CHAPTER VI
THE GAITS
THE usual equitation regards the horse as an animated machine already adjusted to carrying the rider's weight at various gaits. Means of securing regularity of gait or of correcting irregularity belong to the rational equitation, and are quite outside the ordinary form.
The horse has three natural, or regular, gaits — the walk, the trot, and the run. He has, besides, two other irregular or artificial gaits, the amble and the single-foot, which are not natural to the animal, except where they are the result of special breeding or training.
The walk progresses by a succession of strides, in which the four limbs move two by two, diagonally. It is, therefore, said to be in "diagonal biped." In the fast walk, called by Newcastle, in French, le pas relevé, though the animal still keeps at all times three feet on the ground, the diagonal movement is no longer apparent.
The means for making a standing horse change to a walk are so various in the usual equitation, that it is not possible to touch upon any but the most commonly practiced, such as chirping with the tongue, the moderate use of the whip, advancing
