100 CYCLOPEDIA OF LIVE STOCK AND COMPLETE STOCK DOCTOR. 



The left hand lower figure exhibits a shoulder tolerably well placed, but 

 the limbs are set too far under, and the pasterns are too straight, so that 

 the animal appears to stand on his toes, and there is a general lack of 

 muscle and sinew. 



The lower right hand figure will convey a good idea of what old age, 

 abuse, hard work and want of care will bring to either of the three pairs 

 of shoulders and limbs just noticed. Abuse and ill-usage might ruin the 

 living representative of the perfect figure on page 97 but the linib.s 

 would remain comparatively sound to the last. 



VII. The Body as Seen from the Front. 



In the illustration on page 99 the neck and shoulders are oval or egg- 

 shaped. The chest seems narrow rather than broad, but this is because 

 the muscular development about the breast bone is ample and full. 

 Observe how grandly the muscle above the arm swells out, and what mag- 

 nificent muscularity the arm presents with the two great thews running 

 down to the knee. The joints are large and ample, as they should be, 

 but also firm. The hoofs are tough and hard. Look carefully at the 

 white space between the limbs rurining from the hoofs upwards. See 

 how the neck, gradually rising from the chest, shows strength and a 

 perfect proportion of one part to the other. The joints are compact and 

 rounded, to meet the articulating shank and fetlock bones. The staunch 

 strong hoofs are rather open behind, but show no indication of a flat foot. 

 Set this and the preceding illustrations against the wall, retire until you 

 get a perfect view, study them as an artist would a subject, compare 

 them with the living animal, and, if you buy a horse for breeding or other 

 use, buy as near to the model as possible. 



VIII. What a Critical Horseman said. 



One of the best authorities of all wi-iters on the horse, a highly edu- 

 cated Englishman, whose estimate of an animal Avas always made from 

 the standpoint of general excellence, the late Henry William Herbert, in 

 his exhaustive work, "The Horse of America," sa^^s : 



"The points of the physical structure of a horse on which the most, 

 indeed the whole of his utility depends, are his legs. Without his loco- 

 motors all the rest, however beautiful it may be, is nothing worth. 

 Therefore, to these we look first. The fore-shoulder should be long, 

 obliquely set, with a considerable slope, high in the withers and thin 

 above. The upper arm should be very long and muscular, the knee 

 broad, flat and bony, the shank, or cannon bone, as short as may be, flat, 

 not round, with clean, firm sinews ; the pastern joints moderately long 

 and oblique, but nor too much so, as the excess produces springiness and 

 weakness ; the hoois firm, erect or deep, as opposed to flat, and the feet 



