SPECIAL AND GENERAL SHOEING. 115 



details, as is required in the construction of a delicate musical 

 instrument that it may keep in tune and harmonious action. 



The mode of dealing with each foot, therefore, should be 

 influenced both by its kind of condition and the kind of service 

 for which the horse is designed. A want of attention in this 

 respect or a disregard of the consequences entailed by such neg- 

 lect, is largely responsible for the disasters that wait on misap- 

 plied shoeing ; not only marring the utility of shoeing to all 

 intents and purposes, but rendering it a menace instead of a pro- 

 tection. 



Without being an alarmist, and not presuming to claim a 

 monopoly of advantages in criticizing the objectionable features 

 most noticeable in the common run of horseshoers' work, I 

 again refer to my observations in Chapter TV on the importance 

 of settling and balancing the foot on the normal center of 

 equilibrium, which it must be understood inclines, and is fixed 

 or altered according to the natural or unnatural growth of the 

 hoof; then, in the right adaptation of the shoe to maintain and 

 carry out this balance. Reiterating these primary facts, all 

 the more from the frequency of the instances where they are 

 w^holly disregarded (there being one good intelligent shoer, it is 

 safe to say, where there are ten others ruining horses right 

 along), and to the further fact that they are at the very begin- 

 ning of all inquiries relating to the proper shoeing of horses of 

 any and every kind, as well as to the cause and treatment of many 

 foot ailments. Hereafter my references and comparisons in 

 dealing with the other portions of my subject may be considered 

 as constantly applying to, or as being based on, the general mat- 

 ters of shoeing advanced in the chapter just mentioned. 



The Running or Galloping Horse. — The running horse 

 occupies a legitimate position at the head of field racing. As- 

 pirants for distinction in this class must have physical merit to 

 make prominent those qualities which alone prove most accept- 



