ACTION OF THE HORSE IN JUMPING.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 50, 10 March 1894, Page 11

ACTION OF THE HORSE IN JUMPING.

A short time back a leading 1 feature in the columns of the English field "was the lengthy correspondence on the action of jumping horses at shows. The discussion in question began by a correspondent observing that, in jumping competitions at shows, some •of the X’iders did not sit back over their fences in the accepted form; and there is no doubt that the vvi itei was correct in his statement, as of the most experienced show riders hold to the opinion that for a man to lean back in the style one commonly sees good riders adopt in the hunting field is to throw so much extra weight on the horse’s hindquarters as to prevent him clearing the greatest height of which he is capable. AMr Hely-Hutchinson, however, then came forward with a statement that horses in jumping land on their hind legs. "That this is not borne out by the facts the Field proceeded to show by publishing the following illustrations from Mr Leland Stanford's book, “ The horse in motion,” the plates being from photographs taken under the supervision of Mr Muybridge. These photographs are not the work of an inexperienced person armed with a “ Kodak,” but were taken by a battery of cameras worked by electricity ; so that the horse was photographed several times in a second, and every action and motion, from the time the horse approached the fence till he was, in the words of Dick Christian, “over and away,” is recorded. For the taking of these photographs 24 cameras were employed, and the page from which we reproduce the eight illustrations here given contains 24 silhouettes. Not having space for all, we have selected those which best indicate the position assumed by the horse at the most important moments.

Figure 1 shows the horse rising at a, hurdle 3ft Gin high ; and on the page from which our illustrations are taken there are between figures 1 and 2 eight others showing the position at various stages, and in three of them the horse is as nearly as possible horizontal to the ground. Then the forehead begins to descend, and our figure 2 comes in. At figure three the horse has straightened out his forelegs preparatory to landing, the hind legs being still inclined backward ; but in figure 4 one forefoot has •come to the ground, slightly in advance of the other, which instantly passes it, and itself comes to the ground about Ift to BOin in front of that which first rested, as shown in figure eight, figures 6 and 7 shelving how the distance between the two fore feet is gradually increased.

Mr Hely-Hutchinson argued, or at any rate suggested, that one reason why the horse almost invariably landed on his hindlegs was because the forelegs could not stand the strain of bearing the weight. But, as we have already seen, one foreleg alone has for a fractional part of time to take much of the shook, and “ this,” continues Dr. Stillman, “is the moment of extreme danger to the pastern joint and flexor tendons ; but before these parts are put to the extreme test the other foreleg comes to the relief of its fellow, and immediately after the posterior extremities, one after the other, are planted under the centre of gravity, and by their great lifting force, relieve the anterior extremities, and all the limbs are free to act their various parts in the run.” In a letter Mr Hely-Hutchinson said : “ Surely if a horse lands on his hind legs he must be in a better position to get away than he would be if his forelegs were stuck in the ground by the weight being placed on them.” The answer to this was that, if a horse landed on his hindlegs, all progression would have to be arrested for d very appreciable time, and all the collecting in the world on the taking off side of a fence would not enable a horse to get away on the far side if he landed on his hind-legs. On landing the horse moves off at once, simply because his forelegs touch the ground first, then his hind legs, and then his forelegs advance to

begin the next cadence. Moreover, if anyone examines the skeleton of a horse they can see that the conformation of a horse’s hock is such that the delicate machinery is not suited to the >vork of landing on the hind feet.

The following four silhouettes are representations of a horse taking a standing leap, and the larger illustrations those of a horse taking a Hying leap; The numbers beneath the silhouettes represent foot lengths, so that it will be seen how far the horse has progressed during the different motions. Now, in figure 4, is there much doubt as to whether the horse lands on his forelegs or his hindlegs ? and, though he is jumping nothing more formidable than a 3ft Gin hurdle, he is, at any rate, not galloping over it; yet he lands as he did when taking the obstacle flj’ing. The late Major Whyte-Melville was generally supposed to know at least something about horses and their ways, and this is one of the incidents he described at page 85 in “ Riding Recollections ” : “I remember seeing the Rev. John Bower, an extraordinarily tine rider of the last generation, hand his horse over an ugly iron bound stile on to some stepping stones, with a drop of 6ft or 7ft into a Leicestershire lane as calmly as if the animal had been a lady whom he was taking out for a walk. He pulled it back into a trot, sitting very close and quiet, with his hand raised 2in or Sin above the withers, and I can still recall, as if I had seen it yesterday, the curve of neck and quarters as, gently mouthing the bit, that well-bred hunter poised lightly for its spring, and, landing in the same collected form, picked its way daintily step by step down the declivity like a cat. There was a large field out, but though Leicestershire then, as now, had no lack of bold or zealous riders, who could use heads, hands, and, beyond all, their heels, nobody followed him, and I think the attempt was better left alone.”—Selected.

SUICIDE—AND AFTER. The colony is just now the scene of & suicidal mania. Something of the same kind oceured at home not long ago, and set people to writing to the papers on the subject, Referring to the correspondence, Harper’s weekly remarked : What is noteworthy, (hough, is that there lias raged in the British papers a wild debate over the right and wrong: of suicide, in which a considerable number o£ writers, quite above the average—as their letters show—in education, or at least in familiarity with books and ability to write* have strongly sustained the right of any one in a desperate condition as to health, wealth* or happiness to destroy his own life. The fatal weakness in this argument is the assumption that suicide is necessarily the destruction of life. It is the end of this life, and the fact of another life after this isr not demonstrable to persons who reject the authority of Christian teaching; but to anyone capable of reasoning on the subject at all, the assumption that life ends with the close’ of the form of it known to ns is, to say the least, quite as tremendous as the opposite, so that the mere shuffling off this coil cannot with any sense be regarded as a finality. Apart from this, the very common explanation of suicide by “ temporary insanity ” is founded, on a wide range of known facts, and though, it is not an implict and perfectly trustworthy explanation, it comes as near to one as wo are likely to get. In any case, all our reasoning about the abstract question will probably neither hinder nor cause a single suicide, but ifc is just as well, in questions of this sort, to give some rein to common-sense, and not to* discard the long teachings of the experiences of the race. In the great mass of cases suicide may bo taken as due to insanity orsomething worse.