Experiments and their Verification 1 79 



point "a" of the dished toe and the point "c" of the coronet are not in 

 a straight line common to all or nearly all the points in a normal frontal 

 line. Hence we must strike an average frontal surface line by rasp- 

 ing off a part of the dished toe from "a" to "b," or nearly so, in order 

 to make the angles of both front feet alike ; or, again, we may leave 

 the dished toe intact and increase the angle of that foot slightly to 

 make it conform in effect to that of the other front foot. A great deal 

 depends on rinding the difference of extensions between the two feet ; 

 for, a dished toe is apt to cause greater forward extension, and, again, 

 it may cause the leg to lag or point back on account of a difficult lever- 

 age at the toe. It is, therefore, important to find the effect by estab- 

 lishing the habitual extensions in front and then regulate the angles 

 accordingly. 



It will also be seen that off hind (Fig. 140) is y$ in. longer in toe,, 

 in order to cause greater extension according to the rules of David 

 Roberge. Moreover, the lower heel or lesser angle of the same foot 

 is a move in the same direction. The hind shoe being heavier, is natur- 

 ally a little thicker in web, even though it was ordered wider rather 

 than thicker in web. The supposition was that this leg lacked both 

 length and momentum. In fact, in most trials the outside heel of off 

 hind was too visible on ground. The impact and sliding of that heel 

 hinted at some inability to suspend the foot from the ankle joint, or 

 rather to keep it stretched forward in suspension until it would natur- 

 ally strike the ground. 



Subsequent shoeings on the same pten finally stopped the inclina- 

 tion to hop behind, which was due to this unequal extension of hind 

 feet. There developed a gradual reversal of extension so that in the 

 end, with the shoeing as given in Fig. 142, and with proper paring of 

 feet to diminish the outward angles of feet and to counteract inter- 

 ference, the animal was driven three miles in 2 130, 2 127 and 2 127, the 

 last one of which showed the result in extension given in that figure. 

 The shoeing previous to this was about the same, the principal change 

 being an increase of toe length of y% inch all round and slightly swelled 

 heels but less so than on near on the off hind instead of an even 

 web. The angles of fore feet were also changed, so that near fore was 



