COMPENSATIONS. 239 



too often the massive shoulders of the draught-horse. A 

 heavy head, which reveals but too plainly a cart-strain, is a 

 terrible eyesore to an animal whose neck and shoulders are 

 light, and which might otherwise be a high-class hack. 



We may see short-legged, deep-bodied cart-horses, with 

 great power of limbs and shoulders, having weak loins. A 

 horse which has oblique shoulders should also have sloping 

 pasterns and a horizontal croup. We must here allow for the 

 fact that **work" often renders the pasterns abnormally up- 

 right. We may witness many instances of want of symmetry 

 in the **tying-in" of the legs under the knees, short pasterns, 

 and large, flat feet of long and slender-limbed horses. Fig. 

 284 shows a mare that was of fine width just below the hock 

 (p. 211), but was tied-in below the knee. A mean carriage 

 of the tail will contrast very unfavourably with a showy 

 and graceful bearing of the head and neck. 



The generic term '*weed" is applied, usually, to long- 

 legged animals which are weak in the loins, and are light in 

 the back ribs. As a rule, the cause of their comparative 

 worthlessness is wrongly attributed to the length of their 

 limbs, rather than to their defects of loin and rib. If we 

 compare Fig. 268 with the Frontispiece, we shall see that 

 the mare in the former was actually ''longer " and '* lower" 

 (taking the proportion between her height at the withers 

 and her length of body) than the deep-ribbed and strongly 

 ''coupled" Ormonde. It is evident that no amount of 

 shortening of her legs could improve her conformation. 



Compensations. — The points which I shall consider 



it A. 



under this heading have special reference to the saddle-horse 

 and light trapper :- 



^^ Plainness'' of head will be best "carried off" by a 

 *' kind," intelligent expression of face ; quick play of the 

 ears, which appear to most advantage when they are small ; 

 good carriage of the head ; and graceful setting-on of the head 

 with the neck. The size of the latter should conform to that 

 of the former. 



