammed half way up the neck with the 
 oats, and the horse, alarmed, seeks water and shows 
 symptoms of choking. In such a case " not all the 
 king's horses nor all the king's men " will do any 
 good: probangs, drenches, sesophagotomy, all are 
 of no service — death must result. Hay, however 
 dry, has not quite such a choking tendency, yet it is 
 by no means free from danger. 
 
 Another method of summering is to put the horse 
 into large loose boxes, and keep him there apart 
 from a field: to keep him in a box on tan, with clips 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 123 
 
 on instead of shoes, to give him plenty of green 
 meat, some hay and oats, and allow his skin to 
 accumulate filth ad lib., and in this plight to pepper 
 at him with blister and firing-iron. This treatment, 
 like turning him out to grass, as aforesaid, is also 
 far from wise. We shall find good points in both 
 these extreme forms, and we now propose to single 
 them out and discuss their application. Our plan is 
 a large loose box, a large field, scrupulous clean- 
 liness, green meat, corn and hay, and perhaps some 
 blister, some firing-iron. 
 
 Striking an average, fox hunting ceases in April, 
 and the flies begin to cause annoyance in the latter 
 part of June. I^-om the middle of June to within 
 a month of the commencement of the hunting season, 
 one or other of the following sources of discomfort 
 is present ; we have either heat, dryness, and flies ; 
 or we have cold and wet. In any case a horse which 
 has been used to a stable can find no kind of per- 
 sonal comfort in living constantly in the open air 
 at this season. 
 
 We stated that the fox-hunting season ended 
 about April, and that the flies began to cause annoy- 
 ance in the latter part of June. We also stated that 
 the horse in high condition could be abruptly thrown 
 on a changed diet. Supposing a hunter has to be 
 shelved for the summer, and thrown quite out of 
 condition, there can be no doubt that a run at grass 
 is not only desirable, but can be secured with a 
 minimum amount of inconvenience from about the 
 
124 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 first week in May to the second week in June. The 
 grass is sweet during this time, and the weather 
 such as to be enjoyed by one who has been confined 
 in a stable through the winter months. All repairs 
 of parts where blistering and firing are needed 
 should take place during this time, because the flies 
 offer a great objection to these operations when 
 they begin to tease, as they invariably find a " raw" 
 place about an animal if there be one. At the end 
 of the hunting season the owner of a well-ordered 
 stud calls in the most experienced veterinary sur- 
 geon he knows. In these days of railway travelling 
 distance goes for little. A careful examination of 
 a hunting stud after a hard season by an experienced 
 veterinary surgeon is simply priceless to the hunt- 
 ing-man. At this time the horses are carefully 
 gone over, and notes made of their requirements. 
 It may be that some serious patching has had to be 
 done during the winter to keep the horses going. 
 Now has come the time for the patches to be 
 mended or the horse cast aside. The parts which 
 have to receive attention at skilled hands are those 
 parts — the limbs — which have been put to the most 
 exertion throughout the season, and if we circum- 
 scribe this area further we shall find that it is the 
 greasing or lubricating apparatus and the bones 
 which have to receive curative attention. The 
 bones have, perhaps, given trouble in the form 
 of exostoses, each exostosis receiving a name 
 according to its situation — " spavin " on the hock ; 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 125 
 
 " splint " on the metacarpals ; " ring-bones " on the 
 pastern bones— especially the hind pasterns, and so 
 forth. All these are just one form of disease — exos- 
 tosis — and require much the same treatment. Ring- 
 bones should be fired. Spavins and splints should be 
 either fired, or [punched and blistered. There can 
 be no doubt that when the exostosis occupies a 
 limited area, punching and blistering, or setoning, 
 answers the purpose better than firing. In the case 
 of a splint, for example, which may cause dead 
 lameness whilst forming, but which passes off when 
 the exostosis is matured — in six weeks or so — the 
 splint may be no larger than a half-walnut. Then 
 to injure a large area of sound good skin for such a 
 small surface is much like spreading a horse-rug 
 over the back of a toy terrier. The punch in three 
 or four blows punctures all the splint surface, and 
 a blistered surface the size of a crown piece finishes 
 the work— this of course together with rest. In the 
 case of ring-bone the surface is two-thirds round the 
 pastern and is too extensive by far for the punch. 
 When spavins are forming and small, the punch 
 deals with them as effectually as the firing-iron. 
 Should any of the bones require such measures as 
 these, now is the time to perform the operation, and 
 b}?" the time the patients are fit to leave their sick- 
 boxes some warm weather will have come, and the 
 horse's skin will have become used to atmospheric 
 changes with being at the open doors of his box 
 throughout the days and nights of his confinement. 
 
126 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 The diseases of the lubricating apparatus are for 
 the most part all one disease, going by different 
 names according to the part of the lubricating appa- 
 ratus affected. It becomes affected by having more 
 to do than it can bear. The extra work stimulates 
 the surfaces which produce the oil, and being con- 
 stantly^ overstimulated they pour out more oil than 
 in health, and their sub-surfaces become thickened 
 and hardened. Oil or synovia is poured out by 
 these surfaces, and after being used a little is ab- 
 sorbed again by them — the old oil is changed for 
 fresh oil. This is in the healthy state. In the 
 overworked state the oil is thrown out but not again 
 absorbed, at least not at the same rate as it is thrown 
 out ; then we have two conditions as a result : — 
 
