TREAD AND OVER-REACH. 3l9 



».jw horn will gradually and safely descend, but the horse should 

 not be used until sufficient horn has grown down fairly to isolate 

 the crack. When the horn is divided at the coronet, it will be 

 five or six months before it will grow fairly down, and not 

 before that, should the animal be used even for ordinary work. 

 When, however, the horn is grown an inch from the coronet, 

 the horse may be turned out — the foot being well defended by 

 the pitch plaster, and that renewed as often as it becomes loose 

 — a bar-shoe being -worn, chambered so as not to press upon the 

 hoof immediately under the crack, and that shoe being taken 

 off, the sole pared out, and any bulbous projection of new horn 

 being removed once in every three weeks. 



To remedy the undue brittleness of the hoof, there is no better 

 application than that recommended in page 304, the sole being 

 covered at the same time with the common cow-dung, or felt 

 stopping.* 



TREAD AND OVER-REACH. 



Under these terms are comprised bruises and wounds of the 

 coronet, inflicted by the other feet. 



A TREAD is said to have taken place, when the inside of the 

 coronet of one hind foot is struck by the calkin of the shoe of 

 the other, and a bruised or contused wound is inflicted. 



A tread, or wound of the coronet, must never be neglected, 

 lest gravel should insinuate itself into the wound, and form deep 

 ulcerations, called sinuses or pipes, and which constitute quittor. 

 Although some mildly stimulating caustic may be occasionally 

 required, the caustic, too frequently used by farriers, should be 

 carefuUy avoided, not only lest quittor should be formed, but lest 

 the coronary hgament should be so injured as to be afterwards 

 incapable of secreting perfect horn. When properly treated, a 

 tread is seldom productive of much injury. If the dirt is well 



* Note 5y Mr. Spooner. — When lameness attends sand-crack, it is owing 

 to the crack extending from the horn to the quick above. If the horse is 

 worked on, this injury is repeated again and again until the coronary enb- 

 Btance becomes so injured as to produce a false quarter. When a horse 

 throws out a sand-crack he must be rested a month or more in order to 

 eifect a cure, to do which effectually the foot should be poulticed for a 

 week in order to encourage the growth of horn, and the coronet for the 

 same reason may be stimulated. In the course of a month the sound horn 

 will be grown down for the space of a quarter of an inch, and then, and 

 not till then, the firing-iron should be drawn transversely above the crack, 

 eo as to cut off the communication between the fissure and the sound horn 

 above, which wiU gradually grow down. A plaster of pitch or shoe- 

 jaker's wax may then be placed on the crack, and a strap fastened round 

 the loot, so as to prevent too much motion taking place. A oar-shoe is indis- 

 Densable, in order that the weak quarter may be secured from the pressure. 



