K, I had a cat like that. I swear he could fall UP stairs! The vet said that kittens whose mothers had distemper while they were pregnant sometimes had damage to their cerebellum. That's the part of the brain that controls coordination, depth perception, and your location in space. Tigger would stop walking with a foot in midair as if he forgot how to put it down, or what to move next. He was a great cat, and a real lover!
Yes this is exactly what he would do. My vet told me the same about why he was retarded. Our basement steps had no raisers and were open to a diagonal board nailed onto the back of the stairs. He would attempt to run up the steps and about 1/3 the way up he would "miss" and go between the steps and slide down behind the steps to the bottom where he would have to start again. We had to put a couch right by the steps so when he would fall off the open end he would have something soft to land on.
People can't understand this unless they have seen it. I would have never beleived it unless I had seen it with my own eyes.
I just played "Evil" out with the laser light. He is passed out under the ironing board and the old man can rest easy for a while. "Evil" has been sprayed only once today. "It's gonna be a good day Scooter"