S THE LEGS OF A SKimSII HORSE. 



Miveral radical disorders of his frame. Nor is this all ; some are so evidently 

 ill-formed in the chest and carcase, from the moment they are foaled, that no 

 art of ours is equal to preventing the return of certain disorders which are sure 

 to attend a horse of that particular formation all his life time. As the one is 

 known and inevitable, so the effects of the other may be foreseen, and, in 

 some degree, alleviated, if so much trouble and expense be not greater than 

 the value of the horse. This is all that can be done for such an animal ; and 

 since the resources of art are not equal to the obstacles of animated nature, so 

 no man ought unreasonably to expect, least of all, to force his beast, to per- 

 form any species of labour or exercise for which nature or the accident of 

 birth hath rendered him anywise unfit ; although it must be allowed, as a 

 general axiom, that it is only by pushing the animal to the extent of his pow- 

 ers, that we can find out the most he is capable of performing at any given 

 work. In this way it was the fast-trotting powers of the Phsenomena mare 

 (which was before then a butcher's hack) were discovered ; for people of this 

 trade generally try the utmost their nags can perform in the trot. 



To be able to judge of a horse's defects as to what he can not do, undoubtedly 

 it seems necessary to ascertain what constitutes a fine figure, or a perfect one, 

 that can do every thing ; but when it is considered that the exposure of those 

 defects is intended to apply wholly to the origin of disorders for which he will 

 require medical treatment, if he does not deserve rejection in toto, I shall find 

 less occasion for adverting to any known horse, entirely without error in his 

 form or built. In most cases, however, good symmetry being accompanied 

 not only by the power of achieving great feats, but a good portion of health 

 also, or, at any rate, the absence of the diseases incident to a bad form, I may 

 be allowed, while exposing his faults, to deviate a little, and to contemplate 

 some few of his perfections also. 



3. The most obvious physical truths are those which can be explained upon 

 the principles of mechanics; upon such a basis, even the most abstract can be 

 securely grafted : that intelligence which is derived from experience, from ob- 

 servation, experiment, and acute reasoning, is rendered more easily understood 

 when conveyed with mechanical precision ; and however strange it may ap- 

 pear to some, the gift of speed, if not of all progression, depends more upon 

 mechanical principles than is commoidy understood to be the case. See 

 farther onward at Section 9, where the details are given. In all compound 

 bodies, whether animate or inanimate, intended for our active use, it is above 

 all other things requisite that they should stand well upon their bases or legs. 

 A horse, or a joint stool, evidently defective in this particular quality, would 

 be shunned as insecure ; and the one is sometimes endued with movements as 

 little suited to one's ideas of getting on safely as the other, both being indebted 

 to their original bad built (or chaipenJe, as Lafosse calls it) for the defect. 

 Cover them both, the one with muscle and skin, the other with drapery, how 

 you will, the faulty legs are faulty still. A good stable aphorism has it thus 

 — " a horse that does not stand well can do nothing well ; and by natural 

 inference, the horse that walks well can perform other paces well." 



A much better example, however, may be found 

 in a four legged table, of which every horseman 

 knows there are many of difTerent sizes and ol 

 various workmanship, some for heavy or rough 

 usage, others more for show and to sustain light 

 weights. But, if the fore and hind 'egs bend 

 towards each other upon the ground, any car- 

 penter may see that this first clement of an ill-for 

 ination must sooner or later, produce a fall; he will know that more strength 

 tor supporting great weigiits would be found by making all four legs perp^nidicu 



