fancy prices are continually being paid for horses, especially ladies’ horses and park hacks.
Another class of horse that often commands a long price is the carriage-horse of the ‘upper ten.’ As a rule, the accusation that they get early worn out by hard work would hardly lie; yet at what a comparatively early age they become ‘screws,’ through the bearing-rein and their shoeing. Their work lies largely over stone paving, the evils of which, to shod horses, Mr. Fearnley and others so justly denounce. One purpose of the bearing-rein is avowedly to give lofty action, not graceful action, which, on the contrary, it prevents. Horses with their heads rigidly attached to their tails are continually tossing up their heads, in which no doubt they find a passing relief alternately for their various excruciating pains, which must extend from the tail to the teeth. The throwing up of the head necessarily tends to raise their fore feet higher, but not with regularity, as may be seen by observation. This abnormal high action causes so much the greater shock on the feet when they come down on the stone, and this brings their shod hoofs to grief. Mr. Douglas says:—‘The evil effects of concussion, of the firm, hard blows from the ground, striking through the iron up a horse’s leg that is being driven fast along the road, cannot be over-estimated. Such common results as splints, spavins, and ringbones, I have already referred to elsewhere, as well as to another and more fatal disease, known as foundered feet, due to the same cause—concussion.
