CONFORMATION AND ACTION 17 



is straight (see Figure 2), or short (see Figure 3), or 

 straight and short (see Figure 4), there will be a me- 

 chanical deficiency of power and often an unpleasant 

 and lumbering gait. Moreover, with such a formation 

 the saddle is liable to work forward and the rider be 

 placed off the centre of gravity. 



It is, then, in this upper bone that the oft-quoted 

 length and slant of the shoulder should lie. The lower 

 bone, or humerus, on the contrary, should be rather 

 short and straight (see Figure 1) in order to bring the 

 horse's fore legs under him in the proper position. In 

 a well-formed horse a line, called the perpendicular 

 line, dropped from the point of the shoulder, should 

 nearly touch the point of the toe. If this lower bone 

 of the shoulder is too long or oblique (see Figures 2 

 and 4) it will have the effect of placing the animal's 

 fore legs too far under him, thus bringing his weight 

 too far forward and resulting in the centre of gravity 

 being as much out of line as it would be in a horse in 

 whom the upper shoulder blade was straight. There- 

 fore, even though a horse may have a good scapula, or 

 shoulder blade, unless he also has a short, straight, and 

 properly proportioned lower bone, he could not be 

 said to possess a really oblique shoulder. It is in this 

 respect that some people seem to confound, or rather 

 interchange, the terms of what is, in truth, an oblique 

 shoulder with one in which only the upper blade is 

 at the correct angle but counterbalanced by the 

 wrong position of the lower bone. One author says 

 that it is not enough to rely on slanting shoulders, 

 when it is quite as much a question of the setting on 

 of the fore legs. He says, for example, "If a horse 

 has slanting shoulders and also a long, oblique, true 

 arm, that brings the setting of the fore legs well back, 



