28 HOW TO BREED A HORSE. 



lean, bony head, small-eared, broad-fronted, well set on, 

 upon a high, well-carried neck, thin at its junction with 

 the head ; high withers, thin, and, above all, long, sloping 

 shoulders. A straight shoulder is an abomination ; it ren- 

 ders speed impossible, and gives a rigid, inflexible naotion, 

 often producing the bad fliult of stumbling. She should 

 be wide-chested, and deep in the heart-place. Her quartersi 

 should be strong, well let down, long and sickle-shaped 

 above the hocks. It is better that she go with her hocks 

 somewhat too wide apart than too near together — the 

 former point indicating power, the latter, weakness of a 

 bad kind. It has been shown that a brood mare may, 

 nay, should, be considerably longer in the back than one 

 would choose a working horse to be ; but if she be partic- 

 ularly so, it is desirable to put her to a shoi't-backed and 

 close-coupled horse. 



"In health," says the same writer who has been quoted 

 above, "the brood mare should be as near perfection as 

 the artificial state of the animal will allow ; at all events, 

 it is the most important point of all ; and in every case the 

 mare should be very carefully examined with a view to 

 discover what deviations from a natural state have been 

 entailed upon her by her own labors, and what she has 

 inherited from her ancestors. Independently of the con- 

 sequence of accidents, all deviations from a state of health 

 in the mare may be considered as more or less transmitted 

 to her, because, in a thoroughly sound constitution, no or- 

 dinary treatment, such as training consists of, will produce 

 disease; and it is only hereditary predisposition which, 

 under this process, entails its appearance. Still there are 

 positive, comparative and superlative degrees of objec- 

 tionable diseases incidental to the brood-mare, which should 

 be accepted or refused accordingly. All accidental de- 

 fects, such as broken knees, dislocated hips, or even 