 1. The parts become distended (thorough pin, 
 wiudgall, &c.), and the old oil undergoes change ; 
 the most observable change is that of being more 
 thick and solid, and, of course, less useful as oil. 
 With these lubricating surfaces there are two well- 
 marked stages of the disorder we have endeavoured to 
 define. The first stage is that in which the parts being 
 overworked return to their natural state with a 
 night's rest. This is well seen in the forelegs. 
 Perhaps a horse comes in with his back tendons hot 
 and swollen, and a night's, rest, with or without cold 
 wet bandages, "fetches them down." The other 
 stage is what we may call the permanently enlarged 
 state. Here the horse always, and under all circum- 
 stancesj has a " thorough-pin" or a " windgall." It 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 127 
 
 is evident that each stage must need different treat- 
 ment. The first stage points unmistakably to less 
 work or the suspension of all work for a time, and 
 if this be not noticed and cared for it always ends in 
 the second stage, where no amount of rest will take 
 away the condition. It forms an excellent beacon, 
 and points to less weight or a shorter " spell " being 
 required ; and they are wise who interpret its mean- 
 ing. Frequently it happens that this state of things 
 will go on for many months before permanent en- 
 largements obtain ; but all this time— the warning 
 not being heeded — the secreting surface is getting 
 ready for the overwork which it, as a secreting sur- 
 face, has to face ; it thickens and accommodates 
 itself to its task like the skin of a blacksmith's 
 hand. In thickening, the surface loses the nice 
 balance it has held in throwing out new oil and 
 absorbing it after it has become old and unfit, and 
 then the firing-iron is set to work to compel absorp- 
 tion of the stationary, thickened, half-useless oil. 
 Supposing that we have been foolish enough to 
 bring about thorough-pin, windgall, &c., then we 
 have to face hard facts : we have to bring ourselves 
 to believe that not any means we yet know of will 
 do for us what the healthy membrane used to do. 
 All that the firing-iron, or the blister, or the mercurial 
 ointment can do is to cause a splutter of vitality 
 in tlie part, by which the absorbents are for a time, 
 but only for a time, quickened. These means lessen 
 but do not remove entirely the enlargement, and, 
 
128 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 what is more, they do not give a fresh lease to the 
 oil-secreting and oil-absorbing surface. These 
 means, and the rest which accompanies them, 
 may prevent the mischief getting worse, but that 
 is all they can do. When the enlargements are 
 of old standing and hard, they call for deep firing, 
 blistering, and rest : when they are of long standing, 
 but not hard, rest and blistering are the best, or rest 
 and mercurializing. It is a common practice to apply 
 mercury in the form of mercurial charge to these 
 parts in this last condition. The charge is made up 
 of mercurial ointment and pitch, and after being 
 melted is spread on, and short tow or v/ool stuck 
 over the parts. Cradles are put on, and the horse 
 wears the charge for weeks, or until it peels off. A 
 better way of applying mercury for the purpose we 
 have indicated, that is, we repeat, when the parts are 
 permanently enlarged and full but not hard, is the 
 oleate of mercury. This is a preparation not at all 
 well-known, being rather recent. 
 
 We will now say something more about this new 
 preparation — the oleate of mercury — for use in wind- 
 gall, thorough-pin and enlargements, with or without 
 heat, in the greasing apparatus generally. We have 
 said, new preparation. This is only correct so far as 
 general surgery is concerned, for the oleate has been 
 known and used for some few years in a select circle 
 of the medical profession. We may say broadly 
 that mercury in one preparation or another is used 
 as a local application in old-standing (chronic) in- 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 129 
 
 flammation of any part anywhere, occurring at or 
 near the surface of the body. When inflammation 
 smoulders in a part week by week, or it may be 
 month after month, some of the products of inflam- 
 mation becon:ie solid more or less, and the part 
 afl'ected is then enlarged, thickened, and hardened. 
 AVe said this of the surfaces which secrete the oil 
 for the greasing apparatus when they are exposed 
 for long to over- work. Mercury acts by breaking 
 np the solid remains of inflammation and allowing 
 the broken up particles to regain the blood-stream, and 
 thus get carried away out of the body. Mercurial 
 ointment has to be persistently rubbed in, but the 
 oleate of mercury is only to be spread lightly over 
 the parts with a brush, otherwise it might act as a 
 blister or produce a crop of pustules on the skin. 
 Mr. John Marshall, the eminent surgeon of University 
 College Hospital, introduced the preparation to the 
 medical profession, and he says, "the preparations 
 are cleanly and economical, and have a much greater 
 diffusibility or penetrating power than the old mer- 
 curial ointment, for they are absorbed by the skin 
 with remarkable facility, and manifest the remedial 
 effects with great promptitude." 
 
 The oleate of mercury can only be procured from 
 the best chemists, but any chemist can procure it 
 for a customer. There are three different strengths 
 of it— a 5 per cent., a 10 per cent., and a 20 per 
 cent, solution. The most useful for veterinary 
 purposes is the 10 per cent. Fortunately, oleic 
 
 K 
 
130 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 acid will dissolve morphia — one active principle of 
 opium — also, so that a still more valuable prepara- 
 tion for these enlargements we are speaking of is 
 the " oleate of mercury and morphia," when there is 
 heat in the part we wish to apply it to. The 
 morphia should be present in the proportion of two 
 grains to the drachm. Their mode of application is 
 something like the following: Ten to thirty drops 
 or more to be smeared over a part — a thorough-pin 
 for example — night and morning for five or six days, 
 and afterwards every other day until the parts are 
 much reduced. Should there be inflammation in 
 the part, and we are using the " oleate of mercur^^ 
 and morphia" we at once relieve pain and nervous 
 irritability in the part and so arrest the process of 
 inflammation with the morphia, whilst the mercury 
 breaks up, as we have said, the thickened deposits, 
 or, as Mr. Marshall puts it, " the mercury promotes 
 the death and degeneration of the morbid products, 
 and so facilitates their subsequent removal by ab- 
 sorption." Before going any further we must ask 
 for a little patience from the reader, because there 
 will be those who have little or no idea about the 
 meaning of "absorption." We have before said that 
 the blood is the great nourisher of the tissues of the 
 body and that each tissue takes from the blood stream 
 what it needs, and it also restores to the blood stream 
 its old worn out tissue. This being so, the blood, 
 which is everywhere contained in vessels, must quit 
 those vessels — get out of them. This it does not do 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. I3l 
 
 in its entirety, but only some parts of it leave the 
 vessels. The parts of the blood which leave the 
 bloocl-stream and saturate the tissues must, after a 
 time, return to the blood-stream ivitJdn the blood- 
 vessels again. So that we have here two pro- 
 cesses — the process of leaving the blood-vessels and 
 the process of returning to the blood-vessels. There 
 are three divisions of blood-vessels : (1) arteries 
 which convey the blood in a compact stream ; 
 (2) capillaries, of less than hair-like minuteness, 
 which are terminations of the arteries, and through 
 which the blood meanders; and (3), veins or the 
 blood-vessels which receive the blood after it has 
 been permeating and saturating the tissues, and 
 convey it back again to the heart. Now the blood 
 escapes through the delicate walls of the capillary 
 blood-vessels and finds its way into the blood-stream 
 by a system of vessels called " absorbent vessels." 
 When the blood leaves the capillaries for the tissues 
 it is scarlet with oxygen and rich particles for the 
 repair of the tissues ; but when it finds its way 
 through the absorbents into the veins it is dark 
 purple almost— in other words, it has given up its 
 oxygen and rich materials to the tissues, and the 
 tissues have in return loaded it with their refuse. 
 
