About the cover:
The Mystery of the Flying Horse
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By John Muncie Do galloping horses fly? It was a controversy for generations; technically a question of “unsupported transit.” But on June 19, 1878, the world got the answer: Yes, they do. The men behind this moment in horse history – and inspiration for the cover design of Gallop magazine’s premier issue -- were railroad tycoon Leland Stanford and photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Their histories (separate and entwined) involved merchants, murder, and moving pictures. In 1852, Stanford, a 28-year-old lawyer, moved to California, where he made a fortune in merchandise and mining supplies. Then he turned to trains. In 1861, he became president of the Central Pacific Railroad and later helped build rail lines all over the Southwest. Soon after, he added governor, senator and founder of Stanford University to his resume. Muybridge’s journey was more tortured. He came to the U.S. from England at age 20 and sold books in San Francisco just after the Gold Rush. But on a trip back to his home country, he suffered a severe head injury that may have affected his mental stability and certainly affected his career. After he returned to the U.S. five years later, he had become a disheveled, itinerant photographer who became known for pictures of Yosemite and other Western locales. Muybridge was married by then, but his back-country work kept him away from home for weeks at a time. Time that his wife – 21 years younger – seems to have spent in the arms of another man. When Muybridge found out about the affair he went to the cabin of the lothario, Harry Larkyns, and knocked on his door. “I have a message from my wife, take it,” Muybridge said when Larkyns appeared, then shot him dead. At trial, Muybridge was acquitted, but not because of his lawyer’s attempt to plead insanity. The mostly married, all-male jury figured it was justifiable homicide. After all, Muybridge was just defending his honor. Aside from making millions, Stanford’s passion was racing and racehorses and at his 8,000-acre estate -- what would become the Stanford University campus, south of San Francisco -- he bred both trotters and Thoroughbreds. A betting man, Stanford wanted to improve his horses’ chances at the track. It was this goal that brought Stanford, “unsupported transit,” and Muybridge together. Even though horses were the world’s most important transport mode -- carrying people to finish lines, to markets, and to war -- nobody knew exactly how they moved. When they galloped, did all four legs leave the ground simultaneously? Were they momentarily “unsupported”? And, if they did, when in their gait were they flying? Horses run too fast for the human eye to discern.
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Wrong
""Derby in Epsom" by Theodore Gericault Courtesy of Wikipedia
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