PASTERN. 197 



String. If there be any difficulty in tracing its course with 

 the fingers, or if it feels soft or rounded, we may rest 

 assured that it has suffered from injury, which fact will 

 probably prevent it from standing much work. In *' clean " 

 legs (Fig. 292), we should be able to trace the course of 

 the suspensory ligament for some distance on each side, 

 as it proceeds obliquely down the pastern. 



Fetlock. — The chief points about this joint are : that it 

 should be flat from side to side, and that, viewing the leg in 

 profile, it should not (as I have previously remarked) be 

 broad as compared to the width of the lesf just below the 

 knee (Fig. 297). Any roundness of the fetlock, which will 

 be caused by undue thickness from side to side of this 

 part, will indicate the effects of '* work," or of injury. The 

 peculiar roundness of fetlock, caused by sprain of the 

 suspensory ligament at its attachment to the sesamoid bones, 

 will be readily noticed by the practised observer. 



At the back of the fetlock there is a lock of hair which 

 gives its name (" feet-lock ") to that joint, and which is par- 

 ticularly abundant in cart-horses. This tuft of hair covors 

 a fatty mass (the fetlock pad), and has in its centre a 

 horny growth, called the ergot. 



Pastern. — By the working of the fetlock and pastern 

 joints, the injurious effects, on the limbs, of concussion are 

 more or less obviated, and assistance is given in the straight- 

 ening of the limb, to raise the fore hand. As the horse will 

 have no difficulty, under ordinary conditions of soundness and 

 labour, in bringing his pastern into the same straight line as 

 his cannon-bone; the amount of **play" which the fetlock 

 will have, will depend on the distance through which the 

 fetlock can descend, or, in other words, on the acuteness of 

 the angle which the pastern can make with the ground, when 

 weight is thrown on the part. Although we cannot, by mere 

 inspection of the animal, determine the efficient limit of this 

 angle, we may assume that horses which have, when standing, 



