574 THE EXTERIOR OF THE HORSE. 



on the other. He cleared the lower side easily, but touched slightly on the 

 opposite side. It appears that he was at liberty. 



" Another Irish horse also leaped over the same wall. 



" There are also some rare examples of horses leaping over walls 2 metres 

 high for wagers. 



" A hunter of Kent County, in endeavoring to follow a fox into a closed field, 

 is reported to have leaped over a wall of 2 metres without difficulty. 



" We rarely see a leap of 1 metre under a heavy man ; one of 1.46 m. is not 

 often witnessed, even in hurdle-races, because what I call a leap is the leap clear 

 and free over a movable bar which falls from the least touch or over a wall which 

 does not bend or give way. The hurdles of the race-courses are nearly always 

 struck by the feet at 18 or 22 centimetres from their superior extremity. 



" A leap of 1.46 m. is worth one's while to go 100 kilometres in order to see 

 it, and a leap of 1.62 m. is seen but once or twice in the life of a sportsman." 



2d. The Longitudinal Leap. This is also called the leap in 

 width by De Curnieu. It is that which a horse executes in jumping 

 over a ditch or a stream of water, but it can be made in a vertical and 

 a longitudinal sense at the same time. 



Thus Flora, a celebrated hunting mare of the English thoroughbred variety, 

 leaped over a hedge of 1.46 m. with a ditch of 7 metres close behind it. 1 



" The Sporting Magazine 2 speaks of a wager in which it was proposed to leap, 

 with 66 kilogrammes, the canal of Mar Dyke, in Corez, at a place where it was 

 25 English feet wide." 



The longitudinal leap is not always solitary ; it is frequently associated with 

 a progressive movement, the trot or the gallop, when the body of the horse is 

 altogether in the air. 



3d. The Descending Leap. This form of progression must not 

 be confounded with the fall, properly so called, nor again with the third 

 period of the ascending leap, that is to say, the descent. In each 

 case the execution has as its principal agent the weight of the body, 

 and, very secondarily, the fraction of the initial impulsion not yet 

 exhausted, which counteracts a fall and lessens the concussion. 



The horse, in the descending leap, is, on the contrary, not obliged to 

 raise himself previous to clearing the obstacle ; he must simply leave 

 the ground in order to reach a point on the latter situated beyond and 

 at a greater or less distance from the place where the surface changes 

 its level. At this moment he collects the members under the body 

 during a very short period, and then springs obliquely downward and 

 forward, from the energetic extension of his hind-members. 



The parabolic curve described by the body under such circumstances 

 is produced by the weight of the body and the impulsive force from 



1 De Curnieu, loc. cit., t. ii. p. 139. 



2 Octobre, 1829. Citation de M. de Curnieu, loc. cit., t. ii. p. 414. 