 Just one other point. The blood is propelled 
 powerfully through the arteries of the body by the 
 contraction of that powerful hollow muscle called 
 the heart. Here is a force-pump that we can see, 
 and we can measure the force of the flow of the 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE SUMMEEING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 blood through the vessels, but this force is almost 
 spent by the time the blood gets to the fine capil- 
 laries, and, as we have said, can only meander 
 through them, so that we have to look out for 
 another force, because, when the blood or parts of it 
 have left the blood-vessels (capillaries) it has to 
 regain the blood-vessels (veins) again. As it leaves 
 the capillaries the force that sent it there is spent, or 
 nearly so, and it has yet to travel through and 
 saturate the tissues, and to travel to the veins. 
 These forces are for the most part two comparatively 
 feeble ones — namely suction and gravitation. The 
 absorbent vessels, or those channels which conve}^ 
 the used fluid from the tissues to the veins, are ex- 
 tremely delicate, and are supplied with valves at 
 very frequent intervals, and these valves only open 
 one way ; the fluid can run along the vessel through 
 and past the valves one way, but if it wants to re- 
 turn it shuts the valves down. Here, then, is a 
 decided aid to our feeble forces. There are other 
 slight aids also. Now how is suction brought about ? 
 Very simply in this way ; when a muscle is at work 
 the belly of the muscle, alternately shortens and 
 lengthens ; and, besides doing its special dut}^ — 
 moving the bones to which it is attached by its 
 tendons— in alternately shortening and lengthening, 
 it acts as a suction pump. Thus the fibres going to 
 make up the muscle run like a bundle of rods 
 parallel with one another, and the spaces or channels 
 between them are occupied by the absorbent vessels. 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 133 
 
 When the muscle contracts, each fibre or rod 
 shortens and thickens, and as the muscle relaxes 
 and lengthens the fibres also relax and lengthen, so 
 that the chamiels between the fibres, which we saw 
 were occupied by the absorbent vessels, are alter- 
 nately widened out and closely pressed in, and so a 
 suction process is established. If a horse walks he 
 lifts his foot perhaps, once a second, and therefore 
 the muscles at the back of his leg — foreleg, for 
 example— contract and lengthen once a second, or 
 in other words, the suction pump acts once a second. 
 To illustrate this suction process; in the fall of the 
 year take a horse with " filled legs " — that is to say 
 legs whose tissues are saturated ^'\i\ifiuid from the 
 blood vessels w^hich has settled in his legs because 
 he has been standing still in his stable, and this 
 fluid, for reasons we shall explain, in the autumn 
 has been unable to find its way back into the veins. 
 This fluid in the " filled legs" is only acted upon 
 by one force, gravity. Its weight causes it to settle 
 to the lowest parts. But now put the suction force 
 in operation by walking the horse out for half an 
 hour and then see. He comes in with his legs 
 " fine" once more. Some muscles besides the heart 
 are always working from the animal's birth to his 
 death — the diaphragm or midrif for example. 
 
 We shall not apologise for taking the reader 
 seemingly so far away from the subject ; first, 
 because thousands of horses and cattle— aye, and 
 human beings too — are yearly lost or ruined for 
 
134 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 want of the little pliysiolo,2;ical knowledge we have 
 here attempted to conve}' ; and. secondly, we could 
 not have finished onr subject satisfactorih% because 
 our readers could not have been introduced to the 
 rationale of exercising, blistering, firing, setoning, 
 mercurializing, &c., without this knowledge. 
 
 In concluding what we have now to say about 
 the use of mercury as an external application for 
 disease of the lubricating apparatus, we again say 
 that when a mild preparation is required, the oleate 
 will be found to answer every purpose, and more 
 efficiently than the common mercurial ointment. 
 
 The subject of firing we shall pass over just now, 
 because it is almost indispensable to employ skilled 
 assistance. 
 
 Blistering we shall say a few words about, because 
 practical horsemen so frequently blister their horses 
 without advice. What we have to say will not be 
 exhaustive. A few hints will not come amiss here. 
 First, as to the kind of blister. It was thought 
 long ago that the Spanish blistering fly or can- 
 tharides was the best, if not the only reliable and 
 good blister. For some years the biniodide of 
 mercury has been largely used. This is little if at 
 all inferior to the fly blister for any purpose, and 
 in diseases such as windgall, thorough-pin, &c., 
 some actually prefer the biniodide. We prefer it 
 in these cases to the fly blister. It is soon made 
 by adding one drachm of the biniodide of mercury 
 to one ounce of common lard, which has had its 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 135 
 
 salt washed out. In nibbing it in, less pieces of it 
 are to be applied at one time, or it runs down the 
 parts beneath, and '' scalds" the hair off, and may 
 blister also. In all blistering operations it is well 
 to besmear the parts beneath with a little hog's lard 
 before commencing, as it protects them. Especially" 
 is this desirable, indeed absolutel}^ necessary, in 
 blistering the back tendons of a leg. The heel 
 shonld be first Avell larded, or blistering of it may 
 be followed by painful results from two causes : — 
 1. The skin here is delicate and sensitive ; 2. The 
 skin here creases when the foot is flexed. To blister 
 any skin that is liable to repeated creasing, such as 
 that in hollow of heel, that behind the knee joint, 
 is bad practice, and is likely to give trouble. The 
 best " all-round ointment" we know is made by 
 mixing ordinary fly blister with the biniodide or 
 mercury blister, half and half, or perhaps one part 
 of the latter to tAvo parts of the former. Fly blister is 
 bought ready made,— a practice which cannot be too 
 strongly condemned. Many horses are blemished 
 for life, and not a few killed outright by blistering 
 with '' fly" blister, as sold by many druggists at an 
 enormous price, and mixed with all kinds of dis- 
 astrously harmful ingredients, such as Venice tur- 
 pentine, spirit of turpentine, euphorbium, corrosive 
 sublimate, sulphuric acid, <fec. Pure blister only 
 should be used, and the horseman should either 
 make it himself or get it made by a respectable 
 
