86 SEATS AND SADDLES. 



in the accommodation of the rider's rise in the stirrups 

 to the first movements : he will have to feel his way, as 

 it were, to the proper leg, and perhaps be obliged to sit 

 out two or three shakes before he can get at it ; for 

 many horses trot unequally that is, take a longer stride 

 with one pair of legs than with the other. The rider 

 should observe this in difficult cases, and try to find 

 out, which he soon can, with which hind leg he should 

 rise or fall ; men who have this instinct are able to trot 

 horses that perfectly good riders fail with. 



Lieutenant-Colonel von Oeynhausen tells us * that 

 the veterinary surgeon Trager, of the famous stud at 

 Trakehnen, has observed that the near hind and off 

 fore legs of most horses are stronger than the other 

 two ; and he attributes some well-known but hitherto 

 seemingly inexplicable facts in connection with horses 

 to this circumstance as, for instance, that they natu- 

 rally prefer, in cantering and galloping, to lead with 

 the near leg, the weight being then supported by the 

 two strongest limbs (near hind, off fore) ; that spavin 

 occurs more frequently on the off than the near side ; 

 and that horses in wheeling about through restiveness 

 always do so to the left, on the near hind leg, &c. 

 Mr. Trager advances in support of his views 'the well- 

 known fact that men's right arms and left legs are 

 naturally most relied on, being also stronger ; and he 

 believes this to be the case with very many other 

 animals dogs, for instance, whose method of going 

 diagonally seems to prove it. Now it is quite possible 

 that this is also the cause of what has been alluded 



* B. von Oeynhausen, K.K. Oberst-lieutenant, etc. ; ' Der 

 Pferdeliebhaber ' (Vienna, 1865), at p. 162 a book that cannot be 

 too highlj 7 recommended. 



