AND HOW TO KEEP IT SOUND. 35 



found that he had taken his gallop in shoes to which his feet 

 had become accustomed ; but he ran his race in new plates 

 firmly nailed from heel to h^el, "making him quite safe," by 

 putting it out of the range ot possibility that he should ever 

 be enabled to "get into his best pace," for there is nothing 

 more certain than the fact, that a horse cannot go his best 

 pace unless his feet are allowed to expand freely to his 

 weight at every stride, A ready way of permitting this ex- 

 pansion would be the adoption of three-quarter plates extend- 

 ing from the outer heel to the commencement of the inner 

 quarter, which would effectually protect those parts most ex- 

 posed to wear and tear in the generality of horses' feet, viz. 

 from the inner toe across the foot to the outer-quarter. Such 

 a plate might be very securely retained by six nails dis- 

 tributed between the outer heel and inner toe, thereby re- 

 serving to the whole inner side of the hoof its uncontrolled 

 power of expansion. 



I turn now to the consideration of a subject of fully as 

 much importance to the health and soundness of a horse's 

 foot as good shoeing itself; I mean that inestimable blessing 

 to him, freedom of motion in the stable. The advantages of a 

 loose box are so little understood by horse-masters in general, 

 that its usefulness is almost entirely limited in their estima- 

 tion to sickness and disease : and it is no uncommon si^ht to 

 behold two or three loose boxes untenanted, because, forsooth, 

 there are no sick horses in the stud. 



I was first led to divide my stable into boxes instead of stalls 

 from motives of compassion for my horse, and a desire to rid 

 myself of the uncomfortable feeling it always produces in 

 me, to see so docile and generous an animal subject to even 

 greater restraint than a wild beast in a menagerie ; for the 

 lion or tiger is permitted freely to traverse his small den, 

 while the poor horse is chained by the head to a fixed point 

 in his still smaller den, a prisoner twice imprisoned, and 

 denied even the poor relief afforded by a change of position. 

 I little thought, while thus solely bent upon ministering to 

 my horse's comfort, how essentially I was furthering my 

 own interest, until an accident brought me acquainted with 

 Mr. James Turner's invaluable treatise on the foot of the 

 horse, where I first learned, what subsequent experience has 

 fully confirmed to me, the wonderful extent to which the 

 usefulness of the horse is secured and prolonged by the free- 

 dom of motion obtained in a loose box. We have already 

 seen how materially his usefulness is impaired by th« 



