Musing: two years ago Indy was recovering from multiple genetic malaises that essentially lamed him. With corrective shoeing, electrowave therapy, medication and a patient year of regaining ground in the tiniest of increments, he is a happy, healthy riding horse again, just not up the steepest hills anymore. For those readers who aren't horsepeople, not every injured horse comes back to recovery...
Further musing:
Video LINK
from these still photos:
Indy's various canter strides are reminiscent of a fascinating chapter in proto-motion pictures. Eadweard Muybridge, an adventurous type who survived a serious stagecoach crash and murder charges, photographed still shots in of a galloping horse in 1872. When seen in rapid sequence they present a movie of same. Leland Stanford funded the complex project of tripping shutter releases to stop the action to win a bet, that all four feet of a horse are off the ground at a gallop. This gait had always been stylized by artists as front feet sticking straight out with back legs sticking straight out, as in this Currier & Ives print print and all Western art prior. The proto-motion picture proved that this schematic was impossible for horses in real life, and more natural depictions followed thereafter...
