Chapter X

SUCCINCT EXPOSITION OF THE METHOD BY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

Question. What do you understand by force?

Answer. The motive power which results from muscular contraction.

Q. What do you understand by instinctive forces?

A. Those which come from the horse—that is to say, of which he himself determines the employment.

Q. What do you understand by transmitted forces?

A. Those which emanate from the rider, and are immediately appreciated by the horse.

Q. What do you understand by resistances?

A. The force which the horse presents, and with which he seeks to establish a struggle to his advantage.

Q. Ought we first to set to work to annul the forces the horse presents for resistance, before demanding any other movements of him?

A. Without doubt, as then the force of the rider, which should displace the weight of the mass, finding itself absorbed by an equivalent resistance, every movement becomes impossible.

Q. By what means can we combat the resistances?

A. By the methodical and separate suppling of the jaw, the neck, the haunches, and the loins.

Q. What is the use of the flexions of the jaw?

A. As it is upon the lower jaw that the effects of the rider's hand are first felt, these will be null or incomplete if the jaw is contracted or closed against the upper one. Besides, as in this case the displacing of the horse's body is only obtained with difficulty, the movements resulting therefrom will also be painful.

Q. Is it enough that the horse champ his bit for the flexion of his jaw to leave nothing more to wish for?

A. No, it is also necessary that the horse let go of the bit—that is to say, that he should separate (at our will) his jaws as much as possible.

Q. Can all horses have this mobility of jaw?

A. All without exception, if we follow the gradation pointed out, and if the rider does not allow himself to be deceived by the flexion of the neck. Useful as this is, it would be insufficient without the play of the jaw.

Q. In the direct flexion of the jaw, ought we to give a tension to the curb-reins and those of the snaffle at the same time?

A. No, we must make the snaffle precede (the hand being placed as indicated in Plate No. III.), until the head and neck are lowered; afterwards the pressure of the bit, in time with the snaffle, will promptly make the jaws open.

Q. Ought we often to repeat this exercise?

A. It should be continued until the jaws separate by a light pressure of the bit or snaffle.

Q. Why is the stiffness of the neck so powerful an obstacle to the education of the horse?

A. Because it absorbs to its profit the force which the rider seeks in vain to transmit throughout the whole mass.

Q. Can the haunches be suppled separately?

A. Certainly they can; and this exercise is comprised in what is called stationary exercise.

Q. What is its useful object?

A. To prevent the bad effects resulting from the instinctive forces of the horse, and to make him appreciate the forces transmitted by the rider without opposing them.

Q. Can the horse execute a movement without a shifting of weight?

A. It is impossible. We must first seek to make the horse take a position which causes such a variation in his equilibrium that the movement may be a natural consequence of it.

Q. What do you understand by position?

A. An arrangement of the head, neck and body, previously disposed according to the movements of the horse.

Q. In what consists the ramener?

A. In the perpendicular position of the head, and the lightness that accompanies it.

Q. What is the distribution of the forces and weight in the ramener?

A. The forces and weight are equally distributed through all the mass.

Q. How do we address the intelligence of the horse?

A. By the position, because it is that which makes the horse know the rider's intentions.

Q. Why is it necessary that in the backward movements of the horse, the legs of the rider precede the hand?

A. Because we must displace the points of support before placing upon them the mass that they must sustain.

Q. Is it the rider that determines his horse?

A. No. The rider gives action and position, which are the language; the horse answers this demand by the change of pace or direction that the rider had intended.

Q. Is it to the rider or to the horse that we ought to impute the fault of bad execution?

A. To the rider, and always to the rider. As it depends upon him to supple and place the horse in the way of the movement, and as with these two conditions faithfully fulfilled, everything becomes regular, it is then to the rider that the merit or blame ought to belong.

Q. What kind of bit is suitable for a horse?

A. An easy bit.

Q. Why is an easy bit necessary for all horses, whatever may be their resistance?

A. Because the effect of a severe bit is to constrain and surprise a horse, while it ought to prevent him from doing wrong and enable him to do well. Now, we cannot obtain these results except by the aid of an easy bit, and above all, of a skillful hand; for the bit is the hand, and a good hand is the whole of the rider.

