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 movement, yet without occasioning too much surprise. But the effects of right leg and right hand will have a tendency to send the haunches to the left rather than forward. Therefore the rider's left leg has also to be closed, partly to prevent the haunches from getting away to the left, and partly because the attack of the right leg first attracts the right hind leg below the center of gravity, and then calls the left hind leg to its support, the front legs being raised by the effects of the right hand, the right ready to extend to receive the weight as the foot comes back on the ground.

All these effects have to be executed with decision and precision, in a word, with equestrian tact. It is this employment of this left leg of the rider to maintain the horse straight at the beginning of the gallop to the right, which has created the mistaken theory that it is the function of the left leg to start the gallop to the right, and of the right leg to start the gallop to the left. Such was the foundation of the theory of the gallop executed by the diagonal biped.

The motion in diagonal at the gallop shows itself only when the horse changes lead from one lateral biped to the other. With the gallop on the right hind leg, this leg, which is giving the impulse, is always in front of the left, which is the more continued support. But for the forcible change of lead from right to left, the impulsion alters first, and after this the support passes to the other leg. The