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Horse gaits

Posted by oui269 on 07 Dec 2012 at 05:38 GMT

Figure 4, the Leonardo DaVinci drawing, clearly shows a trotting horse. Yes, horses can and do trot with elevated movement such as that seen in the drawing. Here are a couple of reference photos:
http://fairytalefriesian....

http://horsephotos.ca/pho...

The statement: "However, because the fore legs of trotting horses are never lifted so high, and the angle between the femur and tarsus cannot be nearly 90° this should be a walking horse."
is entirely incorrect, as the photos plainly show.

The specific horse in the Muybridge photos did not show high action, but many horses do, depending on their conformation, or bone structure.

If the authors cannot take the time to learn the correct gaits of quadrupeds before undertaking their assessments, then I think the integrity of the entire study must be questioned in light of this glaring mistake.


No competing interests declared.

RE: Horse gaits

ghorvath replied to oui269 on 08 Dec 2012 at 16:03 GMT

Dear Elle Charlotte (oui269),

thank you for your comment.

YOU WROTE:

Figure 4, the Leonardo DaVinci drawing, clearly shows a trotting horse. Yes, horses can and do trot with elevated movement such as that seen in the drawing. Here are a couple of reference photos:

http://fairytalefriesian....

http://horsephotos.ca/pho...

ANSWER:

In the above pictures quoted by you the horses perform typical "proud trot" which is an unnatural, trained motion type, rather than the natural, untrained trot of horses. The training of horses to produce such an unnatural gait is time-consuming and difficult. The results of such training (namely the unnatural motion types of trained horses) are compared with each other at the highest dressage competitions and the Olympics.

In our study we assumed that in his drawing da Vinci depicted a natural, untrained gait of the horse motion. In the cited drawing of da Vinci, the horse is lifting its front right leg much higher than untrained trotting horses under natural conditions. Consequently, Figure 4 of our paper, the Leonardo da Vinci's drawing, does not show a trotting horse.

In the Discussion of our PLoS ONE paper we wrote:

"On the basis of the leg attitudes Fig. 4A could, in principle, depict a trotting horse. However, because the fore legs of trotting horses are never lifted so high, and the angle between the femur and tarsus cannot be nearly 90^o this should be a walking horse. This is evident from the series of pictures taken of trotting horses by Muybridge (1887), for example."

YOU WROTE:

The statement: "However, because the fore legs of trotting horses are never lifted so high, and the angle between the femur and tarsus cannot be nearly 90° this should be a walking horse." is entirely incorrect, as the photos plainly show.

ANSWER:

As mentioned above, your photos show the proud trot of trained horses with an unnaturally extremely highly elevated front leg, which does not occur in nature. Thus, your interpretation is wrong, and your assumption, that we performed a mistake in our assessment, is incorrect.

YOU WROTE:

The specific horse in the Muybridge photos did not show high action, but many horses do, depending on their conformation, or bone structure.

ANSWER:

Your statement might be valid only for trained horse motions produced for dressage competitions.

YOU WROTE:

If the authors cannot take the time to learn the correct gaits of quadrupeds before undertaking their assessments, then I think the integrity of the entire study must be questioned in light of this glaring mistake.

ANSWER:

As a biopysicist, at the Department of Biological Physics in the Physical Institute of the Eotvos University in Budapest I teach since a decade the biomechanics of animal motion. Three chapters of my biomechanics text-book deal with this topic:

Horváth Gábor (2009) Biomechanika: A mechanika biológiai alkalmazásai. Egyetemi tankönyv, 3. bővített, átdolgozott kiadás, 368 o., ELTE Eötvös Kiadó, Budapest, ISBN 978-963-284-052-9

http://arago.elte.hu/file...

http://arago.elte.hu/file...

Thus, I have taken the time to learn the correct gaits of quadrupeds, especially horses.

You are naive if you assume that the physicist and biologist authors of a scientific paper dealing with the biomechanical analysis of quaruped motion (published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal PLoS ONE and accepted for publication on the basis of the professional reviews of three experts) are not aware that quadrupeds do have several different gaits with different leg motions.

In light of the above arguments, the integrity of our study cannot be questioned.

Finally, I would like to call your attention to our following paper with a quite similar biomechanical topic:

Horváth, G.; Csapó, A.; Nyeste, A.; Gerics, B.; Csorba, G.; Kriska, G. (2009) Erroneous quadruped walking depictions in natural history museums. Current Biology 19: R61-R62 + online supplement

http://arago.elte.hu/file...