136 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 chemist. It should contain no active ingredient 
 whatever besides the cantharides. Tlie best fly 
 blister we know is that of the British Pharma- 
 copoeia. It makes a somewhat harder mass than 
 most, which has this great advantage : in all blister- 
 ing operations the hair has to be clipped off close 
 to the skin of the part to be blistered, and the 
 blister has to be rubbed in with the naked fingers 
 for half or three-quarters of an hour, so that the 
 fingers and the part rubbed get hot by rubbing, 
 and the heat produced melts a softer blister, and 
 enables it to run down over the parts beneath ; 
 whilst the harder blister we recommend is onl}^ 
 softened by the heat, and enables the fingers to rub 
 it Avell into the desired surface a very little at a 
 time. A piece the size of a bean is large enough 
 which will not disappear before it has been rubbed 
 ten minutes. The blister is made as follows : — 
 
 Take of cantharides in powder, 12 ozs. yellow 
 wax and prepared suet, of each, 1\ ozs.; prepared 
 lard, 6 ozs. ; resin, 3 ozs. Liquefy the wax, suet, 
 and lard together by a water-bath, and add the 
 resin, previously melted ; then introduce the can- 
 tharides, mix the whole thoroughly, and continue to 
 stir the mixture while it is allowed to cool. 
 
 The above is a large quantity, but proportionately 
 less can be made, or, what is better, the horseman 
 can ask for the ointment as made according to the 
 British Pharmacopoeia, and as used by doctors. 
 When blistered or fired, the horse should have his 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 137 
 
 head tied up to the rack high, to prevent his getting 
 his teeth to the irritated parts, for at least two daj^s ; 
 all straw should be cleared away from his legs also, 
 and he will afterwards have to wear cradles for a 
 time, to prevent his biting the parts, as when they 
 are healing, irritation (tickling) comes on. We must 
 also warn tlie horseman of the extreme danger of 
 blistering too large an area. Never more than two 
 legs should be blistered at any one operation. 
 Horses have been frequently killed by the irritation 
 and fever set up by blistering three legs at a time, 
 and few horses could survive having all four legs 
 blistered at once. Of course we mean when the legs 
 are each blistered extensively— the whole of the back 
 sinews in each for example. An area the size of a 
 thorough-pin might be blistered on all four legs at 
 once. Fever is often to some extent set up by 
 any blistering whatever, so that it is always 
 anticipated by giving a purging ball at the time of 
 blistering, which, of course, necessitates the horse's 
 living on bran mashes for two or three days. It is 
 best to give a bran mash the night before any opera- 
 tion which is so severe as to require physicing 
 accompanying it. Besides the danger of death from 
 irritation and fever, from blistering too large an area 
 at one time, we have another danger in cantharides 
 blister. When cantharides gets into the system by 
 being given by the mouth as a medicine, or rubbed 
 into the skin and taken into the system by the 
 absorbents, they are apt to cause inflammation of 
 the neck of the bladder, or inflammation of the 
 
138 THE SUMMERIXG OF HUNTERS. 
 
 small intestines. The former is discovered by rest- 
 less shifting of the hind feet, and frequent voiding 
 of small quantities of urine, and general disturbance. 
 When the horseman discovers such an untoward 
 result, he should at once send for his veterinary 
 adviser, as the inflammation is so apt to quickly 
 spread to the kidneys and produce death. 
 
 Parts after blistering and firing cannot be too 
 carefully looked after, especially after firing. Fired 
 parts are examined from time to time by the 
 veterinarian who has operated ; not so with blistered 
 parts. Blistered surfaces at the end of forty-eight 
 hours should be fomented for an hour with very 
 warm water, and the gluey discharge thus softened 
 and cleared away. This should be repeated daily 
 if necessary, and a little saltless hog's-lard or sweet 
 oil rubbed npon the surface. The great secret of 
 blistering or firing and leaving no blemish mainly 
 consists in keeping the surface free from the dis- 
 charge produced, and protecting the surface from 
 the discharge in the intervals by smearing over it oil 
 or pure lard. The discharge in either case is irritating 
 to the part, and will scald off the hair it flows over. 
 If " proud flesh " is allowed to remain, a roughened, 
 thickened, hairless ridge remains along the path of 
 iron, and the parts are unsightly afterwards. 
 
 Sometimes blister is used in a slightly diff"erent 
 way. Sweating blister, as some call it, is another 
 way of using cantharides blister or the biniodide 
 ointment. A very little is smeared on every day, 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 139 
 
 and a "scurf" prodnced, which is cleared away by 
 washino; as we have described, and a fresh applica- 
 tion of the blister. This is really an excellent 
 method, and deserves to be more extensively applied. 
 It can be used during work, wdiich is an advantage. 
 The best " sweating " blister is made by warming, 
 for two hours over a half-cold tire, some powdered 
 cantharides in olive oil, one part of the former, by 
 w^eight, to six of the latter. Strain away the spent 
 flies through a piece of rag, and use the oil with a 
 short stiff brush. 
 
 We must finish our remarks about blistering b}^ 
 saying that if a part is inflamed a severe blister 
 does much harm ; indeed, this is so if there is an}^ 
 extra heat in a part. A chronic inflammation and a 
 small amount of extra heat is not incompatible with 
 a little " sweating " blister. 
 
