Page:Horses and roads.djvu/65

 Rh as on the front part of the hoof (or the toe) it has been proved that what little there may be is inappreciable, tips will not much interfere with it; that is to say, tips that do not cover more than the front half of the rim of the foot—for many farriers put on shoes that are only an inch short at the heels and with six nails in them, for turning horses out to grass, and call these tips, which they are not. A half-bred horse of 15½ hands will generally be shod with a piece of iron 14 inches in development when measured round its edge. Six inches would be the measure of a tip, and Mayhew gives an engraving in which a real tip is shown, and it is secured by only four nails.

Mayhew also says: ‘The late W. Percival, the respected author of “Hippo-pathology,” many years, ago informed the author that he had long ridden a young horse about town with no greater protection to its fore feet than tips could afford. He showed the hoofs of the animal to the writer, and more open or better examples of the healthy horse’s feet need not be desired.’ A gentleman who wrote in the ‘Field’ some ten years ago, under the nom de plume of ’Impecuniosus,’ cites Mayhew to the effect that ‘some horses will go sound in tips that cannot endure any further protection;’ and he remarks thereon: ‘The moral, so to speak, of this is, that it is the shoe, not the road, that hurts the horse;  for if so weak and tender a foot as is described can go sound when all but unshod, why should not the strong sound one do the same? The