158 Advantages of the True Rack. 



horse to amble or rack if he does not naturally 

 do so, though it can often be done. 



Apart from the agreeable and useful side of the 

 true rack as a gait, it has not a few further advan- 

 tages. In coming from a canter to a walk, a horse 

 may be taught to slow up into a rack, and then 

 drop to the walk, or to stop in the same manner. 

 This enables him to come down without the least 

 suspicion of that roughness which almost all 

 horses show when stopping a canter, particularly 

 if done quickly ; unless, indeed, they be " poised " 

 before being stopped, as a School-ridden horse al- 

 ways is from every gait. Moreover, when you 

 rein a cantering horse down within the slowest 

 limit of his speed at that pace, as to allow a team 

 to pass, or for a similar purpose, if he knows how, 

 he will fall into a rack, from which he can with 

 much more comfort to himself and you resume 

 the canter, than if he had fallen into a walk. A 

 rack is not an interruption of the canter, as is a 

 jog or walk, but a mere retardando, as it were. 

 Still a rapid walk, a trot which varies from six to 

 ten miles, and a well-collected canter suffice for 

 any of our Eastern needs. These, and the gal- 

 lop, moreover, are considered the only permissi- 

 ble paces by the School-riders of Europe. 



In our Southern States rackers are bred for, 

 and the instinct is confirmed by training. In 

 many warm countries, ambling is bred for. I do 



