" This is what Colonel Couste has noted. Struck by 

 seeing so many runners afflicted with an upright shoulder, 

 with a sloping arm, and with an extremely sloping 

 femur, which defects, it appears, were exceptions in the 

 old-time race horse, he has tried to sort out the reasons 

 for this new conformation. It is the fruit of these re- 

 searches which is presented to us in ' Une Foulee de 

 Galop de Course.' 



" We will return later to this most interesting work. 

 It deserves to be examined and discussed, point by point ; 

 to be commented upon with corroborative photographs. 

 The author bases his arguments upon chronophotographs 

 by Marey, and especially upon a series of pictures pub- 

 lished by Lieutenant-Colonel Gossart which, unfortu- 

 nately, do not appear in the pamphlet. It would be in- 

 teresting to reproduce them and to examine them with 

 M. Couste's text. 



" We must be cohtent for the moment with summing 

 up the substance of the pamphlet. 



" In studying these chronophotographic series, Colonel 

 Couste found out that, during the stride of the gallop, 

 which is complete in 19/50 of a second, the velocity of 

 translation of the body— variable as is easily imagined — 

 reaches its maximum when the animal is propelled simul- 

 taneously by a hind leg and front leg, that is to say, dur- 

 ing the brief duration of the diagonal base. 



" On the other hand, this velocity decreases to its min- 

 imum during the period of suspension, contrary to the 

 generally accepted opinion. 



" The result is, therefore, that to enable him to go as 

 fast as possible, a horse is interested in diminishing his 

 period of suspension. To say that he is interested is 

 naturally a figure of speech, our poor horse being him- 

 self incapable of changing his gaits in the desired way. 



66 



