THE HORSE. 135 



feed off the ground, he is likely to be choked ; on that 

 account, therefore, he requires more than the ordinary 

 care required by horses of his class, and is con- 

 sequently UNSOUND. 



Where there is a liability to irritation in the neck 

 vein, arising either from constitutional peculiarities, or 

 from the horse's condition at the time, it is advisable 

 to bleed from the leg vein ; this latter vein should 

 be the one selected to bleed from in those cases, also, 

 in which the horse to be bled has already lost one of 

 the neck veins. 



Large Barrel. 



A good, large, barrel-shaped body is evidence of 

 a horse's possession of good health and powers of 

 endurance ; it is, therefore, a sign that he is SOUND. 



But a distended, bulky stomach is, on the contrary, 

 too often an indication of dropsy, in which case the 

 horse is UNSOUND. 



Herring-gutted. 



Herring-guttedness is the .converse of large barrel, 

 the horse being, in this case, small and straight in the 

 body, and, generally, of a nervous and irritable dis- 

 position ; he may, however, be SOUND. 



