The Vet. Book 



especially in old horses, the animal becomes 

 permanently lame. By many spavin is regarded as 

 a hereditary disease, and it is well known that 

 hocks that are narrow or tied in below, are more 

 liable to develop bone spavin than those without 

 such conformation. The size of the spavin is no 

 criterion as to the degree of lameness it may 

 produce, because some very small spavins give 

 rise to most intractable forms of lameness, whereas 

 very large ones are often unofTensive. 



All forms of bone-spavin, legally, constitute 

 unsoundness and Veterinary Surgeons must reject 

 such horses, but if a horse has good strong hocks, 

 is free from lameness, and turned five years old, 

 required for slow work only, such an animal may 

 be passed as " practically" sound, but, of course, 

 the vendor ought to make some reduction in the 

 price. 



A hock may be spavined and yet afford no 

 appreciable evidence of such, and litigation has 

 sometimes arisen under these circumstances, but 

 the onus of responsibility does not, in a case of 

 this nature, rest with the examiner of the animal. 

 This condition is known as ''occult" spavin. A 

 blood spavin, on the other hand, is merely a 

 distended condition of a vein as it passes over the 

 front of the hock, but is not regarded as an 

 unsoundness. The best method of detecting a 

 bone-spavin — also known as a "Jack" — is to 

 view the hock obliquely from the front and com- 



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