UPRIGHT PASTERNS. 



more sloping are their pasterns. I advance no theory in 

 support of this instance of the " survival of the fittest," which 

 I give merely for what it is worth. Australian horses, I may 

 mention, have their pasterns more oblique than English 

 horses (though practically of the same blood), and are 

 consequently better fitted for work on hard ground. As 

 the shoulder-blade and pastern are at the opposite ends of 

 the spring made by the bones of the fore limb, we may 

 infer that they should be more or less at the same slope. 

 Hence, if it be desirable that a horse should have oblique 

 shoulders, he should also have well sloped pasterns. I may 

 point out that in good, elastic pasterns, the joint (which is 

 just below the coronet at the front part of the foot) between 

 the coffin - bone and short pastern bone, should have 

 particularly free play. I would direct attention to PI. 35 as 

 the portrait of a horse that had pasterns of a nice slope for 

 fast saddle work of an average kind. In fact, he is a well- 

 shaped horse " all round." 



The two curses which remain on English thoroughbreds, 

 are upright pasterns and roaring. The former condition is 

 such a common defect that it generally passes without 

 notice, and is accepted by the ignorant as the proper kind 

 of conformation. Of the two, I certainly think that undue 

 straightness of pastern is the cause of the turf career of more 

 English horses being cut short than is roaring. PI. 13 o-ives 

 a good example of this fatal shape in the thoroughbred. 



As I have already said, the defect of uprightness of 

 pastern in the fore limb, not alone militates against the speed 

 of a horse by causing him to suffer to an undue extent from 

 the injurious effects of concussion ; but also tends to decrease 

 his power of raising his forehand by the straightening of the 



