PARTS AND “POINTS” OF THE HORSE, ALPHABETICALLY ARRANGED.

PARTS AND “POINTS.”

To be a “good judge of a horse” is indeed an accomplishment as rare as it is desirable; but while it cannot be taught by word of mouth or pen, yet a few principles may be acquired which will be of great assistance in cultivating the eye. Even if the judgment be never so thoroughly formed as to be a safe guide unaided in purchasing, yet a great deal of pleasure may be derived from noting the comparative excellences of the really fine horses constantly to be seen in this country; and there is no reason in the world why a lady’s opinion on this subject should continue to weigh as little as it has generally done hitherto. A graceful neck and an air of spirit usually win the feminine suffrages, yet often co-exist with a long back, spindle-shanks, and a chest both shallow and narrow. Nevertheless, a good neck is an excellent thing, and so is a small head, especially if it have a wide forehead; but next look to see if there is also (to use a horsey expression), “a short back and a long belly,” a deep chest, a sloping shoulder, and legs broad and long above the knee and hock, but broad and short below.

The Arabs have a proverb that “there should be four points of a horse long, four short, and four broad.” The long are the neck, the forearm, the thigh, and the belly; the short are the back, the pastern, the tail, and the ear; the broad are the forehead, the chest, the croup, and the limbs. The head should be small and bony; that of an English thorough-bred of fifteen and three-quarter hands will measure twenty-two to twenty-four inches in length, with the forehead eight to ten inches broad, the face dishing below the eyes. The withers should be high, the shoulder as broad as possible—not fleshy, but bony—and lying at an angle of about forty-five degrees. The chest should be broad and deep, to give room for lungs and heart. The knees should be broad, the hoofs large, and not flat, but deep.

The reasons for some of the above recommendations may be made clearer by a rough comparison between the frame of the horse and that of man. For instance, the shoulder of the former, from the withers to its forward point at the joint, is equivalent to the shoulder-blade and collar-bone of the latter, and a broad shoulder is as sure an indication of strength in the one as in the other. If the horse is “short above and long below,” it gives him a carriage similar to that of a man with a full, broad chest, who holds his head high and his shoulders back.

The knee of the horse corresponds to the human wrist, and his hock, or “back knee,” as the children call it, to our heel. The shank of the fore-leg, then, or the part between the knee and fetlock, corresponds to the hand, and the hoof and pastern to the fingers; while the shank of the hind-leg, or the part between hock and fetlock, corresponds to our foot, the hoof and pastern being the toes. The horse may thus be said to walk upon the tips of his fingers and toes, and it will readily be seen why the leg weakens in proportion as the pastern and shank lengthen. The arm proper of the horse is very short and almost concealed from view, reaching from the forward point of the shoulder to the elbow, which is close against the side.