CrfANGING THE PACE INTO THE TROT. 31 



One of tlie most successful tniiuevs I ever knew in convei'tinor the 

 pacer to a fast trotter, informed me that to iiin the horse with feet 

 weighted, until he became too tired eithei- to run or pace, was the 

 most effectual method he had ever found to overcome the propensity 

 fyr the lateral manner of progi-ession. This proves that a heavy shoe 

 or heavy toe-weight is inimical to speed, either running or pacing, 

 but is adapted to the trotting gait, and the horse, finding he can get 

 along easier when thus encumbered, naturally tends to relieve liimself 

 by adopting the action suitable to the changed condition, and that 

 which tired beyond endurance in the other paces can be siistained at 

 the trot. 



This is also further proven by the other methods which trainers 

 employ to change the pace into the trot ; the old plan was to strew 

 the road with rails, and ride the animal over it; another, to practice 

 the horse through loose sand or deep snow ; and lately, in Texas, a 

 very fast trotter was converted by diiving him on the beach when 

 the water reached his knees. The latter method is evidently a very 

 effectual one to cavise the horse to bend his knees, and the theory of 

 the effect of weight on the action and the practice coincide. It is 

 manifest that the knees must be bent more to enable the horse to get 

 through the water easily, for if the leg was pvished along, the resist- 

 ance of the fluid would be gi-eat; consequently, the horse soon learns to 

 pick his foot up as neai-ly perpendicular as he can, and thrust it well 

 forward. The most approved theory is that the weight influences 

 the action the most strongly whei-e the heaviest weight is placed, and 

 with shoes made much heavier on the inner quarter, the striking the 

 knee will be more likely to follow, and a horse which hits his knee 

 with an equal shoe, will avoid it when the outside is made the heaviest. 

 It will necessarily follow the adoption of this hypothesis that weight 

 on the toe will have a greater influence on the action than the same 

 amount distributed over the whole foot, and though the present form 

 of the weight was invented to obviate the bruising of the heels, from 

 the older-fashioned kind, it. was based on the scientific principle of 

 the corelation of forces. Thus, a bullet with one hemisphere cast of 

 a denser material than the othei-, will fly in a curve, the shorter 

 radius being on the light side. The lighter the side the greater will 



