io6 Management and Treatment of the Horse. 



Having given a brief outline of the structure 

 of the foot of the horse, I now propose to show 

 the principal diseases affecting that important 

 part. The foot being the foundation, and it is 

 useless to have a fine top without a foundation* 

 1^0 man would think of building a mansion with- 

 out foundations, yet many a gentleman will buy 

 a fine-top horse without a foot to stand on, and 

 expect it to carry him through hard runs, and is 

 dreadfully disappointed if he comes to grief. No 

 child dreads the fire worse than a groom with 

 a large stud dreads bad feet ; they are to him a 

 perpetual source of annoyance. It is his hete 

 noir by day and by night, and his constant 

 prayer is, ''May my employer always buy feet, 

 and never buy a horse from a friend I " Such is 

 the honour among some gentlemen (spare the 

 mark !) that if they have a screw which a 

 respectable dealer will not buy, they sell it to 

 their friend. The horse soon goes lame, and 

 then the poor groom has to bear the blame ; this 

 is often the case with a horse suffering from 

 laminitis ; he is patched up, his shoes taken off, 

 put on wet clay, cooling medicine given, coronet 

 blistered, and after three months' run he is sold 

 to some friend. 



LAMINITIS. 



Look well to the foot of the horse ; if he has 

 had laminitis, the hoof will be wrinkled like a 

 cow's horn. Many people when about to sell 

 a horse that has had laminitis or its companion, 

 symptomatic fever, will get the smith to rasp out 



