LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
482 
between them, as the horse stands confronting us, will readily 
detect the anormality : the discovery being, as is very likely, 
aided by the circumstance of the horse going lame in the con- 
tracted foot. But when both feet are contracted, and both con- 
sequently alike in appearance, and the same in action, it may 
assist our judgment to revert in our mind to what sort of foot 
such a description of horse ought by nature to possess ; though, 
even in this case, without any reference to what the feet ought 
by nature to be, we may, by close and critical examination, 
detect the anormal changes in them. Combined with a nar- 
rowing form side to side, there will be visible straightness of 
the quarters of the hoof, with a turning-in, more or less sudden 
and angular, of its heels, which seem to glide or shelve forward, 
inward and downward, so as to vanish from our sight, as the 
horse stands upon his legs, before they reach down to the heels 
of the shoe, which are found so much too wide that the heels 
of the hoof rest upon the inner edges of the shoe, and when the 
foot is held up, we behold nothing but its ground-surface : the 
false width of the heels of the shoe deluding us into a notion that 
the foot is a good enough one, when in reality it is in a high 
degree contracted. This is a deception to which the smith — 
probably at the instigation of the dealer — contributes b} r , in his 
own language, “ opening the heels” of the hoof : an operation 
consisting in cutting away the bars, thereby throwing the chan- 
nels of the commissures into the general concavity of the sole, 
and so making the latter appear ample and extended, while the 
heels, from, at the same time, having their points obtruncated 
by the drawing-knife, look considerably wider apart. 
A young examiner of horses should be particular in guarding 
against a delusion like this ; and he will find it best exposed 
if he take up his position behind the horse, so as to direct his 
view upon the posterior parts of the fore feet from between the 
hind legs. This will enable him to judge of the high or low 
condition of the quarters of the fore hoofs, and see the unoccu- 
pied spaces left upon the heels of the shoe, in consequence of 
the unnatural curving-in of the heels of the foot. The insidious 
curving-in of the heels, one or both, is always a strong indi- 
cation of contraction. 
Predisfosition to Contraction lurks in breed or kind of 
horse, w ith whom it is often hereditary : a good deal also de- 
pends upon the country — the nature of the soil, and the dryness 
or humidity of the situation — wherein the animal happens to be 
bred or brought up, as on that will, in a measure, depend his 
acquiring a hoof obnoxious or not to contraction. Horses of the 
breeds and from the countries I have named, having light bodies 
to carry, with hoofs of the oblong description, and strong luxu- 
