64 
LECTURES ON HORSES. 
ground, and the horse in this manner erecting himself upon the 
latter, the act is denominated rearing : when, on the contrary, the 
hind legs are thrown into the air, the body being erected upon the 
fore feet in the opposite direction, the act is called kicking. But 
neither in kicking nor rearing is there any locomotion — any pro- 
gression or retrogression. In rearing, the fore feet, through the 
agency of the shoulders and fetlocks, spring off the ground, and are 
then lifted with the body into the air, the erection being effected 
through the contractions of powerful muscles running upon the 
back, loins, croup, and haunches, the hip-joints operating as fulcra 
or turning points. Some of the muscles or powers employed being 
between the fulcra and resistance, while others — those operating 
upon the hind quarters — are placed behind the fulcra, the levers, 
on whose principles the movement of rearing is effected, become 
those of the first and third description. 
By persons in general, or, at least, by such as are unacquainted 
with the manege , rearing is often regarded as a vice in a horse. 
This, however, is a very erroneous view to take of the act. We 
ought to take quite the contrary, and regard a horse so made that 
rearing becomes, as it were, natural to him, and who consequently 
performs and repeats the act with every facility, as, by proper 
management, convertible into an excellent hackney or charger, or 
hunter even, rearing being a component part of the act of leaping. 
I do not mean to assert that rearing, carried to excess or resorted 
to by the animal to shew resistance, may not prove a vice, and a 
troublesome and dangerous one ; it is but seldom, however, that it 
turns out such ; it is mostly controllable, and may, in proper hands, 
be turned to most useful account. Indeed, rearing constitutes so 
fundamental a part of many of the horse’s school-taught move- 
ments, that without it, either natural or acquired, the hopes of the 
riding-master in his education are disappointed : he can make no- 
thing of his pupil but a common labour horse, fitter to drive, pro- 
bably, than to ride. Horses require strength of loins and haunches 
to rear readily and sustain themselves upon their hind quarters. 
Short-legged compact horses generally rear and spring with more 
promptitude than others. Of all horses, thorough-breds are com- 
monly the most untoward learners of the manege, on account of 
their deficiency in rearing powers; though I have known some 
notable exceptions to this. Were the riding-school art and practice 
carried far enough, there appears no good reason why a horse might 
not be taught to walk upon his hind legs and sit upon his haunches 
like a dog. Girard mentions, indeed, the instance of a stallion 
who, at the sight of the mare he was about to cover, was in the 
habit, of his own accord, of walking for some distance in this 
manner in his approach to her. 
