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ON SORE SHINS IN HORSES. 
it must certainly deserve to be placed in as prominent a position 
as any of the more active diseases incidental to the animal 
economy. 
It is an indubitable fact, well known to those who really un- 
derstand training, that a horse with sore shins cannot win a 
race, and that from physical inability, however good he may 
otherwise be, as regards condition or stamina ; and I do not he- 
sitate to assert, that it is yearly the primary cause of consigning 
some of the best blood this country produces to premature 
oblivion. 
Touching the cause of sore shins, I may say negatively, that 
they are not produced by upright shoulders, want of bone, 
twisted fore legs, lengths of gallops, heavy state of the ground, 
or pace, but I believe by carrying too much weight in their 
exercise. 
Should a horse, as he gets near the time of racing, be found 
a little thick in the neck, and require to take a four-mile sweat, 
with perhaps four hoods on, and body -clothes in proportion, 
while, added to this, is only a lad of seven stones weight, you 
stand a considerable chance of having sore shins, in the leg he 
leads with at least. 
Mr. Percivall, in his “ Lectures on Horses/’ most appropriately 
denominates the large metacarpal bone as the shaft of support to 
the leg. There is too much weight thrown upon these pillars 
before the material of which they are composed has become set, 
and this is the frequent cause of sore shins. As a proof of this, 
we seldom hear of it after the horse is three years old. 
Speaking technically, the deposit of ossific matter in young 
animals being greater in proportion than the absorption, and this 
deposit being furnished principally from the vessels of the peri- 
osteum, that important membrane is highly vascular and irritable. 
Hence the inability of the immature bones and their coverings 
to sustain, without injury, the unnatural weight thrown upon 
them and the suspensory ligaments — independent of that of the 
entire animal machine — which they receive with fearful impe- 
tuosity at each successive bound, when going what is called a 
telling pace, from the flexion and extension of the powerful mus- 
cles of the loins and hind quarters. 
It will be seen from what I have attempted to describe, that 
the more oblique the shoulders are the more perfect the conforma- 
tion of the fore limbs will be, added to length and power behind, 
and the greater the force and velocity with which such an animal 
will be enabled to strike the ground ; therefore the best horses 
are most likely to suffer. 
The analogy between sore shins and splents is very great, so 
