CAUSES OF STUMBLING. 1 21 



there are various ways in which horses fall on the 

 road ; bad shoeing, as we have already said, being 

 one of them, and bad condition another. What is 

 called a false step, very different from a stumble, 

 may occur to any horse, and is occasioned by his 

 accidentally putting his foot on a loose stone, that 

 rolls away from under it, when, of course, his foot- 

 ing is lost. In this case, his chance of recovering 

 himself is in his shoulders being oblique and lengthy 

 (for upright shoulders are always short) and well 

 placed hinder-legs. Thrushes and corns are also 

 the cause of stumbling; as likewise is starting, 

 one of the worst failings a hackney can have. In 

 some horses it is a nervous afiection, rather difficult 

 to account for in animals of such strength of frame ; 

 and it often arises from imperfectly formed eyes, 

 such as flatness of the cornea, or outward surface 

 of the eye, generally a small one, causing short- 

 sightedness. In the latter case, this fault in a 

 hackney may be guarded against, by employing a 

 veterinary surgeon to inspect him previous to pur- 

 chase. 



The old adage of "' No foot, no horse,"" applies 

 particularly to the road-horse. The hunter can 

 cross a country upon feet that are very far from 

 good ; and by the help of bar-shoes, the coach- 

 horse, with no weight on his back, and with the 

 support the harness gives him, gets pretty com- 

 fortably over his stage on unsound feet; but the 

 road-horse must have sound feet. Previously to the 

 use of horse-shoes, the value of a solid hoof was so 

 great as to have been made the image by which 



