Page:Horses and roads.djvu/51

 Rh their researches as to the right way of shoeing. Race horses still slip (witness the Derby of 1879) both backwards and forwards, and trainers have not yet arrived at the acme of treatment of the horse’s foot. They will not like to be told so, but il n'y a que la verité qui offense in instances of this kind. Lord Pembroke hated calks, and he lays it down as a rule that ‘from the race horse to the cart horse the same system of shoeing, and description of shoes, should be observed; the size, weight, and thickness only of them should differ.’

Nature intended the horse to serve for both draught and saddle, and she designed for him a wonderful foot, equally fitted for both purposes. Man in his perversity is dissatisfied with it, and is vain enough to think that he can alter it to advantage. And to what classes of men has the regulation of such supposed improvements been abandoned, but to the most ignorant? To return to the forge: when the farrier has satisfied himself that he has cut away everything he can possibly get at, without drawing blood—although often on the sole he goes so far as to produce ‘dewdrops ’ of that, which may be seen oozing through the pores he has cut deeply into—and that he has obtained something near a fit by altering both the shape of the shoe and the hoof, he will then again put the shoe in the fire and give a blow up to make it red hot;  and, in that red hot state, he will apply it to the foot, in order to burn a seat for it. In so doing it must be evident to every man who will reflect, that he sets all the natural