LECTURES ON HORSES. 
65 
KICKING is the act the reverse of rearing : instead of the fore- 
quarters being raised, the hind ones are elevated. The muscles 
employed in kicking are much the same as produce rearing, the 
difference being, that the fore-quarters are now the fixed and turn- 
ing points, the hind the moving parts. The shoulders become the 
fulcra, the hind-quarters the resistance, the power lying inter- 
mediately. Although kicking, like rearing, must be viewed, ab- 
stractedly, as a manifestation of power, yet it is a manifestation of 
a most dangerous kind, and one that cannot too early or too effec- 
tually be suppressed. From the circumstance of the act being 
much facilitated and enforced by the abasement of the head at the 
time — that having the effect of extending the muscles and so ena- 
bling them to act with more energy and effect — we learn that the 
elevation of the head is one of the best counteractions we can adopt 
in horses disposed to this dangerous vice : we see this well exem- 
plified in dealers’ and breakers’ establishments ; the moment any 
signs of kicking are evinced, the same moment the head is seized, 
and thrust up to the highest pitch. 
THE ACT OF LEAPING. 
The LEAP is either a sudden spring into the air, in which the 
feet quit the ground simultaneously, or else it is an act compounded 
of an imperfect rear and kick in quick or slow succession, accord- 
ing to the manner in which it is performed. The leap can hardly 
be regarded as an act of progression : commonly, it being in a for- 
ward direction, undoubtedly progress is made by it ; but it is 
possible for it to amount to no more than a jump or a bound off 
and upon the same ground, as is the case when a horse is said to 
“ buck” in his leaping, i. e. to come down upon or near to the spot 
from which he arose. 
BORELLI commences his chapter “ de saltu ” with the proposition, 
that no leap is made without the joints of the feet being first 
flexed *, and instances man as with straightened limbs being inca- 
pable of leaping. Brutes and insects, however, from having their 
joints already flexed, can leap at pleasure t. Horses with their 
flexed fetlocks and angular haunches and shoulders are ever ready 
to spring off the grounnd, and the more lengthy and angular these 
parts are, the greater the animal’s power of jumpingj. We see 
this well exemplified in the deer kind, and in rabbits and hares, 
and especially in kangaroos, but most beautifully of all in many 
* Saltus non fit, nisi prius articuli pedum inflectantur. 
f Bruta et insecta aliqua, quae omnium pedum aut saltern postumorum 
articulos semper inflexos retinent, possunt ad libitum saltare. 
j Quo longiores sunt vectes extremi crurum, saltus majores fiunt 
