16 ESSAYS ON HORSE SUBJECTS 



called tied in; those with the back tendon not 

 standing out posterior to the bone at the back 

 and outer part of hock — in addition to these indi- 

 cations of weakness and tendency to curb, if the 

 joint is crooked, or what is called sickle-shaped, 

 the predisposition is much increased. Curb is 

 not so very much feared by some breeders, as it 

 seldom causes permanent lameness. It is, how- 

 ever, a great eyesore; it depreciates a horse's 

 value very considerably, and it is liable to cause 

 recurring lameness. 



Crooked hocks, unduly straight hocks, narrow 

 hocks, small hocks, those bent inwards or out- 

 wards, are all of weak formation, and are conse- 

 quently predisposed, amongst other unsoundness- 

 es, to bone spavin. Even though a horse should 

 happen to have a bone spavin, provided he has a 

 strongly formed hock, it would be safer to take 

 a chance of breeding to him than one with a sound 

 hock but of weak formation. So far we have 

 run over briefly most of the defective formations 

 that predispose to serious hereditary unsound- 

 ness. We have divided the causes into four 

 heads, the second one of which was "insufficient 

 quantity." The old saying, "Size is strength, 

 others things being equal," applies to a horse's 

 extremities. We frequently hear it said that 

 such and such a horse has "plenty of timber un- 

 der him." By this is meant that the individual 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



