Page:Horses and roads.djvu/72

 56 front half of the crust. If he had stopped at that, his narrow iron would not, in such a short length, have either twisted or fractured, and he would have made an advancement in shoeing which he has failed to bring about.

In spite of ‘Kangaroo,’ a great majority of horsey men refuse, or decline, to believe that the sole, however liberal they may be in their views towards the frog and bars, is capable of bearing weight; whereas the real fact is that, unless it takes its share of the weight, it becomes unhealthy, and a cause of uneasiness to the horse. What observant and intelligent man, who is in the habit of visiting his stable, has failed to remark that, when a horse is going to dung, he takes a preliminary step forwards, and after having finished dropping, he backs both hind feet on to the top of it? What instinct leads him to do this? The groom will tell you that the horse is in search of something soft and cooling for his feet; but, unfortunately for his theory, it happens that, so far from being soft and cooling, the matter in question is solid and warm;  for a horse suffering from diarrhœa will not draw ahead and then back, and of this any one may convince himself by waiting to see. Why, then, does he go through these manœuvres? Why, simply to get, what he is otherwise deprived of, sole pressure. Soft cowdung will not afford it to him; and he will knowingly squeeze it out by getting his feet, and his weight, on something more solid.

Again, who has not seen when a horse is at