AND HOW TO KEEP IT SOUND 19 



heels of tlie shoe j and if he find that to be considerable, he 

 does not stop to inquire what quantity of the foot is exposed 

 by the opening, but seeing what he calls " a good open 

 foot," is satisfied, forgetting altogether that his inspection 

 never extended to the foot at all, but was confined exclusive- 

 ly to the shoe. 



Having shown in what manner this practice is unphiloso- 

 phical, I will turn to the consideration of it as pernicious, it 

 beincr one of the commonest causes of a horse falling sudden- 

 ly lame, or dropping as if he had been shot, — two phrases 

 unluckily in much too common use to require explanation 

 here. 



No portion of the foot needs protection from our hard stony 

 roads, like those which are comprised in the space betv/een 

 the heels ; for just in front of the cleft of the frog, immediate- 

 ly over the centre of that space, lies the navicular joint,* 

 which, it must be remembered, is compelled to sustain nearly 

 the whole weight of the horse, alternately with that of the 

 other foot at every movement he makes ; and is moreover 

 the seat of nine-tenths of the chronic lameness to which he is 

 liable. We must also remember, that this joint is formed by 

 the navicular bone and the tendon which passes under it ; 

 and we can readily imagine that its delicate membranes, be- 

 ing jammed against their own bone by the weight of the horse 

 and his rider on the one hand, and a stone resting upon a 

 hard road on the other hand, must receive a most painful and 

 distressing squeeze ; but if, as is too oflen the case, these 

 membranes chance to be in a state of inflammation, our 

 wonder may well cease that the poor animal should drop as 

 if he had been shot ; for more exquisite torture it is not possi- 

 ble to inflict upon him. 



Again : if we take the weight of the horse at half a ton, 

 and that of his rider at eleven stone, and propel the combined 

 weights with the whole muscular power of the animal against 

 a firmly fixed stone, it would call for no great stretch of 

 imagination to conceive that the collision might sometimes 

 fracture so small a bone as the navicular bone, and produce 

 mstant and incurable lameness. These things do happen ; 

 and it is to obviate them, and the intermediate train of smaller 

 evils, that I always employ a tolerably wide-webbed shoe, 

 tnd bring in the heels of it almost close to the frog, so as to 

 "educe the opening between the heels as much as I con- 



• Page 47, fig. 1. 



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