FIG. 64.—IN HAND IN TROT
It is a rule, without exception, that when one rein or heel is applied, the other rein or heel must be prepared to guard its effects from being answered in too great a degree.
The walk is a pace of four beats, one foot being planted after another at regular intervals. If the right fore foot comes to the ground first, it is followed by the left hind foot, then the left fore foot is planted, and lastly the right hind foot. Then a new stride begins. In every stride the mass is borne by two legs or by three legs; just before a fore foot is planted, its diagonally disposed hind foot leaves the ground; at that moment the two legs bear the weight; when the fore foot is planted, three legs bear the weight. By stride we mean the movement that covers the ground from the time a certain foot comes to the ground until it is again planted. Through moment photography we have gained a knowledge, not only in every phase of the ordinary paces of the horse, but practically of every movement the animal is capable of making; and through the same medium I was able to explain, for the first time, the gallop changes, which very important movement was previously not understood, and was procured only by tentative experiments with each horse trained to make it.
When, the horse having been in the walk, the speed is increased, a different movement of the legs must take place to keep the bearers under the centre of gravity, and the diagonally disposed hind leg acts in unison with a fore leg, when we have a pace in which the horse springs from one pair of legs to the other, which gives the trot. In the trot we have a gait of two beats, as the horse takes the weight upon the right (or left) fore leg, and the left (or right) hind leg after each spring, going into the air as each pair of bearers leaves the ground.
The horse should be ridden in the trot in exactly the same manner as in the walk, except that in the turns the horse should be more closely united between hand and heels, particularly as the rate of speed is increased. As far as the rapidity of the movement will permit, the state of collection described as "in hand" should be observed. In trotting or in galloping at great speed a horse must extend itself too much to permit any such condition of its forces as that indicated; but if at sharp turns the flying horse is not somewhat brought together, so that it may have the bearers under the centre of gravity, as the mass leans inward, a fall will probably result, almost certainly if the horse be galloping with the outside legs taking the advanced strides.
FIG. 65.—THE PREVENTION OF REARING