SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR-BOOK — PART VII. 545 



tions of weakness and tendency to curb, if the joint is crooked or what 

 is called sicl^le-shaped, the predisposition is much increased. Curb is not 

 so much feared by some breeders as it seldom causes permanent lameness. 

 It is, however, a great eyesore; it depreciates a horse's value very con- 

 siderably, and it is liable to cause recurring lameness. 



Crooked hocks, unduly straight hocks, narrow hocks, small hocks, those 

 bent inwards or outwards, are all of weak formation, and consequently 

 predisposed amongst other unsoundnesses to bone spavin. Even though a 

 horse should happen to have a bone spavin, providing he has a strongly 

 formed hock, I would rather take the chance of breeding to him than one 

 with a sound hock, but of weak formation. 



So far we have run over briefly most of the defective formations that 

 predispose to serious hereditary unsoundness. We have divided the 

 causes into four heads, the second one of which was insuflacient quantity. 

 The old saying: "Size is strength, other things being equal," applies to a 

 a horse's extremities. We frequently hear it said that ruch and such a 

 horse has "plenty of timber under him." By this is meant that the indi- 

 vidual in question has sufficient substance in the various structures that 

 make up his legs and feet to give them strength and ability to stand wear 

 and tear. The practical horseman of experience learns that the horse with 

 disproportionately small feet seldom stands much work without going sore 

 from some unsoundness of these organs. So with the slender-pasterned 

 horse; he is not only subject to strain in that point, but predisposed to 

 ringbone. The horse light under the knee is apt to suffer from strains 

 of the tendons and ligaments in that situation as well as troublesome 

 splint. Proportionately large joints give great wearing ability to the legs. 

 This is well exemplified in the case of hocks with plenty of tissue in them. 

 The sire that transmits small hocks to his offspring has handed down to 

 him one of the most prolific sources of unsoundness in thooe joints. De- 

 fects of formation of these joints are often a cause of trouble as has 

 already been pointed out, but not so much so in my experience as a lack 

 of size. 



Stating that a horse has plenty of timber under him does not cover all 

 cases, as some horses have plenty of ticsue in their front legs and are defi- 

 cient in their hind ones. In addition to formation and quantity of tissue, 

 quality is of vast importance in influencing the wearing ability of the legs 

 and feet. Parents transmit with great faithfulness to their progeny 

 defects in the quality of the horn of the hoots. Shelly brittle hoofs are 

 strongly predisposed to crack, developing sand and quarter-cracks on 

 slight provocation, and giving rise to that very troublesome inability of 

 being unable to hoid the shoes tightly. Brittle hoofs are not necessarily 

 coarse in fibre. Hoofs of coarse fibre lack the density of structure which 

 generally contributes to toughness. Undue size of foot, low heels and flat 

 soles, with atendency to be easily bruised, are apt to be associated with 

 a lack of quality in the horn structure. A horse with bone of a spongy 

 character or lacking in density is deficient in quality. Such an individual 

 is predisposed to inflammatory diseases of bone, such as splints, sore 

 shins, ringbone and spavin. 



35 



