STEFANO BOSCUTTI - Do horses fly?

It was pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge who made history by proving that horses lift all four feet when in full gallop.

On June 15, 1878, Muybridge used a bank of cameras and high-speed stop-motion photography to capture a horse in motion in real time for the first time.

Muybridge had immigrated to the United States from England where he first became a bookseller in New York and San Francisco. He learned about the emerging science of photography while recuperating from massive head injuries sustained in a horse carriage accident.

His groundbreaking work in stop-motion photography of animals - and occasional humans - led to the birth of motion pictures.

The average speed of a galloping horse is around 50 kilometres an hour. Wind whipping its mane, heart thumping, feet flying.

What do you think goes through a horse’s mind when it’s standing in a horse float flying along a highway at 100 kilometres an hour? Flying at twice the normal speed with its feet never leaving the ground?

Does it marvel? Does it wonder how this is possible?

Does it suffer an existential crisis?