54 TIPS AND TOE-WEIGHTS. 



bruising tlie heels and frog. We have seen that such was not the 

 case in the horse of the vaquero, galloping over hard ground and 

 down hills, in many cases covered with stones, and in my practice 

 with tips, for over two years, it has not occurred. 



Where the tip covered there might be a little discoloration, and 

 the sole show a few i-ed streaks, when it had been pared thin in order 

 to shorten the toe, but the heels have remained free from as much as 

 a red spot, and though when I replaced the tips with shoes, this part 

 was cut down fully half an inch, the horn, sole and bars were in 

 perfect condition. There was a change in the substance when com- 

 pared with the feet of those which had worn shoes, the junction of 

 the wall and bars being as hard as the tip of the horn of an ox, and 

 as touijh as it was hard. The foot of the shod horse when hard is 

 brittle, but a thin shaving from the one wearing tips was as tenacious 

 as whalebone. As I have stated before, I have experimented with 

 all my own horses' X. X. being the one with which the most of the 

 road-ti'ials have been given, though all of them have been exercised 

 more or less on the road. X. X. I have driven long distances— that 

 is, long distances for a road-horse — fifteen to thirty miles in a day, a 

 great part of the time at the rate of eighteen miles an hour. I have 

 driven him fast down quite steep grades, such as are met on the roads 

 in the suburbs of Oakland, and there has never been a bruise on his 

 heel. The wet weather last winter compelled the " working " of the 

 horses on the road, and the favorite ground was Delaware street, from 

 where San Pablo avenue crosses it, to the top of the hill to the west 

 of the University buildings. The distance is probably something 

 over three-quai-ters of a mile, with a grade of about eighty feet. 

 One of the boys would ride a race-horse I was training, another a 

 ti'otting filly, a very long strider, in style and action bearing a strong 

 resemblance to Lady Sufi"olk, while I drove the Alhambra filly 

 to a skeleton wagon or sulky. The race-horse had been injured in 

 his fore legs and his fast work was given up the grade. The filly the 

 boy rode could move through the stretch of the track in forty seconds 

 or better, but on the road she would show a far faster gait. On the 

 track the Alhambra could beat her, but coming down the grade, the 

 other was the faster by at least two hundred yards in the three - 



