40 THE FARMER S VETERINARIAN 



SPECIAL TYPE IN HORSES 



Our breeds of horses may be divided into three 

 general classes. Those used for speed, those for 

 draft and those w^ith a mixture of the two — a gen- 

 eral purpose sort of horse. The speed or trotting 

 horse has its distinct type; it has been evolving 

 and developing through a long series of years. 



Briefly, its conformation may be described as 

 follows : A wide forehead, fairly long head, a long 

 neck that is thin and agile, a narrow chest as you 

 look at it from the front, but very deep as you look 

 from the side, long sloping shoulders, rather long 

 back, a long horizontal croup, small barrel, fairly 

 long forearm, long cannon bones and feet that are 

 well shaped and perfect in every respect. Looking 

 at the animal from the side it should be as high over 

 the hips or higher than over the withers. 



The draft horse, on the other hand, has a dif- 

 ferent conformation. There is not that elongation 

 of his parts, although there is a symmetry of parts 

 and of proportion. There should be the width 

 between the eyes; the clean, neat face; a graceful 

 neck, which should be shorter and more heavily 

 muscled than that of the speed horse. The chest 

 should be wide, both from the front and side, the 

 back short but heavily muscled, the croup strong 

 and not so horizontal as with the speed type, the 

 quarters heavily muscled and the cannon bone 

 short. 



The feet should be as perfect as those of the 

 speed horse. In both types the knee should be 

 thick, deep, and broad and the hocks wide. The 

 narrow hock is not so well able to stand heavy 

 strain, consequently ?urb diseases readily follow 



