There are farmers who breed hunters and who ride their young horses to hounds, as a matter either of business or of pleasure. If they would try them unshod, they might be agreeably surprised at the result. Setting aside their superior performance, they would find, when they came to sell them, that the veterinary surgeon would always pass them as free from all suspicion of brittle hoof, sandcrack, seedy toe, thrushes, corns, pumice-foot, cutting or brushing, or navicular disease. No unshod horse ever suffers from any of these diseases or defects, no matter how hard his work or over what ground. This much is allowed, as we have seen, by veterinary surgeons. But besides these certain advantages, there are others. For instance, spavins, splints, ring-bones, side-bones, wind-galls, ‘swollen’ legs and ‘filled’ legs (which are different), quittor, curbs, stringhalt, overreach, bad action, thickened tendons, and stumbling, are all to be found with singularly less frequency in the unshod horse than in the shod one. The same remark applies also to those occult infirmities and defects of which mention has already been made, many of which constitute unsoundness by law.
