A horse’s stones should not be big: but it is
						impossible to observe this in a colt. As for the parts below, the hocks, shin bones,
						fetlocks and hoofs, what we have said about the corresponding parts in the
						forelegs applies to these also. I want also to explain how one is least likely
						to be disappointed in the matter of size. The colt that is longest in the
						shanks at the time he is foaled makes the biggest horse. For his stature this is an infallible rule that the
							shinne bone...never increaseth, no not from the first foaling...insomuch
							that if those bones be long and large, we are ever assured that the
							Foale will prove a tall and large Horse. G. Markham,
								 Cavalerice, 
							 1617 . For in all quadrupeds the shanks
						increase but little in size as time goes on, whereas the rest of the body
						grows to them, so as to be in the right proportion.