Page:Annals of horsemanship (1792).djvu/48

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ANNALS OF HORSEMANSHIP

hope effectually to immortalize my own name, by calling it Angle's first Hippopiptic[1]curve.

The first equestrian problem that I ever set myself to discover was this; "When by pulling the reins you prevent a horse from falling, where is the fulcrum or prop?—and how is the horse's centre of gravity prevented from being thrown beyond the base of his legs?" I will not trouble you now with the particulars of this difficult investigation; but shall only say, that it turned out greatly to the honour of demipique saddles; which, accordingly, in the Mathematical Elements of Riding, that I mean hereafter to publish, I shall recommend very strongly in a Corollary.

A Learned
  1. Hippopiptic expresses the mode of the curve's generation in falling from a horse:—from Hippos, a horse, and pipto, to fall. I call it first, because I hope by the same means to discover more hereafter.