THE WALK. 143 



both faulty in action. And a horse that flexes his foot well in the 

 lift, exhibits his shoe during the eversion of the foot, and that has 

 a nimble though short step, though he may not make more ground 

 or even so much as a horse with straight action, will be a much 

 pleasanter hackney : in fact, this is the action that has already been 

 described as, par excellence, the hackney action. 



The GROUNDING of the foot should be flat and firm. To the 

 eye of the observer there is the slightest perceptible difference 

 between the toe and heels coming to the ground, in favour of the 

 former ; a difference that need not disturb the horseman's good old 

 rule, that a horse in his walk should place his foot fairly and 

 flatly down. Alighting upon the toe, as some horses with high 

 and round action are apt to do, renders the step instable until the 

 heel comes to the ground ; or, should the superincumbent weight 

 preponderate forwards, then knuckling over is the result, and an 

 awful drop, or else a fall, the consequence. Horses that go upon 

 their toes have, for the most part, strong upright feet, with con- 

 cave soles ; whereas, such as have flat feet are more likely to go 

 upon their heels, to save their weak crusts. We have an illustra- 

 tion of this in the going of lame horses : such as are lame from 

 contraction or navicular disease, feeling the pain or tenderness in 

 their heels, tread upon their toes; and such as feel the pain in 

 their toes or crusts, horses that have or have had fever in their 

 feet, do all they can to step upon their heels. It is curious to 

 observe — and one way in which we may do so is by the wear of 

 their shoes — how different the tread of horses is : at the same time, 

 we must bear in mind that the wear of the shoe not only tells how 

 the horse treads, but also, in some measure, the manner in which 

 he takes his foot off the ground. 



The RATE OF walking in a horse is faster than in a man. 

 Fair toe-and-heel walking at the rate of four miles an hour, in a 

 man, is accounted a good pace : a horse we reckon ought — to do 

 well — to walk five miles an hour ; the ratio between the two ap- 

 pearing to be about as 5 to 4. But. how would these relative 

 differences stand, came they to be multiplied? Would a horse walk 

 a hundred and twenty-five miles while a man was walking a 

 hundred 1 



