In 1872, Leland Stanford---the soon-to-be Governor of California who was also a businessman, horse lover, racetrack owner, and later founder of Stanford University --- encountered this commonly debated question of the time: whether during a horse's gallop all four hooves were ever off the ground at the same time. This was called "unsupported transit," and Stanford took it upon himself to settle this popular debate scientifically. He hired a well-known British photographer named Eadweard Muybridge, then working in San Francisco, to get the answer.