158 COMPARATIVE SHAPE OF HORSES. 



than the hind ones. Any disadvantage, in progression, 

 arising from undue shortness of fore legs is, more or less, 

 compensated for, in the hare, by great development of the 

 muscles of the loins (" rearing muscles," see p. 64). The lynx 

 (PI. 17), which is very high behind, has an extraordinary turn 

 of speed ; but only for a short distance. Its gallop, like that 

 of other cats, is a series of leaps {see p. 128). From practical 

 observations, I do not think that it is an advantage for a 

 race-horse to be higher over the croup than at the withers. 

 With regard to this point, we may study the Frontispiece 

 (Ormonde), and PI. 55 (Favonius). Could a horse be re- 

 served for races up-hill, like on the old Cambridgeshire 

 course, which finished at "the top of the town," increased 

 height at the withers might be an advantage ; but such a 

 policy would hardly be practicable. We may conclude from 

 the foregoing remarks, that if a race-horse be higher over 

 the croup than at the withers, he will require, all the more, to 

 have sloping shoulders, oblique pasterns and powerful loins, 

 and to be "light in front." 



We have now to consider the very practical question — 

 which, no doubt, every man who goes in for pony racing has 

 asked himself — is it an advantage for a pony which has to 

 pass the standard at a certain height, to be considerably 

 higher over the croup than at the withers ? The results of 

 my experience make me reply "no" to this query. The 

 statement, which I have often heard urged, that a pony 

 which measures, say, 14 "3 over the croup, and which can 

 pass the standard at fourteen hands, must have a "pull" 

 over others of its own class which are as high at their 

 withers as over their croup, is not borne out in practice. 

 The best racing ponies I have seen, had no great difference 



