402 
LECTURES ON IIORSES. 
setter. In this latter kind of trot, springless and uneasy though it 
be to the rider, regularity or harmony in the motions of the limbs 
is still preserved ; whereas in the jumble — trot can it be called ? — 
of trotting before and galloping behind, and in what John Law- 
rence significantly terms hitching, there is evident discrepancy 
in the movements, produced by overstrained efforts to accomplish 
that which the powers or capabilities of the animal are inadequate 
to. And this is the jumble of a pace — this the confusion of trot 
and gallop — butchers’ boys and cads, et hoc omne genus (who in 
riding or driving are saving time by minutes, whilst in lounging 
or doing worse they are squandering it by hours), urge their horses 
into. Lecoq speaks of the trot of such horses as being decousu, 
i. e. unconnected, inharmonious ; and ascribes it to weakness. 
Not only is the motion of the limbs quicker in the trot than in 
the walk, but their sphere of action is augmented — they perform 
larger gyrations in the air, notwithstanding they have less time 
to make them in, and, on this account, a very small amount of time 
indeed is allowed them for grounding and again lifting themselves. 
In rapid trotting, the tread of the hind foot — the propeller of the 
machine — upon the ground is barely sufficient to afford the requi- 
site fulcrum, the fore-foot at the instant simply sustaining the 
body in front while this propulsion is being accomplished. And 
during this acceleration of the pace, every time fresh impetus is 
given to the moving machine, whereby it is lifted with a spring 
into the air, all four legs are off the ground. Common close ob- 
servation shews that this is the case, the best situation for the 
observer being, as Lecoq says, a pit or hollow deep enough to 
place his eyesight on a level with the ground upon which the 
horse is trotting. Vincent and Goiffon, Lecoq informs us, have 
made a calculation, that the time occupied in moving the feet in 
the air is thrice that consumed in the grounding of it : supposing 
the treading of either foot to occupy a second of time, its revolu- 
tion in the air takes three seconds. Lecoq, however, himself, 
thinks that this latter interval is over-rated. It is evident that the 
tread of the foot — the hind one in particular — must be both forcible 
and instantaneous ; forcible, to give the requisite propulsion ; in- 
stantaneous, because the swift motion will not admit of more : 
what the precise periods, however, may be, either for grounding or 
suspension, or their proportionate intervals, must, we suspect, be 
matter more of speculation than of fact. 
By an increasing rapidity of movement the momentum, once 
generated, is readil} T sustained through alternate beats or treads of 
the hind feet, the fore limbs appearing to effect little else than, in 
diagonal directions with the hind feet, propping or lifting the fore 
quarters. The trot carried to this springing celerity of movement — 
