40 



Scats a7id Saddles. 



meanwhile, down comes the poor brute on his head, 

 and alas for the knees ! vSooner or later horses are edu- 

 cated into stumbling in this way, the fore legs being by 

 degrees deprived of their elasticity. 



And now as to the question of the mode in which 

 action affects equilibrium or balance. The first point 

 to be observed is, that in walking and trotting the horse 

 moves its diagonal legs simultaneously, or nearly so — 

 that is to say, the off fore and the near hind leg move 

 together and alternate in this action with the near fore 

 and off hind ones ; so that, whilst the one pair is being 

 moved forward the other sustains the weight of the 

 animal ; and supposing the horse to be in equilibrio or 

 balance, we might be led to suppose that the perpen- 

 dicular line passing through the centre of gravity would 

 fall exactly in the centre of a line connecting the fore 

 and hind foot that remains on the ground. But this is 



Fig. 2. 



not the case, except for the moment at which the move- 

 ment is half completed.* Fig. 2, A^ will make this 

 more intelligible. The full lines connect the pairs of 



* In the manege movement called piaffe^ in which the horse moves 

 his limbs as in trottmg, but without gaining ground, the perpendicular 

 in question does, in the alternate movement, always bisect the line 

 connecting the two feet which are on the eround. 



