People’s ideas about the movement of the horse have changed dramatically throughout the years, from the long drawn out, leg sprawling gallop, all the way to the tightening and stretching tendons theory of today. The first theory was that horses at the gallop, or at any gait for that matter, had to have one hoof touching the ground at all times. In figure 1, you can see that one of the rear feet is touching. That belief continued until 1872. Eadweard Muybridge took the first images of a horse while galloping, proving that the assumed conventional wisdom was false. He provided evidence that showed a moment in the horses canter when there were no hooves on the ground. He was ahead of his time.
Now we know that it is the tightening and loosening of certain tendons that cause the horses legs to move. However, in his time this kind of thinking would have been laughed at because many scientists at the time did not embrace this. Tendons and muscles had been discovered but scientists still did not recognize that they made the legs move. Now we know that electric impulses transfer signals to the muscles to either contract or stretch them. Another interesting fact is that they have elastic tendons that flex when the hoof hits the ground. Then contract to push them off the ground.
It could be argued that Eadweard Muybridge paved the way to the modern understanding of the horse, but without his predecessors he wouldn’t of bothered. All of this, still does not answer my burning question. Would it be so much to ask for one perfect canter? Just one in a dressage show?
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Source: Eadweard Muybridge Picture1 LInk 3