174 THE horse's rescue. 



one colt in my life, I think, that was foaled with what 

 is called ringbone. I did not see this colt until he was 

 about four months old. The mother had ringbone on 

 both forward feet. I was looking at this colt. I 

 thought I could see a little enlargement around the 

 top of the wall. It did not look quite ]-ight to me. I 

 watched him. At about eight months he began to 

 show signs of trouble in his forward feet. When he 

 traveled over frozen ground I could see it hurt him. 

 At one year old he was lame in one foot. With all of 

 my study of the horse this is the only case of this 

 kind I ever saw. I think nine-tenths of the ringbones 

 are the result of irritation caused by contraction and 

 leverage. To raise over the lever irritates badly where 

 the ringbone has its rise. I have experimented on 

 these in this way by shortening the lever and giving 

 easy toe to raise on. They would go better as long as 

 the cause of the irritation was kept removed. I never 

 meddled with their feet spreading. I never have seen 

 one cured. I have seen lots of men torturing them 

 and watching the result, and have had as good oppor- 

 tunities as any man. I have lived with horses all of 

 my life, and been straddle of their legs, or had their 

 feet on me in some way (and sometimes they were on 

 my head), and their teeth, too. I have had these ring- 

 bone curers come into my shop to heat up their irons. 

 They would have several kinds, which they would 

 heat red-hot ; kept some in the fire heating all of the 

 time, so as to keep this red-hot business of torturing 

 the horse a-going fast. I have seen this done on ring- 

 bone horses, when the cause of their worst trouble was 

 that the toe of the foot was one inch too long, and had 



