HOW THE TROTTJXG HORSE IS BRED. 479 



practical consideration it makes but little difference whether a 

 tendency to, or a fully developed, unsoundness has been in the 

 inheritance for generations, or whether it may be the result of 

 some recent accident or injury, it is liable to be transmitted. It 

 is known to everybody that the great running horse Lexington 

 was blind, and it was urged that his blindness was not congenital, 

 but the result of an accident; hence it was argued by those in- 

 terested that it would not be unsafe to breed to him. It was 

 stated and repeated a hundred times that while in training he 

 got loose in his stable and stuffed himself at the oats bin, and 

 without knowing this his trainer took him out next morning and 

 ran him a trial of four miles, from the effects of which he lost 

 his sight. Without giving full credence to this as the cause of 

 his blindness, it is nevertheless true that he filled the country 

 with blind horses. If, for example, a joint or a ligament or a 

 muscle of the hind leg be sprained by overexertion or by a mis- 

 step, a spavin or a curb may develop, or possibly something still 

 worse, and this is a blemish and generally an unsoundness that is 

 likely to be transmitted, if not in a developed form, then in an 

 unmistakable tendency in that direction, which, in turn, will 

 make its appearance in succeeding generations. The horse world, 

 and I might say, the whole animal kingdom under domestication, 

 abounds in examples, seen and unseen, of unsoundness originat- 

 ing in injuries to the parents. 





