COMMON UXSOUXDXESSES. 169 



should be careful at what price they bought a horse 

 with symptoms of this complaint, and had better not 

 buy him at all. 



It is an enlargement of the coverings of the large 

 tendon running down the back of the fore leg from 

 the knee to the fetlock, and gives that tendon the 

 appearance of being thickened and enlarged, or in 

 bad cases of being bowed out backwards. This 

 unsoundness is so common a source of injury and 

 loss to the owners of racehorses, that it is to be 

 wondered that more attention and pains have not 

 been bestowed on trying to find out the cause of it, 

 and as it cannot be remedied after it has happened, 

 to try and prevent its happening. It must strike 

 anyone who gives the matter his consideration, as 

 an extraordinary thing, that while a thoroughbred 

 horse can be used to carry from twelve to fourteen 

 stone through one day's hunting after another, and 

 be galloping over all sorts of ground, and jumping 

 aU sorts of fences, often for some hours at a time, a 

 case of breakdown of the back sinew should be rarely 

 heard of, and still that the same animals, when 

 galloping for less than two miles on smooth flat turf, 

 with no more than what in hunting parlance would 

 be called a feather weight on their backs, should 

 be constantly failing in this point. 



I believe the explanation would be found in two 

 distinct causes. 



The first is that from the method in which they 



