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CHAPTER XXIV. 



BLOOD, SYMMETRY AND COMPENSATIONS. 



Blood, — The relation of "blood" to conformation is its 

 only one which need be considered here. 



The term ** blood" usually signifies more or less pure 

 descent from animals mentioned in the English Stud Book, 

 or from high-caste Arabs. In our Colonies, the initials T. B 

 have a more elastic application than in the Mother-country. 

 As English thoroughbred horses have been bred almost 

 entirely with the object of their utilisation on the Turf; their 

 conformation more or less resembles that of the galloper. 

 Were I to be asked to particularise the " point ''or " points " 

 most characteristic of the English '* blood '' horse, I would 

 answer : ** The legs below the knees and hocks." Their 

 special peculiarities, in this respect, are : lightness of bone, 

 thinness of skin, fineness and shortness of hair, small amount 

 of underlying connective tissue, near approach to parallelism 

 of back tendons to cannon-bones, with consequent smallness 

 of fetlock joints (p. 194), good length of pasterns, and small 

 hoofs with well-arched soles. These hard-looking, though 

 light-shaped legs, are evidently the production of a dry, warm 

 climate, during many generations in the East ; for although 

 we rarely. If ever, see them in pure Western stock, we may 

 find them in profusion among Arab, Barb, Persian, East 

 Indian, and South African horses, all of which have been 

 bred in a hot, dry climate. The speed of the thoroughbred 

 is the result of careful selection in breeding, by which, not 

 only has the best form of conformation been obtained, but also 

 the most suitable kind of nervous organisation. The effect of 



