16 FORM AND ACTION 



the hips — these four formations, viz., shortness of back, circularity 

 of chest, breadth of hip, and strength of loins, generally being 

 found in combination. It is a great matter that a horse should 

 have good loins, and when these are associated with a long back, 

 and the requisite length and substance of hind quarters, we may 

 take it for granted that the animal possesses both speed and en- 

 durance. Look at hares and rabbits, greyhounds, deer, kangaroos, 

 and such-like animals, and note what thickness of loins, and length 

 and muscularity of hind limbs they all exhibit; while their fore-parts 

 amount to hardly any thing in comparative substance. It is im- 

 possible that a horse with thin narrow loins can hold in his gallop : 

 the moment he puts his feet in dirt, that moment will he fail. It 

 is the good loin, as I said before, that can — and the only point that 

 can — compensate for hollowness of back. The horse I quoted as, 

 though hollow-backed in the extreme, being an extraordinary 

 hunter, had one of the finest of loins; from which we practically 

 learn that, when the loins are good, not length, nor even hollow- 

 ness of back, are to be accounted objectionable points. 



It is nonsense to pretend to prescribe that the back should be 

 long or short, of this length or that ; although we may, in a general 

 way, fall in with the common description of what a back ought to be, 

 and say, "that, to be a good one, it should sink a little below (behind) 

 the withers, and then run straight." The back will be too long or 

 too short, or (though, to the observer, of unusual longitude or short- 

 ness, still) of the proper length, depending upon the formation and 

 dimensions of other parts with which, in structure and action, it is 

 associated. A long back would ill accord with short legs, defeated 

 in their operation — a short back would not require long legs, they 

 would do too much for it. We have, therefore, long-backed 

 horses and short-backed horses, and yet with backs of proper 

 length : because the longitude, whatever it may be, is that which 

 is the suitable length for the machine of which it forms a part. A 

 very common, but not the less, on that account, reprehensible 

 custom among "judges of horses," is to find fault with a point, 

 without any reference whatever to the general or particular con- 

 formation with which that point is consorted. Abstractedly con- 

 sidered, it may be out of proportion ; but considered, correlatively, 

 with out-of-proportioned other parts in the same frame, it may be 



