WORKING CAPACITY OF UNSHOD HORSES. 543 



thought necessary to shoe a horse ! Here, where weight is of the very 

 utmost consequence, the heels of the English race-horse must be 

 weighted with plates ! The fact that Marden, when he ran barefoot 

 in the Sandown Derby on June 2, 1882, beat, in the deciding heat, his 

 two shod opponents by three lengths (though in his first race with 

 them that day Marden, with his plates on, could only dead heat them), 

 such a fact as this weighs little with the horsey Englishman, who will 

 still be found to set his thoughts or opinions against facts ! After all 

 that can be said as far as argument goes, he will still be found to pre- 

 fer mere assertion ; it will still be the " I think this," and " I don't 

 think the other," with him ! But then is not the horsey (and for the 

 most part untraveled) Englishman, as a rule, in the language of •' Free- 

 lance " in " Horses and Roads," " energetically conservative " ? 



Any one who will read this book will thereby much increase his 

 knowledge as to the real capability of the horse's hoof. " Horses and 

 Roads " was published in 1880, by Longman, Paternoster Row. I find 

 quoted in it the saying, " An ounce at the heel tells more than a pound 

 on the back." This explains Marden's success when, by removal of 

 " plates," his heels were lightened for the deciding heat. 



But many of our countrymen connected with horses, deeming 

 themselves practical men, are too apt to think that they have, as Mr. 

 Ransom (" Freelance ") says, " gone into everything," and they may 

 consider their knowledge as to the real capability of the horse's hoof 

 complete. Now, is it complete? Is 

 not shoeing horses very much a mat- 

 ter of routine with us ? I will give two 

 instances in order to prove this : 



1. Some weeks ago I received a 

 letter in which the writer said that he 

 had been told by a veterinary surgeon 

 that if a horse were worked barefoot 

 his hoofs *' would wear down to the 

 quick in a few hours^ Now, I saw 

 the other day a horse which has been 

 doing the work of his master, a doc- 

 tor, barefoot^ not for " a few hours," 

 hui iov over five years ! During this 

 time the horse must have traveled, 



shoeless as he is, some thirteen thousand miles over the not too good 

 roads of the east of London, and often with a heavy brougham behind 

 him. The hoofs of this horse are the admiration of veterinary sur- 

 geons, and they show no sign of uudue wear. Tliis horse teas unshod 

 when eight years old. 



2. I recently saw a pony seventeen or eighteen years old, never 

 shod, except for a short time when in the breaker's hands. This 

 breaker shod the pony. This was done against the master's wish and 



