256 THE HORSE. 



hunter, a liackney, and a ccach-horse, should have sufficient expansion ot 

 the chest, or the legs sufficiently wide apart, to leave loom for the play 

 of the lungs ; but depth more than roundness of chest is here required, 

 because the deep chest admits of most expansion, when the horse, in rapid 

 action, and the circulation proportionably quickened, needs more room 

 to breathe; yet if the breast be too wide, tliere will be considerable weight 

 thrown before, and the horse will be heavy in the hand, and unsafe. 



Whether the legs are near to each other or wide apart, they should be 

 straight. The elbow should not have the slightest inclination inward or 

 outward. If it inclines towards the ribs, its action will be confined, and 

 the leg will be thrown outward when in motion, and describe a curious 

 and awkward curve ; and this will give a peculiar rolling motion, unpleasant 

 to the rider and unsafe to the animal. The toe will likewise be turned 

 outward, which will not only prevent the foot from coming flat on the 

 ground in its descent, but be usually accompanied by cutting, even more 

 certainly than when the toe turns inward. If the elbow is turned outward, 

 the toes will necessarily be turned inward, which is a great unsightliness, and 

 to a certain degree injurious. The weight cannot be perfectly distributed 

 over the foot ; the bearing cannot be true ; there will be undue pressure on the 

 inner quarter, a tendency to unsafeness, and a disposition to splint and corn. 

 The legs should come down perpendicularly from the elbow. If they 

 incline backward and under the horse, there is undue stress on the extensor 

 muscles ; and the legs being brought nearer the centre of gravity, undue 

 weight is thrown forward, and the horse is liable to knuckle over and 

 become unsafe ; if the legs have a direction forward, the flexor muscles 

 are strained, and the action of the horse is awkward and confined. The 

 toe should be found precisely under the point of the shoulder. If it be a 

 little more forward, the horse will probably be deficient in action ; if it be 

 more under the horse, unsafeness will be added to the still greater 

 defect in going. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



OBSERVATIONS ON THE HIND LEGS. 



THE HAUNCH. 



In describing the hinder extremities, we must begin with the bones of the 

 naunch. The haunch (see O, p. 63, and the cut, p. 230) is composed of 

 three bones. The first is the ilium, principally concerned in the formation 

 of the haunch. Its extended branches behind the flanks are prominent in 

 every horse ; and when they are more than usually wide, the animal is 

 said to be ragged-hipped. A branch runs up to the spine at the commence- 

 ment of the sacral vertebrae E, and here the haunch-bones are fimly united 

 with the bones of the spine. The ischium, or hip-bone, is behind and 

 below the ilium. Its tuberosities or prominences are seen under the tail, 

 (cut, p. 63). The pubis unites with the two former below and behind. 



From the loins to tlie setting on of the tail, the line should be carried on 

 almost straight, or rounded only in a very slight degree. Thus the haunch- 

 bones will be most oblique, and will produce a corresponding obliquity, or 

 slanting direction in the thigh-bone ; a direction in which, as we stated wlien 

 describii g the fore-legs, the ' nuscles act with most advantage. This di-ei;- 



