PASTERN. ■ 295 



smooth paving stones ; and horses with upright pasterns 

 are sometimes almost powerless to move, where those 

 with pasterns moderately sloped, and of medium length, 

 can walk with comparative ease. Farmers around Glasgow 

 are alive to this, and will not readily use a stallion which 

 has this defect, however strong and shapely." 



On page 268, the connection between the action of the 

 shoulder and that of the pastern has been discussed. 



The direction of the fore pasterns is an important point 

 in equine conformation, especially as horses, unlike our- 

 selves, have but httle power of rotating their fore limbs. 

 For ordinary work, and particularly as regards soundness, 

 the direction of the fore pasterns should be parallel to that 

 of the body, as in Fig. 55. In the majority of cases, any 

 turning-out (Fig. 57) or turning-in (Fig. 56) of the toes 

 of the fore legs is due to the bones below the fetlock (not 

 those above that joint) being in an abnormal direction 

 (twisted outwards or inwards). Experience teaches us 

 that the defect of turning-in the toes, which is seldom 

 met with, except in heavy horses, decreases the speed, and 

 is often accompanied by injury of the fetlock joint, as we 

 can see in Fig. 56. Turning-out the toes is a frequent 

 malformation in East Indian horses which have Ught 

 bodies and long legs, and is a characteristic of American 

 trotters of the present day. It occasionally occurs in race- 

 horses and hunters. Its great fault is its well-marked 

 tendency to cause the horse to ''hit" himself, the bad 

 effects of which habit can be more or less obviated by the 

 employment of "boots." 



The increasing frequency of turned-out toes in American 

 trotters which are persistently "bred to the winner," 

 strongly suggests the conclusion that this peculiarity is an 

 inherited aid to trotting speed. In order to obtain a 

 mathematical proof of its advantage as regards speed, let 

 us suppose that the parallelogram in Figs. 371 and 372 

 represents the plan of the body of a horse which, while 

 trotting, keeps his body in a position nearly similar to that 



