46 Seats and Saddles, 



all four legs are equally good ; but if one tread be 

 heavy and another light, we may take it for granted 

 that there is something amiss with the foot or leg that 

 makes the latter. With horses, however, that either 

 overstep or tread short (C and Z>, fig. 2), the case is 

 different ; we hear constantly tivo stronger a?zd two 

 weaker beats^ supposing the legs and feet to be sound. 

 The former — stronger ones — will be found to proceed, 

 if we pay attention, from the fore legs in the horse that 

 oversteps — the two hind ones, chiefly used as propel- 

 lers, ""dinting" into the ground with the toes; with the 

 short stepper, on the contrary, we perceive that they 

 proceed from the hind legs, which are stamped down ; 

 and if one leg be defective, we hear, in such cases, three 

 different degrees of intensity of sound, which vary ac- 

 cording to the leg and the mode of action.* 



We must now remind the reader that we have, up to 

 this point, taken no account of the influence exercised 

 by the overhanging weight of the horse's head and neck 

 on the animal's equilibrium, having proceeded altogether 

 on the supposition of this being analogous to that of 

 the little instrument represented in fig. i. It has been 

 shown, however, that the centre of motion — that is to 

 say, the point round which all other parts of the animal 

 move when in action, or, what comes to the same 

 thing, the point where the least motion is felt — is situ- 

 ated somewhere in a perpendicular filling through the 

 fourteenth dorsal vertebra, Plate I. ; and it has been 

 intimated that the perpendicular through the centre of 

 gravity of a horse naturally falls through some one or 

 other of the vertebras from the tenth to the thirteenth, 

 that are situate nearer to the neck. A horse can go 



* Dishonest dealers are well aware of this, and, to cover it, will 

 sometimes make a horse temporarily lame on one foot to conceal a 

 permanent defect of the corresponding one ; the horse will then tread 

 "gingerly" on that pair. 



