THE ACTS OF REARING AND KICKING. 123 



places, otherwise the animal will remain in the same situation. 

 The movements in progression are for the most part the result of 

 the alternate action of the four feet ; when the two fore legs are 

 elevated into the air, the two hind remaining fixtures upon the 

 ground, and the horse in this manner erects himself upon the 

 latter, the act is denominated rearing : when, on the contrary, the 

 hind legs are thrown into the air, the body being erected upon the 

 fore feet in the opposite direction, the act is called kicking. But 

 neither in abstract kicking nor rearing is there any locomotion — 

 any progression or retrogression. In rearing, the fore feet, through 

 the agency of the shoulders and fetlocks, spring off the ground, and 

 are then lifted with the body into the air, the erection being effected 

 through the contractions of powerful muscles running upon the 

 back, loins, croup, and haunches, the hip-joints operating as fulcra 

 or turning points. Some of the muscles or powers employed being 

 between the fulcra and resistance, while others — those operating 

 upon the hind quarters — being placed behind the fulcra, the levers, 

 through whose agency the movement of rearing is effected, become 

 those of the first and third description. 



By persons in general, or, at least, by such as are unacquainted 

 with the manage, rearing is often regarded as a vice in a horse. 

 This, however, is a very erroneous view to take of the act. We 

 rather ought to take the contrary, and regard a horse so made that 

 rearing becomes, as it were, natural to him, and who consequently 

 performs and repeats the act with ease and freedom, as, by proper 

 management, convertible into an excellent hackney or charger, or 

 hunter even, rearing being a component part of the act of leaping. 

 I do not mean to assert that rearing, carried to excess or resorted 

 to by the animal to shew resistance, may not prove a vice, and a 

 troublesome and dangerous one ; it is but seldom, however, that it 

 turns out such ; it is mostly controllable, and may, in proper hands, 

 be turned to excellent account. Indeed, rearing constitutes so 

 fundamental a part of many of the horse's school-taught move- 

 ments, that, without it, either natural or acquired, the hopes of the 

 riding-master in his education are disappointed : he can make no- 

 thing of his pupil but a common labour horse, suitable to drive, un- 

 suitable for riding. Horses require strength of loins and haunches 

 to rear readily and sustain themselves upon their hind quarters. 



