274 



TRAINING THE TROTTING HORSE. 



pared clown every time the horse is shod. The knife 

 should never be used on the sole or frog. 



What we ma\" call tlie angle of the foot is a very 

 important consideration, for the slant or obliquity of 

 the pastern must very materially depend upon that of 

 the hoof. It needs no elaboration to show that if the 

 heel be extremely high the pastern must be very 

 straight, and if it be very low the pastern will be very 

 oblique. 



Fearnley, the noted English authority to whom I 

 have referred, treats the fore legs as the weight-bearers, 

 and the hind legs as the propellers. Practically this is 



^ 



true, but whether in the trotting-horse the fore leg has 

 strictly no other function than weight-bearing, I am 

 not entirely sure. However that may be, it is the 

 weight-bearer, and Fearnley fixes the coffin-joint as the 

 focus of weight in the foot. If the foot be either 

 too high or too low at the heel, if the proper angle of 

 the ground surface with the line of the coronet be 

 changed, then it is obvious that the focus of weight 

 will be disturbed. It will be thrown either too far 

 forward or too far backward, just as it would be thrown 

 on one side if you put on a shoe two inches thick on 

 one side and a half an inch on the other. The import- 

 ance then of keeping the foot properly leveled is 



