This operation is performed only on the fore feet; it is often neglected altogether, and often it is overdone. It consists in applying some moist matter to the sole, for the purpose of keeping it soft and elastic.

Kinds Of Stopping

Clay and cow-dung are the stoppings in most general use; each is employed alone, or in combination with the other. Clay is apt to get too soon dry; it becomes hard as a stone, if not removed in twenty-four hours; and if the horse be taken to the road, and put to fast work, with a hardened cake of clay in his foot, the sole is bruised before the clay is displaced. Clay answers very well, however, for heavy draught-horses, whose work is slow, and their heels raised from the ground by high calkins. It is sometimes mixed with salt-water or herring-brine. As far as I can see, plain water is quite as good. Cow-dung contains much more moisture than clay. It softens the sole in less time, and never becomes too hard or dry. For ordinary feet, that is, feet with neither too much nor too little horn, a mixture of cow-dung and clay makes the best stopping. To this some salt may be added; it prevents the dung from rotting. Hacks, hunters, and racers, are often stopped with tow or with moss. They are cleanly, and the quantity of moisture which they impart can be varied to suit the condition of the feet. The tow or the moss is put into the sole when dry, and water is poured upon it once or twice a day.

For horses that have thrushy feet, or a tendency to thrushes, the clay or cow-dung is rather too moist; tow answers much better. It should be neatly introduced, so as to fill the sole, and be on a level with the shoe; it is secured by packing it a little under the edge of the shoe. Moss is used in the same way, and is fully as good.

Mr. Cherry of London, invented a felt pad, which he intended to supply the place of stopping, by the moisture it would contain, and support the sole by the resistance it would afford. These pads are to be obtained of all sizes; they cover all the exposed portion of the sole and the frog. The inventor argues truly that the sole was intended to receive some pressure from the ground, which becomes rare and almost impossible when the horse is shod and worked on hard roads. He can not work in the pads, and it is not meant that he should; but perhaps he may receive some benefit from them in the stable. They may be useful for soles that have a tendency to become flat. Care must be taken to have them of the proper size; when too small, they fall out and are lost; when too thin, they do not support the sole. It is only thin, flat soles that require any support. In general they have little need for moisture: but the pad is usually dipped in water before it is inserted. To a concave foot these pads are useless, the soles have more need for moisture than for support: and for them damp or wet tow answers better than felt pads.

Nimrod speaks of a groggy mare in whom Cherry's pads increased the inflammation of the feet and produced considerable suffering: he must have been mistaken; the pads have no such power.

The Times of Stopping must vary according to the state of the feet. All horses, those with thin flat soles excepted, should be stopped on the night before the day of shoeing. Except at these times, farm-horses seldom require any stopping; their feet receive sufficient moisture in the fields, or if they do not get much, they do not need much. Cart-horses used in the town should be stopped every Saturday night till Monday morning. Fast-going horses have need to be stopped once a week or oftener during winter, and every second night in the hot weeks of summer. Groggy horses, all those with high heels, concave soles, and all those with hot tender feet, and an exuberance of horn, require stopping almost every night. When neglected, especially in dry weather, the sole becomes hard and rigid, and the horse goes lamer, or he becomes lame.

Some Feet Should Not Be Stopped

When the sole is flat and thin, the less moisture it receives the better; it makes the sole yield too much; under the pressure of the superincumbent weight it descends and often becomes convex, instead of maintaining its original concavity. Stopping alone will not bring the sole down, but it helps, when there is an existing tendency to descend. Flat soles are almost invariably thin; they can not suffer paring; when softened, they not only yield to the horse's weight, but they yield when they come upon a stone. On a newly-metalled road, the horse is lame, and his sole is easily cut through; such soles are always sufficiently elastic without the assistance of moisture.

Constant stopping will make even a thick sole too soft. When the sole is so soft or so thin as to yield to any degree of pressure which can be exerted by the thumb, no moist stopping should be applied. If it be rendered more yielding, whether by stopping or by paring, the horse will go tenderly over a rough road, and his foot will be very easily bruised. I am aware that a high authority recommends the sole to be kept as elastic as possible. This is not the place to discuss such a subject. The fact is as I state; experience enables me to declare that a yielding sole will lame the soundest horse that ever walked. Excessive stopping also produces.