 After our remarks upon the treatment of the ail- 
 ments affecting the lubricating apparatus, we cannot 
 avoid saying a w^ord about the practice of firing and 
 blistering parts with a view to " strengthening " 
 them. Many horsemen have pernicious ideas about 
 these so-called strengthening remedies. For in- 
 stance, if a horse has long oblique pasterns there is 
 much strain upon his fetlock joint and on his back 
 " sinews," as a necessary (mechanical) consequence, 
 and the tendon, at its insertion into the sessamoid 
 bones, which brace the fetlock joint behind, is apt 
 to become injured, in which the sessamoid bones 
 participate. As a consequence, the back of the fet- 
 
140 THE SUMMERIXG OF HUNTERS. 
 
 lock and the lower third of the back " sinews " 
 become permanently enlarged, and to reduce the 
 enlargement and to strengthen f?) the part a firing 
 iron is used. Perhaps the fellow leg, acting under the 
 same mechanical difficulties precisely, has not be- 
 come enlarged at all, but the owner instructs his 
 veterinary adviser to fire this leg also at the time 
 he is firing its enlarged fellow, with a view to 
 strengthening it and prevent its giving \vay also. 
 At the end of every hunting season this piece of 
 idiocy is carried out in many a well-ordered stud. 
 How far does firing strengthen a part? That firing 
 does strengthen parts there can be no doubt, but it 
 does not strengthen them in the sense many horse- 
 men suppose. If a part is suff'ering from a low form 
 of inflammation, it will not be so strong as if it were 
 not so sufi'ering. Firing will frequently check or 
 abolish the inflammation; therefore it will strengthen 
 the part, that is to say, it will remove a cause which 
 was rendering a part weaker than it otherwise would 
 be. Again, if a part has suffered injury, with or 
 without inflammation, and the material supplied from 
 the blood-vessels for the repair of the parts has been 
 deficient in either quality or quantity, or both, and 
 has not accomplished the repair, then firing, by 
 rousing the blood-vessels of a part to increased ex- 
 ertion, will often thus accelerate the process of 
 repair, and so strengthen the part. Once more; 
 suppose a part has been injured and repaired, and 
 the material for repair, thrown out from the blood- 
 vessels always, has been in excess, and this over- 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 141 
 
 plus remainiDg in the repaired part is a source of 
 weakness to the part, then firing, or blistering, or 
 mercurialising will break up the extra material, and 
 it will be removed by absorbtion — a process we have 
 already explained — and so will strengthen the parts. 
 If, again, the skin be deeply fired, it changes it 
 physically in this way : the skin lies loose over a 
 part, and can be pinched up ; but if it is fired 
 through, it adheres deeply and firmly to the parts 
 over which it lies. From being yielding and elastic 
 it is converted into a non-yielding tough covering, 
 strongly bound down to the parts beneath, and acts 
 as a bandage. 
 
 It will be seen by the foregoing remarks in what 
 ways firing strengthens a part. Firing can never 
 make a long pastern into a short one ; so that in the 
 instance we have named firing will do no further 
 good than turning the skin into a bandage in sup- 
 port of the tendons which are overstrained. It may 
 ,do much harm, however. When any part whatever 
 works under a constant difficulty, processes are set 
 up in the part which tend to repair, remove, or 
 otherwise mitigate the efi'ects of the difficulty, and 
 we cannot be over-careful in our meddling with 
 these processes. Experts alone can in most cases 
 judge what is best to be done, or, we might rather 
 have said, what is best not done. If a part has 
 more work thrown upon it than it can well bear, it 
 enlarges and strengthens (" hypertrophies," as the 
 process is technically called), and thus gets over the 
 
142 THE SUMMERING OP HUNTERS. 
 
 difiiculty. During the time that the enlarging pro- 
 cess is going on, the part is more active within itself 
 mainly in its blood supply, and this alone will make 
 it wanner than common to the touch, and it requires 
 some amount of skill to determine the presence or 
 absence of inflammation. This more active state 
 is not necessarily inflammation at all, but the 
 boundary-line between it and the commencement of 
 inflammation is so fine that it is often extremel}^ 
 difficult to determine that inflammation does or does 
 not exist. When a part is enlarged (hypertrophied) 
 from over-use, then cessation of the over-use is fol- 
 lowed by lessening, in due course, of the enlarge- 
 ment. The thickened, horny skin of the blacksmith's 
 hand becomes fine and delicate in a few weeks should 
 he be laid up with illness or accident. The same 
 may be said of his biceps. A noble lord once asked 
 the writer to remove an enlargement on the outer 
 side of a hunter's fetlock at the end of a season. 
 On bringing the horse round in his stall it was seen 
 that the toe was slightly in-turned, and that the 
 shoe was causing the toe to be thus directed. Once 
 shoeing set the bearing surface of the foot and shoe 
 straight, and the enlargement in a month was no 
 more. In this case, had it been in the writer's 
 power to have removed this enlargement, the bearing 
 surface below remaining the same, the fetlo(;k might 
 have given way altogether. Here was an extra stay 
 put where an extra stay was needed. In our example 
 of the enlarged back sinews, and fetlock from the 
 
THE SUxAIMERING OF HUNTERS. 143 
 
 mechanical disadvantages of too long pasterns, where 
 actual change from injury has not taken place, by 
 shortening the toe and lowering it, and bringing the 
 heel of tlie shoe an inch or more further back, the 
 enlargement will soon disappear— in a very few 
 weeks. But a horse could not hunt with such a shoe, 
 so that it is no use to remove a laudable, serviceable 
 enlargement which stands in place of a condition we 
 cannot call to our aid. In short, we ought never to 
 attempt to remove an enlargement that is doing real 
 service, unless we are in a position to exchange it 
 for more desirable conditions, or, in other words, do 
 not remove a stay unless you can alter the super- 
 structure so that it does not require the stay, or 
 unless you can supply a stay which will act as well 
 as the one you remove. 
 
