94 UNASKED ADVICE. 



this faith. How the public paid its money ! How it 

 invested money in leathern straps and instructions for use. 

 How assiduously a few practised the art, and how unani- 

 mously and cheerfully the many have forgotten it ! Who 

 begins breaking in a colt now on the Rarey system ? 

 Echo answers " Who \" That broom had but a limited 

 amount of wear in it. 



Take up any sporting newspaper of a bygone date, not 

 of necessity a very remote one, and look at the advertise- 

 ments. Here are new brooms with a vengeance. Take 

 up one of to-day, and you see that they are supplanted 

 by a fresh series of infallibilities, that will in their turn 

 be speedily forgotten. One undertakes to cure all lame- 

 ness, another to stop pullers and runaway horses, a third 

 to keep their bodies in constant and unfailing health ; 

 but, in spite of all, horses still go lame, still run away 

 (and, indeed, if a horse really means that performance, 

 he will succeed in it luckily, they seldom mean it in 

 earnest), and still lose condition. 



On consideration I think that the greater number of 

 new brooms that have been introduced into the stable 

 have been intended to sweep away from veterinary 

 pockets the profits consequent on foot lameness in the 

 horse. What scores of schemes have been invented, dis- 

 cussed, praised, proved worthless, and forgotten, for pre- 

 serving in its natural state, or an approach to it, the 

 foot of the horse by shoeing ! Not so very long ago 

 there was even a discussion as to whether shoes were 

 necessary at all. A ride on the road on a bare-footed 

 horse convinced those who tried it that that plan would 

 not answer. No end of plans have been brought forward 

 and forgotten for shoeing all sorts of horses, but the 

 common way has hitherto held its own. The notion of 