With best wishes: Gabor Horvath (corresponding author)

*****************************************
Dr. GABOR HORVATH (habil., PhD, CSc, DSc)
Department of Biological Physics,
Physical Institute,
Faculty of Natural Sciences,
Eotvos University,
H-1117 Budapest, Pazmany setany 1,
Hungary,
e-mail: gh@arago.elte.hu,
http://arago.elte.hu
*****************************************

No competing interests declared.

RE: RE: Horse gaits

spochron replied to ghorvath on 09 Dec 2012 at 03:52 GMT

You said: "In our study we assumed that in his drawing da Vinci depicted a natural, untrained gait of the horse motion."

Why would you assume that?

No competing interests declared.

RE: RE: RE: Horse gaits

ghorvath replied to spochron on 27 Dec 2013 at 14:56 GMT

ANSWER: Since nobody could guess the original intentions of artists, whose quadruped depictions were analysed in our paper, our working assumption was that in these depictions the artists aimed to illustrate natural, untrained gaits of horse motion.

To illustrate why you believe we are incorrect about Figure 4 (da Vinci's horse drawing) in our PLoS One paper, on 15 December 2012 you sent me a picture

http://www.democraticunde...

taken about a passaging/trotting bay horse as an example for a similar motion phase as depicted by da Vinci (Fig. 4A in our paper). Comparing your photo with da Vinci's horse drawing, the following two important differences can be observed:

(1) The right fore leg of your bay horse is not so highly lifted as that of da Vinci's horse.

(2) On the one hand, the tail and mane of your bay horse are flying-waving due to the air drag. This evidently hints to a quicker gait, namely trot. On the other hand, the mane of da Vinci's horse is invisible, while its tail is hanging vertically, rather than flying-waving in wind induced by such a quick gait as trot. From this we concluded that da Vinci's horse performed a slower gait, namely walk. If da Vinci's horse is walking, the posture of its front right leg is lifted unnaturally high. Consequently, its leg attitudes are incorrect, and could be corrected as shown in Figs. 4C and 4D of our PLoS One paper.

No competing interests declared.

RE: RE: Horse gaits

thewindhorse replied to ghorvath on 09 Dec 2012 at 12:57 GMT

Sorry, but this is nonsense.

Firstly what you call "proud trot" is something that every stallion uses to show off and intimidate his opponent in a fight. Also a nervous horse held back by a rider/handler will show this kind of movement. Therefor it's a perfectly natural movement.

Secondly, how high a horse lifts it's legs depends very much which breed you have. In the baroque times particularly the horse of Spanish origin was very popular all over Europe (for example the Lippizan and Kladrubsky is a descendent of the Spanish and Italian horse importet to Austria in the 16th century).
Spanish horses of that time as well as of today show this high action gait naturally without a rider. You will find tons of material if you search Google for "Andalusian" or "PRE Stallion"

So Da Vinci's painting is absolutley correct for the at that time highly popular Spanish breed stallion. That's a fact.

No competing interests declared.

RE: RE: RE: Horse gaits

ghorvath replied to thewindhorse on 27 Dec 2013 at 15:05 GMT

THEWINDHORSE WROTE: Sorry, but this is nonsense. Firstly what you call "proud trot" is something that every stallion uses to show off and intimidate his opponent in a fight. Also a nervous horse held back by a rider/handler will show this kind of movement. Therefore it's a perfectly natural movement.

ANSWER: Sorry, but your arguments are nonsense. Da Vinci's horse has no rider/handler (who could hold back it), and its rather quiet body attitude is quite different from that of a fighting or nervous horse.

THEWINDHORSE WROTE: Secondly, how high a horse lifts its legs depends very much which breed you have. In the baroque times particularly the horse of Spanish origin was very popular all over Europe (for example the Lippizan and Kladrubsky is a descendent of the Spanish and Italian horse importet to Austria in the 16th century). Spanish horses of that time as well as of today show this high action gait naturally without a rider. You will find tons of material if you search Google for "Andalusian" or "PRE Stallion". So Da Vinci's painting is absolutley correct for the at that time highly popular Spanish breed stallion. That's a fact.

ANSWER: It is also a fact that, independently of the unknown breed of da Vinci's horse, its non-flying/non-waving tail evidently hints to its slow motion. Thus, it was logical and correct of us to assume that this horse is walking, rather than trotting. If this horse is walking, its leg attitudes are incorrect, which can be corrected as suggested in our Figs. 4C and 4D. You can find tons of pictures by Google about trotting horses, a typical characteristic of which is that their mane and tail are waving-flying due to air drag. Similarly, tons of pictures about walking horses are available from the Internet, but no one picture can be found that would depict a walking horse with such a highly lifted front leg as seen in da Vinci's drawing. This drawing would only be correct, if da Vinci's intention had been to depict a trotting horse. However, the associated marks (non-flying tail and quiet body posture) contradict to the assumption that this is a quickly moving (trotting) horse.

