58 EXAMINATION OF HORSES 



LECTURE VIII. 



SHOWING HOW HEELS BECOME HIGH AND CONTRACTED. 



Gentlemen, — We now come to consider anomalies of 

 shape, and we cannot do better than spend our hour 

 to-day by going carefully over the functions of the foot, 

 and, by rigid adherence to strict logical method, investi- 

 gate the causes of high " boxy" and contracted heels. 



If you examine a healthy fore and hind foot of a five- 

 year-old horse, you will find that they are both incHned 

 to be oval ; and all ovals, as you are aware, have a long 

 and a short axis. The long axis of the healthy fore foot 

 is from side to side, but in the hind foot it is from befoj-e 

 backwards. This long axis has a strong tendency to alter 

 its position in the fore foot, and to become like that of 

 the hind foot — from before backwards ; but the long 

 axis of the hind foot has no tendency to alter. 



Again, I have before told you that the line of the 

 coronary band in the fore foot has a tendency to become 

 horizontal. 



A foot having undergone these two revolutions is known 

 as a '^ long contracted foot with high boxy heels,'' or, as 

 some have it, a miiley foot. 



These two alterations of shape occur in the same 



