So the word “gallop” has been around and used to describe the fastest pace of a horse for a long time, but it’s my understanding that we didn’t discover that all four feet were off the ground at the same time until the early days of photography demonstrated it. So it’s hard to believe that the term gallop requires all four feet off the ground when we didn’t even know horses did that until maybe 150 years ago.
FickleSycophant t1_jdtxf0y wrote
Reply to comment by Constant_Breadfruit in Can elephants canter or gallop? by [deleted]
So the word “gallop” has been around and used to describe the fastest pace of a horse for a long time, but it’s my understanding that we didn’t discover that all four feet were off the ground at the same time until the early days of photography demonstrated it. So it’s hard to believe that the term gallop requires all four feet off the ground when we didn’t even know horses did that until maybe 150 years ago.
Edit: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-19th-century-photographer-first-gif-galloping-horse-180970990/