THE STALLION. 23 



hoof -heads go with sidebones, and so on through 

 a list which need not be farther detailed here. 

 Faulty surroundings in youth are the main 

 cause for most of the unsoundnesses we see in 

 horses. 



It has been maintained that the stock term 

 ''quality" has never yet been properly defined. 

 My definition of quality is "refinement of 

 fibre." Letting that go for what it is worth, the 

 fact remains that we recognize quality in a gen- 

 eral way by refinement of conformation and tex- 

 ture of hair. Whether the hair dominates the 

 quality or the quality unseen dominates the hair 

 I am not prepared to say. Let us call the rela- 

 tion reciprocal. We have all heard a lot about 

 the clean flat ivory-like bone of some horses and 

 the meaty, coarse, spongy, round bone of others 

 — beautiful quality in the former, no quality at 

 all in the latter. To the first is joined a good 

 foot, to the second a poor one, and there is a 

 good reason for this, even if some of the terms 

 and beliefs quoted have no foundation in fact. 



There is no such thing as flat bone, as the 

 term is used in the horse. The canon bones are 

 round. It is the tendon that gives the flat ap- 

 pearance. The bone in the quality horse is not 

 necessarily stronger than the bone in the other 

 horse. The roundness of the leg is produced by 

 the thickness of the skin and the presence of 

 tissues about the tendon. The Colorado Experi- 

 ment Station has found the bone of a common 