No competing interests declared.

RE: RE: RE: RE: Horse gaits

thewindhorse replied to ghorvath on 15 Jun 2015 at 21:37 GMT

I can just shake my head at how stubbornly you still defend this nonsense.

If you assume it's a trained movement, then it's what is called "passage". Which is still is T-R-O-T. And yes, artists depicted horses in trained movements without a rider or saddle and bridle.

Here a nice video of a PRE stallion performing piaffe and passage

https://www.youtube.com/w...


Sorry, if I have to use youtube to debunk the nonsense you spread.

No competing interests declared.

RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Horse gaits

ghorvath replied to thewindhorse on 04 Aug 2015 at 15:13 GMT

Dear Anonymous thewindhorse,

thank you for your comment.

YOU WROTE: If you assume it's a trained movement, then it's what is called "passage". Which is still is T-R-O-T. And yes, artists depicted horses in trained movements without a rider or saddle and bridle. Here a nice video of a PRE stallion performing piaffe and passage https://www.youtube.com/w...

ANSWER: Nobody knows whether Leonardo da Vinci tried to depict a naturally walking horse, or a horse in an unnatural trained movement (e.g. piaffe or passage). It is rather obvious that horses under natural conditions never perform piaffe.

The first two clips of the nice video https://www.youtube.com/w... entitled "Anne Margaret and PRE
Stallion schooling Piaffe and Passage" and "PRE Candau Stallion Piaffe Passage Spanish walk" prove nothing else than the well-known fact that horses can be trained for completely unnatural movements. In both video clips it can be well seen that the trainer is walking beside the horse and forces the animal to perform piaffe or passage or Spanish walk. Forcing happens with one or two whips and by holding the bridle firmly. It is trivial that these equestrian performances do not demonstrate the natural movements of horses.

As mentioned in my earlier response, in our paper we assumed that artists depicted walking quadrupeds. On the basis of the vertically hanging tail of da Vinci's horse it is evident that the moving speed of this horse is smaller than that of a trotting or galloping horse having a horizontally beginning tail flying and waving due to air drag. Hence, the speed (walking or trotting/galloping) can be guessed from the tail orientation. Just from the vertically hanging tail of da Vinci's horse we concluded that this horse moves with a small velocity, and thus it is walking, and in this case its leg attitudes are incorrect.

On the other hand, as Jeanne White (Southern Wisconsin, USA, allshebe@gmail.com) wrote me: "While the image [of da Vinci] would be incorrect for a horse walking or galloping, it is absolutely dead on for a horse performing one of the diagonal gaits trot, passage or piaffe." Yes, this is right, but in our opinion, da Vinci's horse is walking concluded from its vertically hanging tail.

With best wishes: Gabor Horvath (corresponding author)

********************************************
Department of Biological Physics
Physical Institute
Faculty of Natural Sciences
Eotvos University
H-1117 Budapest, Pazmany setany 1
Hungary
gh@arago.elte.hu
http://gh@arago.elte.hu
********************************************

No competing interests declared.

RE: RE: Horse gaits

Risely replied to ghorvath on 22 Nov 2013 at 21:38 GMT

The "proud trot"you refer to is most definitely performed at liberty without a rider or training. Perform a google search and you will see numerous examples. Try Friesian or Morgan breeds or one of the Iberian breeds that da Vinci was likely depicting.

It is the beautiful trot, full of suspension in defiance of gravity, that inspired the invention of dressage training ...to gain under saddle the beauty displayed at liberty.

You refer to the femur and tarsus in your discussion of the elevated front leg...these bones are located in the horses hind legs.

The elevation of only one front leg in a military statue denotes the rider did not die in battle as you referenced...two elevated front legs, rearing or a levade, would indicate the rider died in battle. One raised leg..a death but not military.
While your credentials may be impressive they are irrelevant to the accuracy of your paper which must be evaluated on it's own merits.

Your critics on this site have made valid and demonstrable points. Your arguments are inaccurate and so easily disproven with available film and photos...why continue on a course that is so unproductive?

Perhaps more time in the field with horse and horsemen would broaden your understanding.

Robin Isely

No competing interests declared.

RE: RE: RE: Horse gaits

ghorvath replied to Risely on 27 Dec 2013 at 15:10 GMT

ROBIN ISELY WROTE: The "proud trot" you refer to is most definitely performed at liberty without a rider or training. Perform a google search and you will see numerous examples. Try Friesian or Morgan breeds or one of the Iberian breeds that da Vinci was likely depicting. It is the beautiful trot, full of suspension in defiance of gravity, that inspired the invention of dressage training... to gain under saddle the beauty displayed at liberty.

