834 THE horse's rescue. 



Cut No. 6 shows the foot badly changed from natural, it is badly 

 contracted. You can see the heels are closed together. In doing 

 this it raises the sole up. The mischief it does I have written about. 

 To cure these horses my work treats on. I expand the foot, let the 

 sole down, and make cut No. 6 have the appearance of cut No. 5. It 

 does not tear the foot apart, as many would suppose ; it simply lets 

 the sole down to its natural and proper place, as it originally was. In 

 doing this every degree, no rnatter how small you change or expand 

 the foot, the circle of the foot grows larger. There are three ways to 

 do this : The first is to pull the shoes off, dress the feet, so as to let 

 the horse's body go back on the base if Le is off, so the weight will be 

 in center of feet; dress the feet, all slanting toward the point of frog; 

 keep the frog cut away, so it will not touch the ground; drive with 

 no shoes. Thp second is in expanding with shoes, and the principles 

 are all laid down. The third is in expanding with shoe. The last 

 does the wcrk in a few days. The other two processes are slow. 

 They cannot all be cured in that way. The second process is in 

 expanding the foot by the horse's weight with shoes ; and the last is 

 by spreading, as shown in cuts No. 7 and 8. 



No. 7. 



Cut No, 7 shows the arch-shape the bottom of the foot will assume 

 when contraction takes place. This little simple skeleton-cut is to 

 show you the whole business of expansion and contraction. The 

 straight line, B B, is to represent the ground. Arched line, A, and 

 C C, shows the sole of, or bottom of, the foot raised up. A is sup- 

 posed to be in the center of the foot at point of frog, but it is not, and 

 there are few that are perfectly true. F is to show the frog under A. 

 Now I want to expand the foot and settle the frog down to straight 

 line, B B. Suppose I put Vv^eight (no matter what kind) on this 

 arched line, A, and the arched line above was not made fast at 

 points, B B, where arch-line, A, forms fulcrum, arch-line, A, would 

 be likely to settle ; and if it did it would spread the foot and con- 

 tinue to do so until the frog came to a rest on the ground, la 



