4:10 HOUSE POKTEAITUEE. 



trotter. That there is a time when the body is propelled 

 through the air, is manifest from the length of the strides 

 that Jane made. The tape line showed nineteen feet ; 

 extend her feet as far as it is possible, and yon will per- 

 ceive that ten feet is beyond her capacity of reaching, so 

 that the extra nine feet is made by the body being hurled 

 along, before it is again supported by the feet touching 

 the ground. The length of the stride is from where the 

 foot leaves the ground, to where it first strikes it again. 

 There are four spaces between these two marks. In the 

 trotter they are nearly of a uniform length, while in the 

 race horse, three of these spaces are about equal, while 

 the fourth is as long as all the others. Of course this 

 proportion is regulated by the distance of the stride, there 

 being a great disparity in this particular among race 

 horses. I must acknowledge my partiality for a horse 

 that is a long strider, over a short one, for either running 

 or trotting, as I think the long striders are generally the 

 fastest, and I have known many horses celebrated for 

 their endurance that " covered a deal of ground." It is 

 rare to find this qualification, unless a horse has the 

 oblique shoulder-blade, a point which every judge of a 

 horse's form considers of the greatest importance. 



While talking of the foot-prints, I will mention a custom 

 which I always follow, when training horses and making 

 myself acquainted with their length of stride, and I often 

 find it useful as a guide to show the reasons why they are 

 not trotting as well as common. For instance, we give 

 Never Mind a trial, and he trots a quarter of a mile in 

 thirty-six seconds. He is working and feeling well. 

 "We measure the strides for a hundred yards, and find that 

 they average seventeen feet, with very little difference in 

 the length of any of them. At a subsequent period we 

 speed him the same distance, and find that he has been 

 two seconds longer in accomplishing it. * The tape line 



