The Horse That Proved Hooves Leave the Ground
June 19, 1878
Did a galloping horse ever have all four hooves off the ground at once? The human eye could not tell. On 19 June 1878, at Leland Stanford's farm in Palo Alto, California, photographer Eadweard Muybridge lined up a row of cameras along a track, triggered one after another as the mare Sallie Gardner galloped past. The resulting sequence showed that, yes, there is a moment when the horse is fully airborne, with its legs tucked under its body rather than stretched out as painters had long shown. Muybridge's motion studies became an important step toward moving pictures.