3S2 



THK nORSE. 



rate of that wliicli is the next quicker than the one at which he 

 is now going, unless it be when, in mortal terror or furious 

 haste, he goes at the fastest rate of all that he can command. 



K he be walking at a moderate gait, and desire to go some- 

 what quicker, he does not increase his walk to its utmost, but 

 breaks into a slow trot. The same again, of trotting, he increases 

 that trot by striking into a canter, and from that into a gallop. 



The utmost speed of any pace is far more distressing to a 

 horse, than a far superior speed, on the whole, but an inferior 

 speed at a superior pace. And to continue, for a very long 

 distance, at the top of any one pace, is the most fatiguing of all ; 

 since the same set of muscles are exerted in precisely the same 

 manner, all the time ; whereas, by varying the pace, though at 

 the same time, different muscles are brought into play and are 

 exerted in a different way. 



If it be necessary to travel a horse a certain large number of 

 miles at a giveij high rate of speed, say ten or twelve miles an 

 hour, he will accomplish it with twice the ease if allowed to 

 trot and gallop alternately, that he will, if compelled to main- 

 tain either pace, throughout the whole distance. 



This it is which makes so long practice necessary to the at- 

 tainment of great excellence in trotting horses ; and which 

 causes them, above all other horses, constantly to improve in 

 speed and powers of endurance, the longer they are kept at it, 

 until their powers actually fail through decrepitude and old age. 

 This too, it is, which renders long time-trotting matches so ter- 

 ribly exhausting to the horse and so unutterably cruel, that every 

 humane man and true lover of the horse desires to see them 

 abolished by legal enactment. 



