THE GAITS IN PARTICULAR. 



505 



qualities and are more sought after than those which have acquired this 

 gait by education. The explanation for this preference, as Baron 

 d'Eisemberg ' expressed a long time ago, is that in the latter the mem- 

 bers are raised higher from the ground, and thus the reactions of the 



Fig. 193.— The amble: contact of right lateral biped. 



body are less gentle. The former have, besides, the advantage of 

 executing the gait from the fact of an innate aptitude, a circumstance 

 which places them at once in better condition to profit by the benefits 

 resulting from their training and dressing. Amblers or pacers are 

 seldom found nowadays but in countries in which the bad state of the 

 roads, the length of the journeys, the distance between the villages or 

 public taverns, and the want of other means of transport, render their 

 use necessary. They are excluded from the services of the army and 

 from the riding-school on account of the difficulty they experience in 

 passing from this gait into another. 



The English called them geldings, or guilledins, and excelled in the 

 art of dressing them. Baron d'Eisemberg ^ relates that he saw some 

 which maintained their gait during a whole day with so much ease and 

 speed that they were accompanied with difficulty by other horses at a 

 gallop. The gelding was emasculated ; he was dressed, it is said, by 

 fastening together the members of the same side. This practice is still 



1 Baron d'Eisemberg, Art de monter a cheval, 1747, p. 13. (Quoted from De Curnieu, t. i. 

 P. 161.) 



2 Baron d'Eisemberg, loc. cit., p. 12. 



