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

SURBATING

—is a term getting into disuse, and with the last of the old school of farriery will in a few years be buried in total oblivion: this it well deserves to be, as a word without either meaning or derivation. Insignificant as it sounds, it has been, till within a very few years, used to signify a hoof so battered, bruised, and worn, with bad shoeing, bad shoes, and sometimes with no shoes at all, that the horse, having hardly any feet to stand upon, was then said to be surbated; which, in more explanatory and comprehensive language, is neither more or less than the sole of the foot so completely destroyed, (by the means before-mentioned,) that a horse in such situation is now said to be foot-foundered, who was formerly said to be surbated.