1 78 COMPARATIVE SHAPE OF HORSES. 



the rougher will be his paces ; and consequently an 

 animal of this kind of conformation will not, as a rule, 

 make a pleasant hack. I had a good proof of this 

 in the horse which is shown in Fig. 280, and which I 

 owned when I lived in India. He was a fine weight- 

 carrier, fast trotter, and a grand galloper up a hill ; but 

 he was very rough when cantering or galloping on level 

 ground, and especially down an incline. Owing to this 

 objection he was put to harness, where he did much 

 better than in saddle, because the roughness of his gait 

 was no detriment to his utihty between the shafts. 



The position of the rider of a saddle horse increases 

 the instability of the equilibrium of the animal ; but 

 that of a trap and its occupant diminishes it. Hence, 

 horses will, as a rule, trot faster under saddle than in 

 harness. Also, we find that in match trotting, the ten- 

 dency is to get the weight of the driver as far forward 

 as possible. In the olden days of high wheels and the 

 "long-hitch" sulky, the American match trotter was 

 lower at the withers, as compared to his height at the 

 croup, than the race-horse ; but improvements in sulkies 

 have greatly lessened or entirely removed this difference. 

 We must here bear in mind that, with a modern sulky 

 (Fig. 60), the body of the driver offers far less resistance 

 to the air than that of a jockey. When the height at 

 the withers is less than at the croup, the proportion of 

 weight on the fore-hand is increased by conformation, 

 and not necessarily by undue development of the muscles 

 of the shoulders and neck. 



The heavy cart-horse, viewed from a draught point 

 of view, ought to be higher in front than behind (p. 78). 



Points in Common. — We may advance a step further 

 in our search after the true principles of horse confor- 

 mation ; for if we compare the proportions of the body 

 of the racer with those of the heavy draught animal, 

 we shall find that they are essentially the same, and 



