The thoroughbred Gant, by Gantelet out of Mlle. de Romanerie, did the canter to the rear as if it were play, and after he had gone round the school at this pace he was as fresh as before.

Baucher did not know or was not able to describe the canter to the rear. The following, which is his definition of it in the fourteenth edition of his "Method of Equitation," p. 155, evidently corresponds to the way he did it :—"In the rein back at the canter the times are the same as those of the ordinary canter ; but the fore legs, instead of gaining ground when raised, are carried back, in order that the hind legs may do the same retrograde movement immediately the fore legs are placed on the ground."

How could Baucher make such a description of a canter to the rear, after having said that it was like the canter to the front ? No doubt it is like the canter to the front, and in the rassembler it is in four time ; but it is precisely for this reason that we cannot give the name of canter to a pace in which the hind legs do not make their retrograde movement before the fore legs are placed on the ground.

What, then, is this pace in which the two fore feet and the two hind feet respectively come to the ground at the same time. Under these conditions where is the canter ?

There is no need to be a great horseman to understand that Baucher alludes to a pace of two time, the first time being made by the hind quarters, the second by the forehand. But that is not a canter ; it is plainly little jumps to the rear. There cannot be a canter unless the fore legs and the hind legs are respectively put down one after another ; and further, when one of the hind legs is on the ground at the same time as the opposite fore leg, they form the left diagonal when the horse is cantering to the right, and the right diagonal when he is cantering to the left.

Baucher invented the expression, "canter to the rear," but