THE TROT. 147 



loin have much to do with speedy progression. According to the 

 observations of Vincent and Goiffon*, the spine of the back grows 

 incurvated during rapid trotting, the effect of which is to open the 

 shoulders, causing them to spread farther apart in action, and thus 

 to give more room for the play of the hind feet through the in- 

 terval between the fore feet. Tn ordinary trotting, these gentlemen 

 say this does not happen ; and hence they account for the re-action 

 felt by the rider, through the back, in one case and not in the other. 

 The TROT is accounted, par excellence, the pace in which the 

 British horse excels. Foreign horses, in general, are better 

 adapted for the canter or the manege than for trotting, their trot 

 being high and round, and therefore, in rapid going, necessarily 

 very quick, and yet, with all their action and agility, they do not 

 make progress — do not get over the ground — with any thing like 

 the speed of an English trotter. The action of our trotting horse 

 is that which tells in progression rather than makes any parade in 

 gait ; and yet this is not of any one peculiar kind, good trotters 

 going, as our dealers say, " in more forms than one." 



As was observed on a former occasion, a great deal may be 

 learnt of what we are to expect in the trot by noting well the walk 

 of the horse : if the slow pace be cleverly performed, we have good 

 earnest for the creditable execution of the quick pace. We may 

 even carry our observation farther than this : we may often tell 

 the manner in which the horse will trot from paying attention to 

 his mode of walking. Horses trot with high or low action, round 

 or straight, darting or dishing, ordinary or grand, &c, depend- 

 ing upon the manner and energy with which they move their limbs. 

 People in general, in estimating trotting action, are too apt to con- 

 fine their observation to the fore limbs, forgetting thq.t the hind are 

 the propellers of the moving machine, and that upon them, after all, 

 must mainly depend progression. While height and rotundity 

 of action give beauty, straightness or projecture give progression ; 

 and a certain combination of both it is that constitutes what 

 we are in the habit of so admiring as to call, by way of distinction, 

 a grand trotter. Perhaps, in our country, hardly any better 

 examples can be adduced of this perfection in trotting than the 



* As stated by Lecoq., op. tit., p. 38o. 



