LESSONS IN HORSE JUDGING. 95 



The hip joint is largely affected by both obli- 

 quities. It will bo highest in straight quarters, 

 and lowest in drooping quarters. The length of 

 the thigh bone is the same in all positions of the 

 joint so that the stifle joint will be lowest and 

 furthest advanced under the body in drooping 

 quarters. This condition is most favorable for 

 fast walking and trotting, but httle favorable for 

 galloping, because the more the quarters droop, 

 the more is the femur or thigh bone directed for- 

 wards and downwards, and having a hmited mo- 

 tion, and placed almost at right angles with the 

 iho -ischium, its movement backwards is therefore 

 less, and incapable of being stretched well back 

 in the gallop. The femur is placed at right an- 

 gles, or nearly so, with the ilio-ischium, so that 

 its arc of motion will be the further advanced the 

 more drooping the quarters. 



To judge the length of the femur in the living 

 horse, you draw an imaginary line from the 

 prominence at the tail to point 1, then the head 

 or top of the femur is at the end of the first third 

 of this distance, and the other end is quite well 

 represented by the depression or notch, formed at 

 the stifle joint. The femur is a very thick bone, 

 and very powerful, and clothed by the large mus- 

 cles of the thigh. It extends from the socket on 

 the ilio-ischium, whilst the lower end is placed 

 upon the two bones below (tibia and fibula) with 

 the pateUa or knee-cap in front, and thus forms 

 the largest joint in the body, called the stifle joint 

 (our knee joint). 



78.— One bone only, the tibia, reaches from the 



