Alvará — Fig. L10 What Goes Wrong in the Paces

The Paces

What Goes Wrong in the Paces

Choose a pace, then set it against its fault. Each leg is drawn in the colour of the beat it belongs to and carries below the foot both its own limb code and the number of the beat it belongs to, so two feet that strike together are one colour and one numeral, and the diagonal can be checked on the horse itself. The beats are numbered and counted on the track below the horse, and every row of the track names its limb in words, so a broken beat is countable rather than a matter of opinion.

Pace

State

The pace

What the reader can observe

This figure shows what the eye can see and what the beats count to. It does not show why a beat breaks, and it does not show what to do about it. These are rhythm faults, not soundness.

Three faults, and three only: the lateral walk, the uneven trot and the four-beat canter.

Figure L10

The Paces

What Goes Wrong in the Paces

One horse, three paces, and the fault the eye can count in each. The beats are numbered on the track, the bars are the feet on the ground with each limb named in words and given its beat number, and the shaded band is the moment when no foot is down.

Fig. L10 · What Goes Wrong in the Paces