 We have already said that at the end of a hunting 
 season the bones and joints and the lubricating 
 apparatus are the parts which most frequently 
 require treatment. Next to these we might 
 have ventured to assert that the hypertrophies 
 or enlargements about the pasterns, fetlocks, 
 and back tendons are the most common defects 
 which the hunting man has now to deal with. In 
 most of these cases it will be found that the bearing 
 surface of the foot has been defective, either from 
 bad shoeing or neglect of shoeing. During the 
 season the hunting man cannot be too careful in 
 seeing that the fore feet especially are regularly 
 shod, and noticing the least deviation of the aspects 
 
144 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 of the foot. In a few weeks after the proper bear- 
 ings of a foot are altered, the part affected will 
 show it by enlarging ; thus, if the toe gets too long, 
 the back of the fetlock will enlarge from the altered 
 leverage setting the parts here at a disadvantage. 
 A toe getting too short will have a tendency to tilt 
 the pasterns up, and render the fetlock liable to 
 sudden " knuckling over." Should the outside of a 
 foot and shoe get worn too low, the weight is thrown 
 on the outside of the fetlock, and this continuing 
 an enlargement here will appear. Should the inside 
 of the foot and shoe get too much worn, the inside 
 of the fetlock will enlarge, and so forth. The 
 firing-iron does no good applied to conditions such as 
 we have last named, but it often gets the credit of 
 it. If the horse is to be fired over an enlarged 
 fetlock, before the operation his shoe is removed, and 
 the foot is nicely dressed and the bearing surface 
 of the foot set square. Then he has no shoes at all 
 put on, or only thin plates, is fired, and placed in 
 a loose box for a few weeks. Then the enlargement 
 disappears entirel.y, and the firing (?) has done 
 wonders. Perhaps, instead of firing, blistering is 
 thought to be the best. Now what takes place? 
 The shoes are not removed, the uneven bearing 
 surface remains and maintains the need of the en- 
 largements, consequently the blister has no effect. 
 In all these cases of enlargements or hypertrophies 
 the removal of the conditions which call them into 
 being alone will remove them, and it is a positive 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 145 
 
 misfortune for them, by any means, to be removed, 
 unless we can make sure of providing an efficient 
 substitute. 
 
 We are now, I hope, in a position to derive a 
 very practical lesson from what has gone before. 
 It is this : At the end of every hunting season, one 
 month should be spent in quiet observation ; the 
 shoes should all be removed and exact square bear- 
 ing surfaces for all the feet obtained (light level 
 shoes or plates being put on), and all enlargements 
 occurring from the knees and hocks downwards 
 most carefully observed. Hundreds of horses are 
 yearly needlessly cast and fired from w^ant of this 
 simple precaution. 
 
 Those who are following us in our consideration 
 of this important subject will do well to read, mark, 
 learn, and inwardly digest the conclusion w^e 
 arrived at in regard to "stays" or hypertrophies, 
 which are so apt to occur about the lower third of 
 the legs from uneven bearing surface of the shoe 
 and foot. We have recommended a month to be 
 spent in quietly watching the behaviour of these 
 enlargements during rest and ease, accompanied by 
 a level foot surface. From the end of the hunting 
 season to the commencement of the time when flies 
 begin to be troublesome is the period we choose to 
 do all repairs to the animal machine necessitating 
 " raw " surfaces being produced, — firing, blistering, 
 for example. This time is amply sufficient for a 
 month^'s careful observation when the season ends 
 
14G THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 by the middle of April, which all seasons ought to 
 do. If an hypertrophy is seen to diminish a good 
 deal, under the favourable conditions we have 
 named, we may conclude that it has been caused 
 by the want of these conditions — an uneven bearing 
 surface of the foot — and that it is an hypertrophy and, 
 being so, will 7iot be removed by firing and blistering 
 or any medicinal means whatever. Some enlarge- 
 ment may and possibly will remain after the pre- 
 scribed period; but we must remember that in laying 
 by a hunter for the summer the conditions of rest, 
 &c., are continued. 
 
 We now come to the habitation and surroundings 
 of the animal during the first half of the period, 
 however spent, of summer. There can be no doubt 
 that a large well-lighted loose-box is, if not essential, 
 very desirable. Light is extremely desirable. It 
 would be taking the reader further out of the way 
 than we have taken him, to explain in a satisfactory 
 manner the vast bearing sunlight — direct or reflected 
 — has on those countless processes which are ever 
 going on in the animal mechanism. If one visits 
 the out-patient department of a hospital in a poor, 
 densely-populated neighbourhood, the terrible results 
 of too little sunlight are most striking. The pale face, 
 the wasted form, the enlarged joints, and festering 
 sores about the neck, indicating a state of things 
 which vaguely goes under the name of scrofula or the 
 *• king's evil " is seen sitting on the waiting benches 
 or languidly lying on the sickly mother's knee, wait- 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 147 
 
 ing its turn, and listening for the glad call applied 
 to it of " next," when it goes to receive the old, old 
 order of " iron and cod liver oil/' Of course depriva- 
 tion of sunlight is only one of the many causes leading 
 to this sad state of things, but it is one of the most 
 important causes. Lime-wash is cheap, then w^hy 
 not give the hunter, and indeed every domestic 
 animal the benefit of it, mixed with some cheap 
 neutral tint if you like, but let hhn have plenty of 
 good sunlight. Direct raws are disagreeable to any 
 animal and should be avoided. 
 
 Free ventilation is another essential. We think 
 the adjective free is here very expressive. The air 
 in a loose box or in any enclosed space containing 
 large lungs, as those of the horse or of man, should 
 be free in the widest sense of the word. It should 
 enter freely ; move about in currents when in freely; 
 and, have a free exit. The air must be kept moving 
 without forming a draught. It is dealt with on the 
 principle that cold air is heavier than warm air, and 
 therefore tends to occupy a lower stratum of space. 
 Acting on this w^ell-known law, we admit air for 
 ventilating purposes from below and let it out above. 
 The detail we have not space even to give in skeleton 
 form, but we may say, that as ventilation is of the 
 greatest importance, the hunting man should see to 
 it himself and employ an architect, unless of course, 
 he employs a blacksmith or farrier to doctor his 
 horses; then to be consistent and economical (?) he 
 will employ the plumber or carpenter to direct and 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE SUMMERING OP HUNTERS. 
 
 supply proper ventilation. The best treatise on the 
 subject, should he find it desirable to refer to one, 
 is Colonel Fitzwy gram's " Horses and Stables." 
 
