BIG BONE IN HORSES.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XV, Issue 895, 2 May 1907, Page 7

BIG BONE IN HORSES.

In an English paper a writer, who is of opinion that most buyers are inclined to attach too much importance to big bone in horses, expresses himself as follows on the subject:—“Reference to big bone reminds me how I first had it demonstrated that the biggest bone does not necessarily contain the most substance. The demonstrator was a wellknown veterinary professor, who, taking two metacarpal, or cannon, bones of the horse—of course, from different animals, one being at least half as large again as the other —put them in a scale (one at each end) with the result that the smaller was decidedly the heavier of the two. Then to explain the cause of such an apparent paradox, he sawed them both through the centre, when the seeming absurdity was explained. The tissues of the bigger was porous, while that of the smaller one was quite dense, which, of course, accounted for the great disparity in weight. This is a lesson those who look for big bone in thoroughbreds might well bear in mind. Those who will carefully look over our best racehorses will find that they are not overburdened with bone, while if in a race you see one or two toiling along in the rear you will generally find that in the matter of bone Nature has endowed them with much more than their fleeter opponents. Then take the hunting field. Look at the thoroughbred and the halfbred (with plenty of bone) before they start the day and after a good gallop, carrying the same weights. Which is the fresher at the finish ? I think most of our hunting friends would answer in favour of the light-boned one. Many folk seem to forget that it is not the bones that generally give way—it is the accessories, the ligaments and muscles.”