28 THE PERFECT HOKSE. 



and lungs should receive at their hands the closest 

 inspection: for a merely circular chest, or a narrow, 

 pinched, and shallow chest, does not give heart and lung 

 room enough ; and without this there can be no high, 

 prolonged rate of speed. 



After the head, neck, and chest have been duly in- 

 spected, and their excellences or defects remarked, the 

 buyer should turn his attention to the 



BONES, 



in order to ascertain whether they supply the animal 

 with the needed upholding and supporting power, not 

 merely when at rest or in easy action, but when, in his 

 high flights of speed, he delivers his strokes with the 

 energy of a locomotive. For when a horse, weighing, 

 perhaps, eleven hundred pounds, comes rushing down 

 the course, the shock to his bone structure, as represent- 

 ed by his legs, is something beyond our power to realize ; 

 and how such a small column of bone as the canon-bone, 

 for instance, can sustain the blow, I have never been 

 able to comprehend. 



The first point for the student of the horse to bear in 

 mind is, that the size of a bone does not give the true 

 measure of its strength, but rather the size and texture 

 both. The leg-bone of a thorough-bred horse, as all 

 know, is much smaller in size than the leg-bone of the 

 cart-horse; but, at the same time, it is many times 

 stronger. The reason of this is, that, in the one case, 

 the bone is coarse and porous in its texture ; while in 



