The Sporting Dictionary and Rural Repository, Volume 2 (of 2) / Of General Information upon Every Subject Appertaining to the Sports of the Field

by William Taplin

LOOSE-JOINTED

. A horse is said to be LOOSE-JOINTED, when his PASTERNS are so long as to let his HOOF come considerably from under the perpendicular position of the FORE LEG, so that the heel is exceedingly flat, and the hinder part of the FETLOCK joint, by a kind of elastic bend or drop, seems nearly to touch the ground. Horses of the blood kind have frequently this failure in their formation, and is the principal reason why so many of them are seen in common hands of little or no value, as properly appropriate to no particular purpose, or of the least general utility: most of this description have the first defect accompanied by a second, which is a long back, and consequent weakness of the loins; these, in the aggregate, constitute a complete loose-jointed horse; the purchase or possession of which will reflect no predominant RAYS of JUDGMENT upon the owner.