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LECTURES ON HORSES. 
A neck disproportionately long will, according as it is well or ill 
carried, detract more or less from the symmetrical beauty of the 
fore parts : at the same time that it is operating in rendering the 
head more burdensome than if it were a shorter distance from the 
body, on account of the increase of leverage. A favourite ex- 
clamation of Professor Coleman’s was, “ Give me a horse that 
will starve at grass;” thereby meaning a horse having a neck so 
short that, from not being able to reach the grass, he was incapa- 
ble, or nearly so, of getting his living by grazing. Such extreme 
and disproportionable shortness of neck, however, although advan- 
tageous in the light in which it was viewed by the Professor, viz. 
decrease of leverage, is on some other accounts by no means desir- 
able. It is perhaps an objection to a horse with a very short neck, 
and legs at all long, that he cannot but with difficulty get his liv- 
ing by grazing ; but a greater objection to such shortness is, that a 
horse so made can hardly by any training in the manege be made 
to ride well. The neck is too short and too thick — the two pro- 
perties generally go together — to admit of the required flexion, and 
the consequence is, the head cannot, by any perseverance in rein- 
ing or bitting, be drawn into its proper position. The horse will 
ride piggishly — go boring forward, perhaps with his nose out, and 
make that sort of continual dead pull on the hand that gives his 
rider the sensation of his inevitably falling down at the first blunder 
in action he happens to make. But a horse’s neck that is short is 
commonly broad and thick as well, and moreover is combined with 
strong shoulders, thereby rendering him a great deal more fit for the 
harness-collar than for the saddle ; such shortness and thickness in 
the neck, and strength in the shoulders, being for harness attended 
with many advantages. The bull-neck , as it is called, is proverbial 
for strength, and strength of a kind which appears well adapted for 
draught. In Spain and Portugal the oxen are yoked to the bullock- 
cars by their horns, which by leathern thongs are lashed to the pole 
of the car ; and thus, by strength of neck alone almost, do they 
move forward with their loads, and, to appearance, with as much 
facility and effect as though they were — as in our own country — in 
harness-collars. Nothing can demonstrate power in the neck bet- 
ter than this ; at the same time that it shews us that the com- 
monly received notion, “ the neck should be lean” is erroneous. 
Such thinness or leanness may prove admirably suited for flexibility, 
and be the means of the horse reining in and riding pleasantly ; 
but for every purpose of power, for endurance, for signs of bodily 
strength, a broad or muscular neck is a point to be sought after and 
valued. 
But the neck may be long, and yet its carriage may be such as 
shall prevent any increase of leverage. The horse “ with a rain- 
