124 FORM AND ACTION. 



Short-legged compact horses generally rear and spring with more 

 promptitude than others. Of all horses, thorough-breds are com- 

 monly the most untoward learners of the manage, on account of 

 their deficiency in rearing powers; though I have known some 

 notable exceptions to this. Were the riding-school art and practice 

 carried far enough, there appears no good reason why a horse might 

 not be taught to walk upon his hind legs and sit upon his haunches 

 like a dog. Girard mentions, indeed, the instance of a stallion 

 who, at the sight of the mare he was about to cover, was in the 

 habit, of his own accord, of walking for some distance in this 

 manner in his approach to her. 



Kicking is the act the reverse of rearing : instead of the fore- 

 quarters being raised, the hind ones are elevated. The muscles 

 employed in kicking are much the same as produce rearing, the 

 difference being, that the fore-quarters are now the fixed and turn- 

 ing points, the hind the moving parts. The shoulders become the 

 fulcra, the hind-quarters the resistance, the power lying inter- 

 mediately. Although kicking, like rearing, must be viewed, ab- 

 stractedly, as a manifestation of power, yet it is a manifestation of 

 a most dangerous kind, and one that cannot too early or too effec- 

 tually be suppressed. From the circumstance of the act being 

 much facilitated and enforced by the abasement of the head at the 

 time — that having the effect of extending the muscles and so ena- 

 bling them to act with more energy and effect — we learn that the 

 elevation of the head is one of the best counteractions we can adopt 

 in horses disposed to this dangerous vice : we see this well exem- 

 plified in dealers' and breakers' establishments ; the moment any 

 signs of kicking are evinced, the same moment the head is seized, 

 and thrust up to the highest pitch. 



THE ACT OF LEAPING. 



THE LEAP is either a sudden spring into the air, in which the 

 feet quit the ground simultaneously, or else it is an act compounded 

 of an imperfect rear and kick in quick or slow succession, accord- 

 ing to the manner in which it is performed. The leap can hardly 

 be regarded as an act of progression : commonly, it being in a for- 

 ward direction, undoubtedly progress is made by it; but it is 