 The treading area is the next most important 
 consideration. In all cases the feet should rest on 
 a soft surface, because they are if not without shoes, 
 at least only sparingly protected with iron in the 
 form of plates. Spent tan is without doubt the 
 best covering for the floor, but it ought not to be 
 coarse, neither should it be allowed to remain on 
 the ground an indefinite length of time. A¥e must 
 remember that we cannot remove the urine from it. 
 The water of the urine may possibly get away by 
 drainage or by evaporation, but the salts of the 
 urine remain in it and are in time decomposed. It 
 should neither be too dry nor at all swampy. If it 
 be too dry, the feet get dry and brittle and will chip 
 and split, but if too moist it is very apt to set up a 
 stinking discharge in the cleft of the frog (thrush) 
 which, being allowed to remain will surely wreck 
 the frog, and, of course the back portion of the foot. 
 The tannin remaining in spent bark is a capital 
 astringent, and has a direct tendency to keep away 
 " thrush," or to dry it up should it be present, but 
 there may be too much tannin and wet from the 
 bark as it comes direct from the pit. When this is 
 so, a day or two's exposure to the sun will remove 
 the extra moisture. Some mix sawdust with it, but 
 this is quite unnecessary. Sawdust ought never to 
 be used for horses to tread upon. It is too dry. 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 149 
 
 Straw too is not fit for our present purpose, at least 
 it is not so good as tan. 
 
 The feet should be attended to all the time, as if 
 the animal were doing his usual work ; indeed, it is 
 almost more necessary to attend to the feet during this 
 long rest in a loose box because the horn grows 
 faster, and is apt to disturb that equal bearing 
 surface we have so much insisted upon. The toes 
 get long and throw extra strain on the back sinews 
 when the animal walks. We cannot refrain from 
 telling a rather amusing story bearing on our last 
 observation. We were once sent for a long distance 
 (over a hundred miles) to see a young horse recently 
 purchased, whose owner was laughed at by his 
 friends for the high price he had given in purchase. 
 This banter caused him to take such a dislike 
 to the young horse that he put him into a loose 
 box and did not go near him at all for five 
 weeks. The horse was shoeless during this time, 
 and the toes grew long, of course. The 
 owner now had the horse brought out in a 
 bridle. " Hallo ! Stringhalt, by Jove ! take him in 
 John. Here is a nice thing. Bought the brute ; 
 done nothing with him but keep him quiet in loose 
 box ; first time bring him out, stringhalt. John ! 
 
 send for ." We went and found the poor 
 
 lame animal, for lame he was ; his toes were a 
 fearful length. Each time he set his feet down, his 
 hind feet especially — he picked them up as though 
 he were treading on hot bricks. This gave him a 
 peculiar appearance, not unlike stringhalt. He was 
 
150 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 afraid to walk. Eacli time his foot was set down, 
 the back sinews, of course, were unduly tightened 
 and pained. We at once sent for a farrier who set 
 his feet in good order. Now he was trotted, the 
 stringhalt gradually disappeared, and he w^as all 
 right. No stringhalt at least. We have said 
 gradually disappeared ; the horse trotted up and 
 down for some minutes before he gained confidence 
 in his new level bearings. At the end of a quarter 
 of an hour he was walking and trotting quite sound 
 to the horror of his chagrined owner. Of course 
 the feet becoming ragged, chipped, and altogether 
 out of order, is not the only disastrous result of want 
 of attention to the feet during rest in a box, as we 
 have before sufficientl}^ explained. 
 
 Should thrush arise during the summering in the 
 loose box, we must look to the tan or other matter 
 on which the horse is treading, and see that it is 
 in proper condition — especially that it is not too 
 wet. We next endeavour to cure the thrush, which 
 we shall find easy or otherwise, according to its 
 cause. Thrush is frequently constitutional. When 
 the horse has long legs this is most often the case, 
 and cure is almost impossible, the discharge keeping 
 up in spite of all that we can do, and usually wreck- 
 ing the back part of the foot. Should, however, it 
 be local in its cause, the cure is most easy. In this 
 latter case we need only to clean out the frog by 
 see-sawing very soft rope through its cleft, and 
 introduce some calomel and stufi" it down to the 
 bottom of the cleft with tow or cotton wool. This 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 151 
 
 should be done every morning for two or three 
 mornings, when a cure may usually be looked for. 
 Should heat and swelling of the leg arise on the 
 thrush drying up, a dose of laxative medicine is 
 called for. Next to too long toes and ragged feet, 
 thrush is the most common ailment we have to look 
 for whilst a horse is resting in a box. It frequently 
 acts as a safety-valve to the over-fed system. When 
 this is so, and we stop the discharge, we not un- 
 frequently have affections of the air-passages, lungs, 
 or bowels set up in its place. Simple as thrush 
 appears to be— and if we judge it by the ease with 
 which it is usually cured it does appear simple — we 
 know of no ailment more urgently needing profes- 
 sional care than thrush, for many reasons. 
 
 The loose box which we are recommending as 
 a summer residence to our hunter ought to be near 
 a pasture to which he can betake himself at his 
 pleasure. Under favourable conditions, most of which 
 we have already hinted at, the hunter should be 
 much in the pasture up to the end of June. The 
 skin during this time ought to receive the most 
 careful attention. Horse ponds are a nuisance in a 
 summer pasture where a horse runs, as he is tempted 
 to wade in and stand in the mud and water if the 
 weather be at all hot, and this renders his skin filthy, 
 besides the much greater evil of determining the 
 blood to the bowels and lungs and the risk of inflam- 
 mation thereby. Should flies tease, and two or three 
 horses be running in the same pasture, a good deal 
 
