164 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 



The modern Kentucky saddle horses are taught the 

 following gaits : — (1.) The flat-footed walk, or ordi- 

 nary walk. (2.) The running walk. (3.) The amble. 

 (4.) The rack or single foot, (o.) The trot. (6.) The 

 canter. (7.) The gallop. 



The running walk is simply the ordinary walk ac- 

 celerated. An ambitious colt ridden toward home, 

 kept back from a faster gait, but urged to walk more 

 speedily, Avill gradually fall into it. The action is 

 more springy and pronounced than that of the ordi- 

 nary walk, but mechanically it is the same. The 

 sensation it transmits to the saddle is a very slight 

 up and down motion. A Kentucky horse will run- 

 ning-walk at the rate of five or five and a half miles 

 an hour, and keep it up all day without fatigue to 

 himself or to the rider. 



The amble is a slow pace, both near feet leaving 

 the ground and returning to it simultaneously, fol- 

 lowed by both off feet also moving together. The 

 amble is a gait of about four and a half miles per 

 hour, and it communicates to the saddle a slight 

 rocking motion. 



In the rack or single foot the feet follow each other 

 at equal intervals (or half-intervals), there being twice 

 as many hoof-beats as there would be at a trot or pace 

 of the same speed. In other words, the two near feet 

 do not strike the ground together, as in a pace, but at 

 regular intervals. The sound of the footfalls is one, 

 two, three, four, instead of one, two, as it would be in 

 the same period of time at a pace. This is the smooth- 

 est of all gaits. "You are sitting in an arm-chair," 

 remarks Colonel T. A. Dodge, to whom I am indebted 

 for these particulars, " at a speed of from seven to fif- 



