266 TRAINING THE TROTTING HORSE. 



What I have already said renders it unnecessary to 

 add miicii more on the subject of toe-weights. Like 

 hoods and muzzles, they may be in rare cases beneficial 

 and even necessary, but they are so much abused that 

 it is a conviction with me that it is the safest plan to 

 discard them altogether. The time is surely coming 

 when toe-weight trotters will cut a small figure on the 

 turf, and toe-weights will gradually be abolished. So 

 I may say that I am opposed on general principles to 

 the use of toe-weights, but if I had a horse that would 

 not trot in any other way, or a pacer I could convert 

 in no other way, I would, as a last resort, try toe- 

 weights. I would exhaust every other resource at 

 my command before putting on the " murderous toe- 

 weiffhts," and if I had to use them I would discard 

 them just as quickly as possible after they had served 

 their purpose. I would try the horse without them 

 every little while, so that whenever he Avould go with- 

 out them they could be finally cast aside. As I have 

 already said, they are in the majority of cases used un- 

 necessarily. They are ado])ted as a remedy for evils 

 that can best be met by removing the cause, and as 

 horses becoming unbalanced by being urged beyond 

 what they can honestly do, hitching, etc., from hitting 

 themselves, or from any of the many minor causes that 

 tend to unbalance a horse's action. Toe-weights have 

 undoubtedly made some trotters, and have been valu- 

 able in converting pacers to trot, but the perfect trot- 

 ter should go without them ; and the trotter that trots 

 fastest, carries his speed the furthest and lasts sound 

 the longest will, in the majority of cases, be the horse 

 that trots without metal encumbrances on his toes. I 