ANSWER: As we wrote to other similar comments on the alleged trot of da Vinci's horse, due to the vertically hanging tail of the depicted horse, this drawing hints to a slower gait, namely the walk.

ROBIN ISELY WROTE: You refer to the femur and tarsus in your discussion of the elevated front leg... these bones are located in the horses hind legs.

ANSWER: You are right, we have had written 'humerus' and 'radius' bones of the front leg.

ROBIN ISELY WROTE: The elevation of only one front leg in a military statue denotes the rider did not die in battle as you referenced... two elevated front legs, rearing or a levade, would indicate the rider died in battle. One raised leg... a death but not military. While your credentials may be impressive they are irrelevant to the accuracy of your paper which must be evaluated on it's own merits.

ANSWER: In the Discussion of our paper we wrote:

"The horse leg poses of cavalry statues are often symbolic: an elevated right forefoot, for instance, might indicate that the rider (e.g. a general) died in combat [21]. Such symbolic depictions can result in erroneous walking illustrations. We admit that, of course, in our present work there is some speculation, because we could not ask the prehistoric or modern artists why they have composed certain drawings and depicted quadrupeds in a particular way. We presented here an optimal and simple way to compare one aspect, namely the accuracy of quadrupeds in a walking mode of locomotion. In this respect, it was irrelevant whether the artists. intention was to show an animal in a natural or unnatural pose."

ROBIN ISELY WROTE: Your critics on this site have made valid and demonstrable points. Your arguments are inaccurate and so easily disproven with available film and photos...

ANSWER: Our arguments are not inaccurate at all, and cannot easily be disproven with film and photo materials. Please present any photograph which shows a WALKING horse with such a highly lifted front leg as seen in the horse drawing of da Vinci. Alternatively, please present a photograph which shows a TROTTING horse with such a non-waving/non-flying, vertically hanging tail as depicted by da Vinci.

Note that da Vinci's horse drawing is only a tiny (1/1000) segment of our paper studying also 999 other artistic quadruped walking depictions.

No competing interests declared.

RE: RE: RE: RE: Horse gaits

thewindhorse replied to ghorvath on 15 Jun 2015 at 21:44 GMT

Which is again nonsense, as the speed has absolutely nothing to say about the gait of the horse.

A trained dressage horse can canter almost in one place and can trot in one place. It's called collection.

Search youtube for collected trot, collected canter, piaffe, passage, pirouette. Look up videos of contemporary international dressage competitions, there you will see all the movements performed under saddle. But there are alos trainers who teach the horses to do those at liberty.

Whereas there are the so called gaited horses, that perform a gait with the same four beat footfall as the walk at speeds up to that of the canter. Look up tölt or rack on youtube and you will see horses that "walk" at canter speed.

No competing interests declared.

RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Horse gaits

ghorvath replied to thewindhorse on 04 Aug 2015 at 15:21 GMT

Dear Anonymous thewindhorse,

thank you for your comment.

YOU WROTE: Which is again nonsense, as the speed has absolutely nothing to say about the gait of the horse. A trained dressage horse can canter almost in one place and can trot in one place. It's called collection. Search youtube for collected trot, collected canter, piaffe, passage, pirouette. Look up videos of contemporary international dressage competitions, there you will see all the movements performed under saddle. But there are alos trainers who teach the horses to do those at liberty.

ANSWER: As I have already answered above, collected trot, collected canter, piaffe, passage and pirouette are unnatural movement types being characteristics only for trained dressage horses. In our paper we assumed that artists did not depict such mancges, but they tried to illustrate natural horse movements and natural leg attitudes.

YOU WROTE: Whereas there are the so called gaited horses, that perform a gait with the same four beat footfall as the walk at speeds up to that of the canter. Look up tölt or rack on youtube and you will see horses that "walk" at canter speed.

ANSWER: From its vertically hanging tail one can conclude that da Vinci's horse walks with a small speed. If it "walked" at canter speed, its tail would be tilted or horizontal due to air drag. Consequently, the leg attitude of da Vinci's walking horse is erroneous.

