Downhill and Uphill Trials Compared 279 



than the hind action, and, vice versa, going uphill the hind action is 

 apt to increase. Experience of trainers will probably bear out the as- 

 sertion that the dead-level track is more tiresome for the horse than 

 slight inclines both ways. Mountain teamsters do not as a rule fancy 

 a scientifically even uphill grade for a load, but prefer level stretches 

 or slight downgrades at intervals on a long uphill pull. The let-up 

 in the continuous strain uphill readjusts the muscular system and 

 grants a temporary relief to the horse. This should hold true of the 

 horse at speed, where quickness of motion and the pulling of ever -so 

 slight a load use up more vitality than the process of slow but heavy 

 draft. 



Again, it is advisable to examine the manner of gait when we 

 take into consideration the benefits of the up and down grades. A 

 long-gaited horse has the advantage over a short-gaited one going 

 downhill, but a short-gaited horse is more effective in propulsion going 

 uphill and does it more easily. Going uphill, be it ever so slight an 

 incline, requires continual lifting and a rapid succession of steps will 

 accomplish that more readily than the swing of a long stride. The 

 downhill incline lends itself more easily to the horse with a long reach 

 because the momentum of his body increases his speed without per- 

 ceptibly increasing the rapidity of the movements. 



A short-gaited horse, however, finds himself in a peculiar pre- 

 dicament going downhill, when his weight hurls him farther than his 

 ordinary stride will almost warrant, and it may happen to him that a 

 break will be his final relief. The long-gaited horse, on the other 

 hand, prefers to take a hill in a gallop because his manner of going 

 is checked by an uphill grade. 



The conduct of the animal, therefore, in going uphill or down- 

 hill depends on the ability of either modifying or expanding the 

 curves of motion discussed under Figs. 19, 20 and 21. One of the 

 hardest problems of training or shoeing is, in fact, the regulation of 

 the gait so that a rapid motion may assume a little more extension and 

 a long motion a little more repression. 



The natural gait of each horse is amenable to but a slight change 

 either way, but the effort to modify either the rapid or the long loco- 



