PREPARING PONIES FOR MEASUREMENT. 121 



of discrimination, lest the measuring authorities might 

 reject the animal on the score of its being too sick. The 

 able practitioner will, from previous experience, 

 accurately determine the extreme point to which he 

 can go in playing his game with the members of the 

 measuring committee. 



As animals at sea get but little sleep and usually 

 have to stand all the time they are on board, it is often 

 advisable, especially if they have suffered much in 

 condition from the passage, to bring up for measurement 

 ponies that have just been landed from a long voyage. 



Some ponies measure lower when their head is held 

 up than when the poll is kept on a level with the 

 withers. As the owner or his representative is usually 

 allowed to hold the pony's head, he will generally be 

 allowed to use his own discretion in keeping it up or 

 down, so long as the poll is not brought below the 

 level of the withers. The measuring authorities, as a 

 rule, will take under their own direction the placing 

 of the animal's legs. It is almost needless to say that 

 if the limbs are stretched out of the perpendicular, or if 

 the fore-feet are unduly separated from each other in 

 a lateral direction, the pony will measure lower than 

 he would do, were his position more in accordance with 

 the rules for measuring. 



Lowering the heels, within certain limits, will, by 

 increasing the obliquity of the pasterns, decrease the 

 height more than reducing the toes to the same extent. 

 If, however, the heels are so much pared down that 

 the animal cannot stand firmly on them, the rasping 

 or cutting will, as a rule, produce the undesirable effect 

 of making the pony add to his height by causing him 



