THE NOBLE SCIENCE. 79 



it affords firmer footing. I am not presuming to offer any 

 treatise upon this scientific branch of farriery : — but to 

 return to the "lost shoe/' and the best means of guarding 

 against such an event, — I will briefly state my belief that 

 everything depends upon the hind-shoes — upon their 

 fabric and position. Where one shoe is pulled off by 

 the retentive power of the ground, twenty are torn off 

 by the over-reach of the hind-shoe. The wound called 

 an over-reach, so disastrous in its effects, is made not by 

 the outside, but by the inside edge of the hind-shoe, which 

 is commonly left sharp, and well adapted to gripe the 

 heel of the fore-shoe, or to inflict a cut in the flesh above 

 it ; all horses, from their natural action, in deep ground, 

 being more or less liable to over-reach in their gallop. 

 The inside, as well as outside edge, should be well 

 bevelled off, so that the toe of the hind-shoe should 

 present only a blunt convex surface. Previously to 

 rendering hind-shoes thus harmless, I had frequent 

 over-reaches. In the last seven years I have not had 

 one ; nor, in the course of the two last seasons, hunting 

 on the average four days a week, can I call to mind 

 having more than once lost a shoe. 



I am borne out, therefore, by experience, in my as- 

 sertion that proper care and attention to shoeing will 

 obviate the inconvenience of "lost shoes," to say nothing 

 of the preservation from broken feet ; many a hoof being 

 pretty considerably broken before the loss of the shoe 

 has been discovered. 



