104 LESSOXS IN HORSE JUDGING. 



inner metatarsal bone. These points form the 

 four points of the square, and the sides are the 

 imaginar}^ lines between these four points. The 

 reader will find further information about the 

 hock in my work entitled "Lectures on the Exam- 

 ination of Horses as to Soundness." It is not within 

 the scope of the present work to speak of morbid 

 conditions — such as spavin, curb, ringbone, splint, 

 and so forth, which is better left to the work referred 

 to, but we must caution the reader against an ap- 

 pearance of ' curb.' When the head of the outer 

 small metatarsal bone is large, it gives the side 

 aspect of the really- good well made hock a ' curbed' 

 appearance, because the line from the extreme point 

 of hock to the fetlock at the back should be quite 

 straight, and is straight in all except badly formed 

 hocks and such as have 'curbs.' Even when the 

 head of the outer small bone named is large and 

 breaks this line when viewed from the side, the 

 straight line is still found when you approach the 

 hock and run your fingers down the middle line of 

 the parts behind. 



The angle at the hock we saw was formed by the 

 tibia impinging upon the astragalus, and we 

 further saw that the less this angle, the weaker 

 the hock. The hind legs must therefore be as up- 

 right, or rather as straight as possible, in order to 

 be as strong as possible. But we have already seen 

 that power (strength) is universally gained at the 

 expense of speed, which, in turn, can only be obtained 



