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THE  CITY  DRAY  HORSE. 
In  the  following  article  I do  not  in  any  way  wish  to  champion 
the  cause  of  any  particular  breed  of  draught  horse,  but  to  give 
some  account  of  the  various  kinds  of  horses  and  their  work  in 
the  great  Lancashire  and  neighbouring  centres  of  industry. 
I think  it  will  be  agreed  that  the  draught  horse  as  used  in 
Lancashire,  and  especially  in  Liverpool,  has  scarcely  an  equal, 
I therefore  hope  that  this  article  will,,  this  year  especially,  not 
be  entirely  void  of  interest. 
The  various  classes  of  horses  reqpired  for  heavy  draught 
work  are  mainly  of  the  Shire  breed,  except  in  some  of  the  more 
northern  cities  where  cross  bred  Shire  and  Clydesdale  are  used, 
and  in  a few  cases  pure  Clydesdales.  The  horses  in  Liverpool, 
Manchester,  and  Leeds,  and  other  great  industrial  centres  of 
Lancashire  and  Yorkshire  are  practically  all  Shire  bred,  and 
are  mainly  from  16'2  to  17’0  hands  high  ; massive  short  legged 
horses  with  abundance  of  hair  and  the  necessary  amount  of 
weight  to  move  the  heavy  loads  to  which  they  are  put.  Though 
weight  is  of  the  utmost  importance,  the  city  draught  hoi’se 
must  possess  perfect  cai-t  horse  action  to  ensure  activity  and 
handiness.  The  hoof  should  be  large,  deep  walled  and  properly 
shaped  so  as  to  stand  the  constant  pounding  on  the  hard  surface 
of  the  city  streets  by  powerful  limbs,  carrying  a very  massive 
body,  otherwise  injury  will  be  done  to  the  soft  tissues  or  even 
to  the  bones  that  are  enclosed  within  the  foot,  and  once  this 
happens  a weighty  horse  seldom  again  works  sound  for  any 
length  of  time.  The  greatest  possible  attention  should  be  paid 
to  the  feet  both  when  selecting  and  afterwards  ; weakness  in 
this  direction  neutralising  the  great  advantage  of  weight,  and 
in  fact  making  it  detrimental.  There  is  no  truer  axiom  than 
“No  foot,  no  horse,”  and  his  efficiency  depends  to  a great 
extent  on  the  manner  in  which  he  is  shod.  Each  individual 
foot  of  every  horse  requires  special  treatment  so  as  to  leave  the 
bearing  of  the  foot  as  near  as  possible  to  what  it  would  be  in 
the  unshod  state ; occasionally  it  is  of  course  necessary  to 
modify  the  hoof  and  bearing,  as  horses  are  subjected  to  many 
conditions  which  are  purely  artificial.  The  object  of  shoeing 
is  to  preserve  all  the  parts  of  the  foot  in  their  natural  conditions 
by  allowing  them  to  perform  their  own  particular  duties. 
Paring  out  the  foot,  so  much  loved  by  some  farriers,  has  been 
responsible  for  many  evils,  but  is  luckily  going  ont  of  favour. 
