30 THE HORSE. 



and the excoriations should be touched with tincture 

 of myrrh, or a saturnine lotion. A famous racing 

 stallion of former days died in consequence of a mor- 

 tification in his sheath, occasioned entirely by un- 

 cleanness and neglect. The feet also of some have 

 been so totally neglected, that they have become un- 

 able to walk ; the case of the far-famed Eclipse, which 

 from that inability, made his last journey in a car- 

 riage purposely constructed. The toes of these horses 

 should be kept short, the feet regularly pared from 

 excrescences, and often suppled with water; nor 

 should walking exercise and airings abroad be neg- 

 lected. Immediately after the covering season, the 

 stallion should be soiled with fine fresh-cut natural 

 grass, lucerne or melibot. 



There are certain external and visible defects in the 

 horse and mare, which may be, and often are propa- 

 gated. The chief of these are splents, spavins, round 

 and gourdy legs, subject to grease and running 

 thrushes ; crooked hams, thick, ill-shaped and ill-set 

 heads, imperfect eves. Good or evil qualities like- 

 wise, are propagated, and it is not advisable to breed 

 from a restiff horse or mare. Saltram, by Eclipse, a 

 horse which ran at Newmarket when blind, commu- 

 nicated that defect to his progeny ; among others, to 

 Sir Charles Bunbury's Whiskey, which being blind 

 himself, got scarcely any foals that retained their 

 sight. Asthmatic or broken-winded mares, with few 

 exceptions, are barren ; but age need be no bar to the 

 sound and healthy mare, since good stock has been 

 produced by the aged of both sexes ; although the 

 period between five and ten years must be deemed 



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