Page:Horses and roads.djvu/185

 Rh horses in front. Unshod horses cannot pick it up or even scatter it knee-high.

Although it may be rather out of place here, we will remark en passant that ‘circus’ horses do not appear to labour under any very pressing necessity of being cursed with shoes, yet they are; and they continually favour spectators in the front seats with showers of filth that often finds a resting-place in the eye, and thus deprives its receiver of the enjoyment of the remainder of the ‘spectacle.’

But, anyhow, breeders of park hacks, seeing the concession made by authority in favour of these animals, would be going out of their road, and incurring extra risks, if they shod them even to break them. Let them break them unshod, and in the same state offer them for sale. They would thus pass their examination as to soundness without difficulty; and then if their buyers thought proper to shoe them their sin would be upon their own heads. By so doing, they would simply follow up the purchase of a valuable article by deliberate efforts to depreciate its intrinsic worth. Of course, there should be fair play over the transaction, and it should be understood that the horse had his feet inured to hard roads, and not have been broken-in upon grass. Horses broken-in upon grass do not acquire showy action. It would not, therefore, pay to shirk the thing; and this would be a safeguard for the buyer, in case he wanted the horse for immediate work;  it would regulate the price. ‘A thing (of any kind) is worth what it will fetch,’ and so