THE SHOULDER. 51 



Thickness and Thinness of Shoulder, and investigate the 

 relative advantages and disadvantages of these counter-formations. 

 A notion very prevalent among horse-people is, that the shoulder 

 cannot be too thin or " fine," as they call it ; and that a thick or 

 " loaded" shoulder is only fit for harness. In these remarks truth 

 is mingled with error, and it shall be our business to endeavour 

 to distinguish and separate them. To set about our investigation 

 systematically, let us first inquire what constitutes this thickness 

 or thinness; — to what kinds of conformation the terms are ap- 

 plicable, or what they are commonly used to denote. A person 

 grasps the withers of a horse with his hand, and at once pro- 

 nounces his shoulders "thick" or "thin:" thin or fine, should 

 the withers stand high and can be included between his fingers 

 and thumb ; thick, should the withers appear buried between the 

 shoulders, or be so broad across that the span of the hand can with 

 difficulty grasp them: in the former case, we grasp nothing but the 

 spinous processes of the dorsal vertebrae ; in the latter, we appear 

 to include the scapulas as well; hence the thinness in one instance, 

 the thickness in the other. There exists in such horses either in- 

 ordinate length or shortness of spinous processes, inordinate length 

 or shortness of scapula, or an unusual height or lowness of one or 

 both of them, in situ, owing to their position. "The razor-back," as 

 it is called, is the most remarkable instance of inordinately long spin- 

 ous processes, and this is commonly combined with obliquity, and 

 consequent lowness of the base of the scapula : altogether, presenting 

 an example of " a fine shoulder ;" though of one that often proves 

 on examination to be strangely deficient in substance. These razor- 

 backs and fine shoulders are frequently seen in very old horses : 

 indeed, it is a common observation, that " shoulders grow fine 

 with age ;" the interpretation of which appears to be, that the 

 shoulders participate in that general process of absorption which is 

 known to pervade the animal frame during the decline of life. 

 In young horses, at the growing time of life, the shoulders are 

 thick by nature, and do not, until the adult period is completed, 

 attain that degree of thinness or fineness which they in after-life 

 are found to possess ; coupled with which fact, and in corrobora- 

 tion of it, stands the observation so current among breeders and 

 dealers, that their colts are certain to " rise" and " fine" in their 



