66 DRIVING. 



ossification between them, when it will be found difficult to 

 apply a treatment which will be satisfactory. 



Bone-spavin, where the fluid which ought to lubricate the 

 joints of the hock ceases to be generated, may produce an in- 

 curable lameness ; but where it proceeds from a bony deposit, 

 forming a junction of the small bones, blistering or firing before 

 stiffness of the hock takes place may render the horse suffi- 

 ciently sound for harness-work. Neither bload nor bog-spavin 

 nor thorough-pin will necessarily cause lameness, but if it should 

 do so, it is usually susceptible of cure. 



' Big legs ' is the term usually used for the strain of any of 

 the sinews or ligaments of the leg. Such injuries are of so 

 varied a character that it is almost impossible to say whether a 

 horse should be rejected on this account, but horses affected in 

 the sinews can rarely be trusted to last long in work. 



' Curbs,' if not of long standing, are usually curable, and 

 are not of such importance in a harness horse as in a hunter, 

 but the longer a curb has lasted the less probability is there of 

 effecting its cure. Curbs in young horses can be easily and 

 quite permanently cured. Foment till the heat is out, and then 

 apply a strong blister to raise a scurf ; keep the animal on in 

 work, and repeat the treatment. It may probably come home 

 lame, but in two or three months the trouble will have been 

 removed. 



1 Corns ' and 'thrush' are diseases of the feet which, when 

 pointed out to the farrier and groom respectively, should be 

 cured by careful shoeing or attention to stable management. 



The vices of a horse cannot be discovered by a veterinary 

 examination, but a horse that is affected in one of its eyes is 

 pretty sure to see the objects which come in its path either 

 distorted or with a suddenness which would not be the case 

 had he his perfect sight, and such an affection almost invariably 

 leads to a tendency on the part of the animal to shy. A totally 

 blind horse is less likely to put the trap and its occupants into 

 the ditch than one that is only partially so. But it is seldom 

 that a horse's vices are not discoverable in the course of a 