I would like to make clearer the logic of our biomechanical analyzing method with the following example: Let us assume that a modern ethologist analyses artistic depictions of monkeys. Her/his question is: Did the artist illustrate correctly the natural behaviour of the monkey seen in the picture? What is the right answer if the ethologist analyses the painting of Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin (1740) entitled "The Monkey Painter" (http://www.oceansbridge.c...). In this picture a monkey is depicted who is painting. The ethologist's decision is: The depiction is erroneous, because in the wild, monkeys do not paint. An opponent, however, says: The depiction is correct, because in circuses and zoo gardens painting monkeys can be seen. Who is right, the ethologist or the opponent? The ethologist argues: I am right, because although monkeys can be trained for painting, this is not their natural behaviour, and my goal was to decide, whether the painting shows correctly the natural monkey behaviour.

Well, in this analogous story, we and our paper entitled "Cavemen were better at depicting quadruped walking than modern artists: Erroneous walking illustrations in the fine arts from prehistory to today" are the ethologist, and you, anonymous thewindhorse are the opponent.

Finally, I would like to ask you to omit your rude conversation style in the future. Here is a list of your vulgar phrases
cited from your earlier and recent comments:

- sorry, but this is nonsense
- I can just shake my head at how stubbornly you still defend this nonsense
- to debunk the nonsense you spread
- which is again nonsense

These expressions are typical for primitive cyber trolls, rather than intelligent horse experts.

You dare to use these impolite words, because you are hidden by anonymity. Who is "thewindhorse"? What is her/his name? What is her/his profession? What are her/his address and institute?

With best wishes: Gabor Horvath (corresponding author)

********************************************
Department of Biological Physics
Physical Institute
Faculty of Natural Sciences
Eotvos University
H-1117 Budapest, Pazmany setany 1
Hungary
gh@arago.elte.hu
http://gh@arago.elte.hu
********************************************

No competing interests declared.

RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Horse gaits

thewindhorse replied to ghorvath on 22 Aug 2015 at 21:42 GMT

The "but the tail is hanging quietly" litany again is nonsense. When a horse trots slowly the tail will not move much, be it under saddle or at liberty.

And if it's assumed that Da Vinci depicted passage, it is indeed a natural and very slow variety of trot.

Sorry, but this is getting boring....

No competing interests declared.

RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Horse gaits

thewindhorse replied to ghorvath on 22 Aug 2015 at 22:46 GMT

Oh, and here a photo of an Andalusian stallions with a handler trotting just as in the Da Vinci portrait.

Note the nearly still, hanging tail!

http://cavalreal.com/file...

No competing interests declared.

RE: RE: Horse gaits

JessicaBlack replied to ghorvath on 19 Dec 2013 at 23:59 GMT

Plenty of horses naturally trot like that, including Spanish breeds that would have been common amongst royalty and nobles during da Vinci's time. The angles of the shoulder (which would support such action), knee and hock are in fact very well-done; it is clearly intended to be a TROTTING horse. Yes, he may have exaggerated the height of the action, all of us who love a high trot would do so. But I've ridden, driven, and watched countless horses that move just like that.
Of all the undoubtedly poorly depicted horses out there, it's a pity you had to pick one done by a master, who had observed enough trotting horses to know how to draw one realistically.

No competing interests declared.

RE: RE: RE: Horse gaits

ghorvath replied to JessicaBlack on 27 Dec 2013 at 15:14 GMT

JESSICA BLACK WROTE: Plenty of horses naturally trot like that, including Spanish breeds that would have been common amongst royalty and nobles during da Vinci's time. The angles of the shoulder (which would support such action), knee and hock are in fact very well-done; it is clearly intended to be a TROTTING horse. Yes, he may have exaggerated the height of the action, all of us who love a high trot would do so. But I've ridden, driven, and watched countless horses that move just like that.

ANSWER: As we wrote in our earlier answer to the criticism of similar comments of other readers of our paper, da Vinci's mentioned horse is evidently WALKING, rather than trotting, because its tail is not waving-flying due to the air drag, independently of its breed. Furthermore, the height of its front right leg is obviously exaggerated. In our scientific debate such an opinion that 'I have ridden, driven, and watched countless horses that move just like that' is not a serious proof. Please present a photograph which shows a WALKING horse with such a highly lifted front leg, or a TROTTING horse with such a non-waving/non-flying, vertically hanging tail to prove your statement.

JESSICA BLACK WROTE: Of all the undoubtedly poorly depicted horses out there, it's a pity you had to pick one done by a master, who had observed enough trotting horses to know how to draw one realistically.

ANSWER: Just the case of da Vinci's walking horse demonstrates well that even famous masters of artistic illustrations did not know exactly in which order walking quadrupeds move their legs. In our paper we could have presented erroneous artistic quadruped depictions of numerous other masters, such as Albrecht Dürer, Eugene Delacroix, Benozzo Gozzoli or David Morier, for example.

No competing interests declared.