GAITS. 25 



The more vigorous the previous detention, so much 

 more does the length of the time of oscillation in the 

 air extend, especially if the body has been horizontally 

 projected. The appiri undergoes reduction in proportion 

 to the acceleration of the speed of the gait. 



This suspension causes the imminence of a downfall, 

 and compels a rapid displacement of the members in order 

 to attain to a support of the body, which has a tendency 

 to fall, and which does actually fall on each foot in 

 succession, at the moment when its impulsion, without 

 any cessation of production, becomes insufficient to 

 support it at a certain altitude from the ground. 



The old term, ventre-a-terre, used for the purpose of 

 representing the paroxysm of development in this gait, 

 expresses, in a very accurate manner, the act of detention, 

 when the members are extended in a contrary direction ; 

 for, in this position, the horse is nearest to the ground. 

 It is, therefore, a mistake, when thus representing it, to 

 isolate it too much from the soil, which removes it from 

 the point of resistance, towards which it has a tendency 

 to rebound. 



For the purpose of personal conviction, I advise the 

 verification which can be made by two riders with horses 

 of the same height. If the one remains motionless 

 whilst the other passes him at a trot, this latter will 

 appear sensibly smaller, that is to say, more adjacent to 

 the ground, and if the experiment be repeated at a 

 gallop, the more accelerated the gait, the greater the 

 diminution of height of both horseman and horse with 

 reference to the stationary observer. 



This verification, which has been held in little value, 

 has none the less been long known, for in Leonardo de 

 Vinci (ch. cclxviii., on four-footed animals and how they 

 walk), may be read : — " Those four-footed animals which 

 are highest in body, receive more variation when in motion 

 than when they remain stationary, and this in varying 

 degree according to the greater or lesser size of the 

 animals. This proceeds from the obliquity of the legs 

 which touch the ground, for they lift the form of the 

 animal when leaving their obliquity and pose it 

 perpendicularly upon the ground." 



Although not demanding the representation of all the 



