LECTURES ON HORSES. 
467 
THE CANTER. 
I have already observed, that the canter may be regarded rather 
as an artificial than as a natural pace ; not that it is never seen in 
a state of nature, for, as I said before, foals may not infrequently 
be seen cantering after their dams : still, however, to perform it 
well or gracefully requires more training and practice than any 
other of the paces. Distinguishable at once as the veritable canter 
is from the veritable gallop, yet may a horse’s gallop be so re- 
duced or his canter so increased in speed that it may puzzle any 
of us to say whether the pace he is going be really a gallop or a 
canter. Mr. Blaine conceives that “ at no period in this pace (the 
canter) is the horse all in air ; ” “ whereas in the slow gallop 
there is a period in which the legs are all in air ; so an essential 
difference occurs.” Were Mr. B.’s data founded in fact, the distinc- 
tion between the paces of canter and gallop would, indeed, no longer 
puzzle us ; but the canter, no more than the gallop, is not uniformly 
executed by all horses : some horses there are that canter so slowly 
that, as Mr. Blaine observes, they have “ always a point of con- 
tact with the ground : ” others, on the contrary, there are that at 
every step in their canter manifestly spring all four feet off the 
ground ; and so confound any definition we might construct in 
accordance with the going of the former. Lecoq calls the canter 
a gallop with four beats, and thus distinguishes it from the ordinary 
or hunting gallop, which has, he says, three beats, and from the 
racing gallop, to which he assigns but two . I need not, however, 
repeat here, it is my opinion that these asserted differences are 
not founded in observation. That, according as the rate of speed 
varies from the canter to the fleetest gallop, there will be great 
differences in the time of succession of the beats of the feet, 
I have already admitted ; but, that their order becomes different, 
or that they become, as in leaping, perfectly synchronous , I very 
much doubt. Unfortunately, it is only in the canter and the slower 
rates of gallop that the matter admits of any sort of ocular 
demonstration. 
The canter will not only vary as performed by different horses, 
but will also prove unlike any standard of the pace we may form 
in our mind, according as it has been the product of instruction by 
a riding-master, or as it has come naturally, or been the result of 
common-place training, or practice on the road. The school or 
manage canter differs from the others in being a performance of 
more gracefulness, better carriage, and one that calls forth much 
more exertion of the bodily powers of the animal, particularly of 
his hind quarters : indeed, it requires certain form of body and 
action for its perfect execution, and on this account is performable 