152 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 of practical joking goes on, which too often ends in 
 an ugly accident. The worse case of staking the 
 writer ever saw was from this cause. Four horses 
 were running in a pasture, and three of them, 
 irritated by the heat and the flies, set upon the 
 weakest and compelled him to leap into the next 
 pasture. In doing so he alighted on his shoulder 
 upon a stake and nearly severed his shoulder from 
 his body. Most farmers know how frequent staking 
 is in hot weather. It is mostly from the causes we 
 have mentioned. Any water the horse is likely to 
 get at in a field in summer, except under very 
 exceptional circumstances, ought to be properly 
 guarded, and instead of it, abundance of fresh water, 
 or what is much to be preferred, fresh cold w^ater 
 with oatmeal stirred in, given at short intervals. 
 Whilst on the subject of small cautions, we ought to 
 point out the dangers a horse is at this time exposed 
 to from small sharp projecting substances in door- 
 posts, &c. We have seen odd posts standing here 
 and there in a field, and old nails and crooks allowed 
 to remain projecting from them when the field has 
 contained some hundreds of pounds' worth of indi- 
 viduals fond of "larking" and rough play. Another 
 small caution : when a loose box is open for a horse 
 to run in and out from and to a field, the doorway 
 should be a great height, and wide enough to admit 
 two horses abreast, and ihe posts padded with straw 
 or straw strapped round them. This latter precau- 
 tion is extremely desirable, as horses frequently try 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 153 
 
 to rush in and out abreast, pushing and squeezing 
 each other, entirely setting aside their good manners, 
 Many a "poll-evil" is caught by a low doorway. 
 Doorways to stables, especially cart-horse stables, 
 are almost invariably far too low. 
 
 When July has well set in, liberty and green meat 
 begin to be curtailed. This ought to be done 
 gradually, and the 1st of August must see the 
 end of green meat. The first week in August is 
 generally the commencement of the " conditioning " 
 season. From this time to the commencement of 
 the season the animal machine — the slackened 
 strings— have now to be tightened. For this pur- 
 pose, besides other things, of course, two doses of 
 purging medicine, at least, are required. The whole 
 tissues are saturated with water from the green food 
 which has to be removed. The bowels drain it off 
 nicely, and with safety, if stimulated to do so by aloes. 
 We have said that at least two doses are required. We 
 ought not to hesitate in using a third, if need be. 
 No great preparation is required, but it is best to 
 give a bran mash on two successive nights, and then 
 give the physic on an empty stomach on the third 
 morning, and continue the mashes till the purging 
 sets in. The evacuations during the first dose are 
 so watery and copious that men often get alarmed 
 lest super-purgation should set in. This is seldom 
 the case. We must remember what a store of 
 watery material there is in the animal fresh from 
 grass. However, this time is not without its source 
 
154 THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 
 
 of anxiety. The excitement of the bowels is a^'^a^ 
 and lorolonged, and we cannot afford to overlook the 
 fact because we cannot keep any organ in great 
 activity for a length of time without risk. Sickness 
 and loss of appetite v^re must always look for, but 
 should signs of griping set in, we have to stop the 
 purging if it has gone on over twenty or twenty-four 
 hours, sometimes much less. 
 
 We can sometimes stop the purging, and with it 
 the griping, by warm clothing and giving a pint of 
 raw linseed oil and two ounces each of laudanum 
 and sweet spirits of nitre. The hunting man can- 
 not be too careful in procuring his purging balls. 
 Usually he has the advantage of a professional 
 surgery to send to. When he has no such advantage, 
 then he has to resort to the chemist. He ought 
 never to allow a groom to get ready-made physic 
 from the chemist, nor indeed ready-made cattle or 
 horse medicines of any description from this source. 
 We do not wish to be understood to say that any 
 respectable chemist may not keep most excellent 
 horse and cattle medicines — it is quite possible for 
 them to do so, but we never knew one who did. 
 Certainly they all desire to keep good useful medi- 
 cines, but the sources from which they get the pre- 
 scriptions are often questionable. The purging 
 ball ought to be very specially prepared of Bar- 
 badoes aloes melted in a water bath, and cayenne 
 pepper added to it to prevent griping. A little 
 tartarated antimonv also increases the waterv cha- 
 
THE SUMMERING OF HUNTERS. 155 
 
 racter of the evacuations, which is what we want 
 now, so that a purging mass for conditioning pur- 
 poses is made thus: Take of Barbadoes aloes, in 
 small lumps, eight ounces ; of gl3^cerine six drams 
 by measure; of tartaric antimony one ounce; of 
 powdered cayenne pepper half an ounce — Melt the 
 aloes and glycerine in a water-bath very thoroughly, 
 then take oif the fire and stir in the other ingredients 
 whilst cooling. Calculate and weigh out as required. 
 In doing so, each ball must be calculated to contain 
 six drams of aloes for what is known as a six dram 
 ball, and so forth. 
 
 In conclusion, we trust that we have given a fair 
 sketch of the best modern method of summering a 
 hunter. Of course, we do not pretend to have said 
 everything regarding the matter, but have relied 
 largely on the previous knowledge of those whom 
 the subject concerns, and have rather pointed out 
 a few of the more important matters in this wide 
 subject than attempted to discuss the whole subject 
 in every one of its aspects. In conclusion, our ad- 
 vice is to all hunting men ; at the end of the season 
 call in a good veterinary surgeon, and our sugges- 
 tions, in the main, will be faithfully carried out. 
 
 THE END. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street. 
 
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Price 7*. 6(i. 
 
 LECTURES ON THE 
 
 EXAMINATION OF HORSES AS TO 
 SOUNDNESS. 
 
 Being a Course of Lectures delivered at the Edinburgh Veterinary 
 College. 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX ON THE LAW OF HOESES AND WARRANTY. 
 
 Opinions of the Press. 
 
 ** A well written and original book — a book which we can 
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 where professional assistance is not available." — The Irish 
 Sportsman. 
 
 " Remembering the substance of what is there said, any man of 
 experience ought to be well guarded against deception." — Scotsman. 
 
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 learn a thing or two before trusting old Trunnion at horse deal- 
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 forth in language at once exact and untechnical. Mr. Fearnley's 
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 and a patient study of it will save both from many a mauvais 
 quart d'heure by preventing him from being taken in ; at|any 
 rate if he is, after mastering these pages, it will be with his eyes 
 onen.^^— Live Stock Journal. 
 
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