96 



WHAT DISEASES CONSTITUTE UNSOUNDNESS OR VICE. 



Star-gazer. 



Ewe-necked. 



Strangles. 



String-halt. 



Held to be an 

 unsoundness. 



■which tie the tendons down are ruptured. A slight injury 

 of this nature is called a sprain of the bach sineics or tendons, 

 and when it is more serious the horse is said to have broken 

 doion (e). 



A thickening of the bach sineios, which indicates a previous 

 and violent sprain, is an unsoundness, because an alteration 

 of structure has taken place, which must impair the natural 

 usefulness of the horse. 



When the muscle, whose office it is to raise the neck and 

 elevate the head, is too powerful in its action, the top of the 

 horse's head is pulled back and the muzzle protruded, the 

 horse cannot possibly carry his head well ; he is what is 

 technically called a star-gazer, heavy in hand, boring upon 

 the bit and unsafe. 



Inseparable from this is another sad defect, so far as the 

 beauty of the horse is concerned ; he is ewe-neched, that is, 

 he has a neck like a ewe, hollowed above, projecting below, 

 and the neck rises low out of the chest, sometimes lower 

 even than the points of the shoulders (/). These being 

 defects in the formation of a horse are neither unsoundness 

 nor vice. 



Strangles are peculiar to young horses, almost all of 

 which have it once. It is quite different from glanders {g), 

 though they have sometimes been confounded. In its early 

 stage it resembles a common cold and is accompanied with 

 sore throat. It is not dangerous, and is unsoundness only 

 during the time the horse is ill with it (A). 



String-halt is a singular and very unpleasant action of the 

 hind leg, arising from an irregular communication of nervous 

 energy to some muscle of the thigh, observable when 

 the horse first comes out of the stable, and gradually 

 ceasing on exercise. It is probably so called from its 

 resemblance to the sort of "halt " produced by a " string " 

 tied to the leg of a pig, and held in the hand of the person 

 driving it. It has often been found in those horses that 

 have a more than common degree of strength and endurance, 

 and is almost entirely confined to well-bred horses {i). 



There has always, until lately, been a difference of 

 opinion whether string-halt constitutes unsoundness ; how- 

 ever, in Thompson v. Patteson it was held to be so, and as 



(e) Lib. U. K. " The Horse," (A) Lib. U. K. " The Horse," 



246. 123 ; Story on Contracts, 309. 



(/) Lib. U. K. "The Horse," (i) Lib. U. K. "The Horse," 



155. 366. 



{g) Glanders, ante, p. 80. 



