462 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



or amble, mentions ' tramels, heavy shoes, pasternes of 

 lead, and shoes of advantage ' being used on the hind 

 limbs, ' to keep the hinder parts of the horse down, and 

 to cause his hinder feete strike further forward within his 

 fore parts.' The 'shoe of advantage' was the most dan- 

 gerous ; as the projections or plates at the toe struck the 

 tendons of the fore-legs and seriously injured them. For 

 the coursers, the day before racing, the hoofs were to be 

 shod, ' but let them be such shooes as shall be best agree- 

 ing to the race ; which if it bee a soft moore or swarth, 

 let them be but thinne plates, or halfe shooes (like a halfe 

 moone), but if it bee hard and gravelly, let them be 

 whole shooes, but yet so light as is possible.' 



Markham's principal work on farriery and horseman- 

 ship ' contains little beyond what Blundevil had stated 

 in the previous century ; but in a smaller treatise ^ we 

 have some examples given of the condition of horses' 

 feet, and the attention they received. For ' foundering, 

 frettizing, or any imperfection in the feet or hoofes of an 

 horse,' he gives the following directions for the treatment 

 of the unfortunate creature's extremities : ' First pare thin, 

 open the heels, and take good store of blood from the 

 toes, then tack on a shooe, somewhat hollow,' The sole 

 was then to be filled up with all kinds of fantastic com- 

 pounds. In a later edition of this treatise (1647) ^^^ 

 omits the 'good store of blood:' 'First pare thinne, 

 open the heels wide, and shooe large, strong, and hol- 

 low.' 



The agon^' the poor horses must have suffered on a 



' Masterpiece. London, 1638. 

 ' The Faitliful Farrier. London, 16.39. 



