When Verrocchio started making this statue, there had been only one big equestrian monument made in more than a thousand years. Donatello had made an equestrian statue of another soldier, who was nicknamed Gattamelata ("the Smug Cat"). Verrocchio must have looked at Donatello's statue, which was in Padua and at the four ancient bronze horses that stood high on the front of St Mark's Basilica. Verrocchio decided to make his horse do something which the St Mark's horses do, but Donatello's horse does not do. The horses at St Marks all have one front hoof raised, so that they are perfectly balanced on only three legs. 