забирая всё шире..., минуя скопище народа, в сторонке. A few questions

'Кавалерийская ала, забирая всё шире рыси, вылетела на площадь, чтобы пересечь её в сторонке, минуя скопище народа, и по переулку под каменной стеной, по которой стлался виноград, кратчайшей дорогой проскакать к Лысой Горе.'


'забирая всё шире': does 'забирая' just mean 'taking' in this instance? Would this be the usual verb to put here?
Is 'всё шире ' here just a shortened version of 'всё шире и шире'?
'минуя скопище народа':- 'passing the crowd of people', or 'the passing crowd of people'??
does 'в сторонке' mean something a little different from ' в стороне'?

I guess забирая всё шире рыси can literaly be tranlated as "taking trot wider and wider" (with the direct object рысь in Genitive instead of Accusative) and it means here that the horses were going with trot and they were increasing their speed at the same time (so their trot was becoming "wider").

Thanks, that's about what I thought too.

Is 'всё шире ' here just a shortened version of 'всё шире и шире'? YES
'минуя скопище народа':- 'passing the crowd of people', or 'the passing crowd of people'?? FORMER
does 'в сторонке' mean something a little different from ' в стороне'? THE SAME

Thanks again, maxmixiv.

минуя толпу народа passing (present adverbial participle) the crowd of people
минующий толпа народа the passing (present active participle) crowd of people

Good, only
минуя толпу
и
минующий, тоже, толпу

That's strange, not what I expected.
Just as a sentence on it's own, wouldn't 'толпа' be nominative? (In the second sentence, not the first as someone/something has to be 'passing' in the first one.)

Probably you want to say "минующая толпа народа". (crowd of people are passing someone/something)
минуя/минующий are about someone who are passing crowd.

Yes, another mistake from me... Thanks