SOUNDNESS AND UN.SOUNDNESS. 491 



action would lie against the warranty of either the 

 roarer or the crib-biter, provided the alteration in 

 the structure of the former, and the ugly, and too 

 often hurtful, habit of the latter, did not incapaci- 

 tate them from doing all that the purchaser required 

 of them. We therefore pronounce a horse to be a 

 sound horse, if, with proper care of him in the 

 stable, and no unnecessary or unreasonable abuse 

 of him wdien at work, he performs the duties he is 

 required to perform, and continues to perform them 

 after proper intervals of rest. We differ, therefore, 

 from Chief Justice Best, (afterwards Lord AVyn- 

 ford,) who told the jury (Best v. Osborne) that 

 sou7id meant perfect ; but it is fair to add, that 

 his lordship was sitting in judgment on a case 

 wherein the operation of unnerving having been 

 performed unknown to the purchaser, was set forth 

 against a warranty of soundness. How far perfec- 

 tion in the nervous and organic system is absolutely 

 essential is another question ; but many instances 

 could be produced of horses having had the nerve 

 leading from the foot up the leg divided, carrying- 

 heavy sportsmen with hounds equally well as if, in 

 this respect, they had been perfect. That cele- 

 brated horseman, Mr. Maxse, rode a horse that had 

 been thus operated upon, over Leicestershire, and 

 was well and safely carried by him. A castrated 

 horse is not a perfect horse ; neither, in the strict 

 application of the term, could one be so considered 

 that had been either docked or cropped. 



But unsoundness is a term, the exact limits of 

 which are not very clearly defined. For example, 



