10 



Gait of the American Trotter and Pacer 



rhythm of the fall of feet, and harmony between hind and front ex- 

 tremities. Any deviation from the above lines of action will be due 

 either to a natural or to an acquired or accidental fault. in the structure 

 of the legs or feet. These deviations will enter largely into this in- 

 vestigation, because most horses have some structural faults to over- 

 come in their effort at speed. The correction of such faults, wherever 

 possible, constitutes largely what is called "balancing." 



We come now to the consideration of the imprints or tracks left 

 on the ground by the trotter at speed. Fig. 2 will show the relative 

 position of fore and hind feet of a horse going at about a 2:30 gait. 

 Roughly estimated, we have here a stride of 16 ft., with about 3 ft. 

 between the diagonal or correlated feet which move together, and 

 with about 5 ft. as the distance of hind over fore, or overstep. The 



M 



N 



small brackets show the diagonal or correlated feet and the longer 

 brackets the oversteps. Ordinarily this is the notation, or order of 

 succession, of the four moving feet as they strike the ground. The 

 distance between the feet is intentionally much exaggerated to show 

 the lines of motion on each side. As a rule the distance between the 

 fore, measured from the middle of frogs, is from 2 to 4 inches, and 

 the distance between the hind probably averages from 4 to 7 inches. 

 Now and then we strike a line trotter whose lines of motion of fore 

 and of hind are nearly coincident. It is safe to say that in nearly all 

 trotters the hind feet spread more than the fore. This is no doubt due 

 to the greater mobility of the hind, as well as to the probability of 

 their obtaining a better hold of ground by spreading somewhat. In 

 no case of a fast trotter do we find an extreme outside position of hind 

 as in Fig. 3. No doubt the larger spread of hind is also due to a pos- 



