EXTERNAL FORMAITON, DISORDERS, &c 9 



happen to forget what has been before said, lending to the same point of in 

 formation, or he be at a loss whereabout he should look to refresh his memory, 

 these references supply him with the ready means of overcoming the difficulty. 

 By adopting this method, 1 have likewise avoided the repetitions inseparable 

 from a work of this nature, and have thus saved room. 



CHAPTER I. 



External formation or structure of the Horse, and the disorders originating 

 therein. 



Section 1. — Scarcely any man who is in the habit of seeing many horses 

 perform their labour, and observing their capabilities of several kinds, but ac- 

 quires, thereby, some insight of the properties conferred on the animal by 

 such or such points of conformation. He can tell, at first sight, nearly from 

 this habitude, " what a horse can do ;" but few men reduce their observations 

 to writing, least of all to principles, upon which we may afterwards reason, or 

 draw conclusions with any degree of certainty, as to what duties a horse can 

 not perform properly, when wanting those points of excellence, and which 

 duties ought, therefore, never to be required of him ; or, being so imposed 

 upon him improperly, are productive of certain disorders that invariably attend 

 such misapplication of his powers. No doubt it has happened, that a horse 

 with a radical defect, — in the shape of his hind quarters, for example, — yet 

 having a corresponding defect before, the one makes up for the other, and 

 such horses may occasionally perform well for a short time, but then they are 

 no lasters ; all the while they may thus be at the full stretch of their physical 

 powers, straining to the utmost the immediate coverings of the bones, some 

 thing or other is going to wreck — of muscle or tendon, of ligature or sinew. 

 Sooner or later so much excessive fatigue of the deformity runs along the 

 solids, and reaching the vitals, occasions constitutional disease, or leave behind 

 it an incurable malady of the limbs, mostly descending to the feet. Equally 

 true is it, that we find out new properties, or hidden powers in a horse, which 

 had never hitherto been known to his owners ; but, then, as I shall particu- 

 larize by and by, no such latent powers were ever discovered in any horse, 

 without his possessing certain just proportions of the bones taken altogether.* 

 What these proportions are, as well as what they are not, I come presently to 

 lay down : the integuments (or coverings) ever adapting themselves thereto, in 

 one.case produce what is called symmetry; but if the limb be disproportioned, 

 the coverings adapt themselves to that particular defect, and enlarged muscle 

 at these particular places becomes visible to the common observer. 



The acquiring a ready mode of discovering when a horse of the one or the 

 other formation is presented to our notice, forms the perfection of art in pur- 

 chasing a horse. 



2. But the horses's achievements, or "what he can do," under certain cir- 

 cumstances of shape and make, would ill employ my pen at the present mo- 

 ment — valuable as the investigation must always be in itself — were it not for 

 the practical application I mean to make of it shortly, by way of illustrating 

 the direct contrary^ or defective shape a' -l make, as being the harbinger of 



■ Eclipse, a horse whose very name is used as synonymous for speed, had none of the pro- 

 nonions generally deemed indispensable to great speed, and he was cast, by the Duke of Cum- 

 eerland. for his apparent deformities when a colt; but his defects in one panicular were amply 

 RUjiplied by excesses in another, and, taken altogether, composed the very best bit of bone, 

 kIcmmJ, and muscle ever produced. His lineage, lateral consangainity, and liie lend of cross \j 

 wlucli he was got, demand the breeders' serious attention. 



