l66 ANIMAL MANAGEMENT. 



Steel A Steel arch is very strong and not likely to yield under ordinary 



arches. strain, though it may break from the violence to which military equip- 

 ment is often exposed. Iron arches, especially if flat and not angle iron, 

 are very liable to open under ordinary strain, and this causes them to be 

 condemned for military purposes. In a wooden arch it is the gullet plate 

 which breaks, generally through a rivet hole. 



It must be evident that in whatever way the front arch fractures, the 

 risk of wither injury is considerable, but, as a matter of fact, the arch 

 rarely breaks, and though wither injury is extremely common, it is only 

 occasionally due to this cause. 



Important The important points to attend to in an arch, apart from its strength, 



points of are : — 



1. Its height. 



2. Its width. 



Nearly the whole of the wither injuries met with in the Service are 



arch. 



Fig. 33. 



Front arch of the saddle showing the places from which the 



various measurements are made. 



due to one or the other of these causes. Either the arch is not high 

 enough or it is too narrow ; sometimes there is a combination of these 

 evils, but more frequently they are single and an injury from a narrow 

 arch is more common than ihat from a low arch. 



The subject of injuries has yet to be dealt with in detail, but to 

 prevent misconception it is desirable to state here that most of them are 

 the result of bad fitting, loss of condition or other service conditions rather 

 than errors in manufacture, such as the above remarks might appear to 

 suggest. 

 "Points'" The front arch extends below the side bars , the extension is known 

 of arch. as the " points," and these are intended to help the girths and prevent 

 the saddle from heeling over. They appear unnecessary. 



