186 
LECTURES ON HORSES. 
arises, a good plan to refer to the rollers or girths, which afford 
never-failing: tests of the true circumferent admeasurement: we 
may always learn from the groom that such a horse buckles up 
two or three holes tighter in his roller than such another; or 
that the girths which fitted the former are altogether too short or 
too long for the present occupier of his stall. 
The Breast, as the front part of the chest is called — “ the 
bosom,” as it is wrongly and absurdly named by some — is a point 
worth our attention. It should possess breadth and fulness ; the 
breast-bone should be prominent, and the sides of it well filled in 
with plumpness ; the action of the fore limbs, as we shall see by 
and by, a good deal depending upon the formation and substance 
of the breast. When the breast is wide, the fore legs will be 
far apart, as we see instanced in the cart-horse and bull-dog ; and, 
in consequence of the arches of the ribs being circular and project- 
ing, the elbows are very apt to be turned outwards : a position of 
limb — to say nothing about its seposition from its fellow — very 
unfavourable for progression. On the other hand, when the breast 
is narrow, the fore limbs are approximated — seem, to use a dealer’s 
expression, “ as though they both issued out of one hole.” This 
conformation favours speed, but on several accounts is highly objec- 
tionable. When the breast is narrow, the chest is so likewise ; the 
animal is flat-sided ; and his fore legs are placed so near together 
that, in action, they are continually striking each other, occasion- 
ing sores or bumps upon the fetlocks, speedy-cut, and other an- 
noyances ; not to mention the weedy make and want of stamina 
such a horse will evince. Dealers in cart-horses are very particu- 
lar in their search after stock “ with good,” i. e. full and ample, 
breasts; they well know the value of such a point, and the 
dependence to be placed upon it in indicating a good or bad 
worker. With nags and others we are not in the habit, I should 
say, of paying sufficient attention to it. Although we may not re- 
quire — had rather not have — a broad chest, yet cannot the breast 
be too fleshy or prominent. A lean-breasted horse cannot fail 
of being weak in his fore limbs, if he be not in his hind too. 
When I speak of a prominent breast, however, I do not mean one 
that projects so much forward that the fore legs appear to recede 
from it underneath the body, making the animal what is called 
“ stand over;” for this shews faulty position of the fore limbs, and 
a sort of unnatural lengthiness about the fore parts of the breast, 
which cannot but prove disadvantageous in progression. I shall 
revert to this point when I come to speak of the position of the 
fore limbs. 
