HAUNCH and HIP
—of a horse, have been hitherto (but not with strict propriety) used in a similar sense: nice observers might say one begins where the other ends, or that one immediately succeeds the other. The haunch is that part of the hind quarter extending from the point of the hip-bone, down the thigh to the hock; but as it is a part well known, and but little subject to partial disease or accident, it lays claim to no particular description. The term of "putting a horse upon his haunches," implies the making him constantly fix the principal weight of the frame upon his hind quarters, by which practice he bears less upon the bit, and becomes habitually light in hand. Horses hard in mouth, and heavy in hand, frequently undergo the ceremony of being put upon their haunches in the trammels of a RIDING SCHOOL, where, by too severe and inconsiderate exertions, sudden twists, distortions, and strains, are sustained in the HOCKS, which terminate in CURBS and SPAVINS never to be obliterated.