Fig. 8. Average time histories of forces carried by the left forelimb. From each of 23 horses one jump was used in which the left forelimb limb was leading and one in which it was trailing. Force magnitude F was estimated from the distance between elbow and coronet, assuming that this part of the leg operated like a linear spring with a stiffness of 166 N m^-1 kg^-1. For each jump, time was normalized separately for the forelimb push and for the hindlimb push, and subsequently results were averaged over horses. The top diagram shows the sum of the two curves, to be compared with the calculated ground reaction force in Fig. 4. Solid lines indicate averages; broken lines indicate 95% confidence intervals.