LOOKING THE ANIMAL OVER
Know what form you want; draft and speed represent different types, so do dairy and beef. With all classes of farm stock there are a few points that are desirable in all stock. One of these is width between the eyes. No animal of any breed or class possessed of a narrow forehead is at all perfect. A wide forehead is one of the absolute beauties.
These are desirable characters of all farm animals; they represent culture and refinement and good breeding. The purchaser or breeder, therefore, should not only know conformation, but he should know quality.
SPECIAL TYPE IN HORSES
Our breeds of horses may be divided into three general classes. Those used for speed, those for draft and those with a mixture of the two—a general purpose sort of horse. The speed or trotting horse has its distinct type; it has been evolving and developing through a long series of years.
Briefly, its conformation may be described as follows: A wide forehead, fairly long head, a long neck that is thin and agile, a narrow chest as you look at it from the front, but very deep as you look from the side, long sloping shoulders, rather long back, a long horizontal croup, small barrel, fairly long forearm, long cannon bones and feet that are well shaped and perfect in every respect. Looking at the animal from the side it should be as high over the hips or higher than over the withers.
The draft horse, on the other hand, has a different conformation. There is not that elongation of his parts, although there is a symmetry of parts and of proportion. There should be the width between the eyes; the clean, neat face; a graceful neck, which should be shorter and more heavily muscled than that of the speed horse. The chest should be wide, both from the front and side, the back short but heavily muscled, the croup strong and not so horizontal as with the speed type, the quarters heavily muscled and the cannon bone short.
The feet should be as perfect as those of the speed horse. In both types the knee should be thick, deep, and broad and the hocks wide. The narrow hock is not so well able to stand heavy strain, consequently curb diseases readily follow where the conformation shows narrow hocks. Another difference between the two types is found in the muscles. The speed type throughout has long, thin, narrow muscles—muscles that stretch a long way and contract quickly.
BAD ATTITUDES DUE TO CONFORMATION