138 FORM AND ACTION. 



THE WALK. 



The walk is the pace the quadruped, by nature or habit, breaks 

 into out of a state of inaction or quiescence. It is the slowest of 

 the paces — that by which all the others are more or less influenced, 

 and so might with reason be emphatically denominated the primi- 

 tive or cardinal pace. The best earnest a horse can give us of 

 " what he can do" in other respects, is his walk ; a clever walker 

 will perform well in his trot, and most likely in his gallop likewise : 

 indeed, I have heard eminent turf-men say, it is rarely that a good 

 racer is a bad walker. A horse so made that walking is either 

 difficult or impossible of performance to him, without perpetual 

 blundering and danger of falling, may gallop or canter to satis- 

 faction, but cannot be expected to be a good trotter, the walk and 

 the trot being paces requiring similar conformation and powers of 

 progression. There are some people who will not look at a horse 

 (for purchase) that cannot walk. For a hackney, park or pleasure 

 horse, charger, and, above all, for a lady's horse, good walking is 

 indispensable ; for a hunter it is next to indispensable ; and in a 

 racer highly desirable. By good walking I mean the powers or 

 capabilities of walking well : a horse not in possession of that 

 form and action that enables him to step properly or safely in his 

 walk I call a bad walker ; and not one who has been caused to 

 walk improperly or amiss, either through any mismanagement in 

 the training or using of him, or any anormal condition into which 

 he may have been thrown by accident or disease : the epithets 

 good and bad have, in fact, reference here to natural or original 

 disqualification, and not to any thing incidental or superadded. 



The physical properties foreshewing a horse to be a good walker 

 must be collected principally from what has been already said about 

 form, in particular of the fore legs and shoulders ; at the same time 

 the hind limbs must not be overlooked, they, with the fore, con- 

 curring to make the good walker. We may often, when we 

 behold certain anormal or ill construction of the limbs, without 

 hesitation pronounce it impossible that such a horse can walk 

 well ; though we are liable to be deceived in our opinion about the 