Q. Are there any other inconveniences connected with the instruments of torture called severe bits?

A. Certainly there are, for the horse soon learns to avoid the painful infliction of them by forcing the rider's legs, the power of which can never be equal to that of this barbarous bit. He succeeds in this by yielding with his body, and resisting with his neck and jaw, which misses altogether the aim proposed.

Q. How is it that nearly all the horsemen of renown have invented a particular kind of bit?

A. Because being wanting in personal science, they sought to replace their own insufficiency by aids or strange machines.

Q. Can the horse, perfectly in hand, defend himself?

A. No; for the just distribution of weight that this position gives supposes a great regularity of movement, and it would be necessary to overturn this order that any act of rebellion on the part of the horse should take place.

Q. What is the use of the snaffle?

A. The snaffle serves to combat the opposing forces (lateral) of the neck, to make the head precede in all the changes of direction, while the horse is not yet familiarized with the effects of the bit; it serves also to arrange the head and neck in a perfectly straight line.

Q. In order to obtain the ramener, should we make the legs precede the hand or the hand the legs?

A. The hands ought to precede until they have produced the effect of giving great suppleness to the neck (this ought to be practised in the stationary exercises); then come the legs in their turn to combine the hind and fore-parts in the movement. The continual lightness of the horse at all paces will be the result of it.

Q. Ought the legs and the hands to aid one another or act separately?

A. One of these extremities ought always to have the other for auxiliary.

Q. Ought we to leave the horse a long time at the same pace in order to develop his powers?

A. It is useless, since the regularity of movements results from the regularity of the positions; the horse that makes fifty steps at a trot regularly is much further advanced in his education than if he made a thousand in a bad position. We must then attend to his position, that is to say, his lightness.

Q. In what proportions ought we to use the force of the horse?

A. This cannot be defined, since these forces vary in different subjects; but we should be sparing of them, and not expend them without circumspection, particularly during the course of his education. It is on this account that we must, so to say, create for them a reservoir that the horse may not absorb them uselessly, and that the rider may make a profitable and more lasting use of them.

Q. What good will there result to the horse from this judicious employment of his forces?

A. As we will only make use of forces useful for certain movements, fatigue or exhaustion can only result from the length of time during which the animal will remain at an accelerated pace, and will not be the effect of an excessive muscular contraction which would preserve its intensity, even at a moderate pace.

Q. When should we first undertake to make the horse back?

A. After the suppling of the neck and haunches.

Q. Why should the suppling of the haunches precede that of the loins (the reculer)?

A. To keep the horse more easily in a straight line and to render the flowing back and forward of the weight more easy.

Q. Ought these first retrograde movements of the horse to be prolonged during the first lessons?

A. No. As their only object is to annul the instinctive forces of the horse, we must wait till he is perfectly in hand to obtain a backward movement, a true reculer.

Q. What constitutes a true reculer?

A. The lightness of the horse (head perpendicular), the exact balance of his body, and the elevation to the same height of the legs diagonally.

Q. At what distance ought the spur to be placed from the horse's flanks before the attaque commences?

A. The rowel should not be farther than two inches from the horse's flanks.

Q. How ought the attaques to be practised?

A. They ought to reach the flanks by a movement like the stroke of a lancet, and be taken away as quickly.

Q. Are there circumstances where the attaque ought to be practised without the aid of the hand?

A. Never; since its only object should be to give the impulsion which serves for the hand to contain (renfermer) the horse.

Q. Is it the attaques themselves that chastise the horse?

A. No. The chastisement is in the contained position that the attaques and the hand make the horse assume. As the latter then finds himself in a position where it is impossible to make use of any of his forces, the chastisement has all its efficiency.

Q. In what consists the difference between the attaques practised after the old principles, and those which the new method prescribed?

A. Our predecessors (that we should venerate) practised spurring in order to throw the horse out of himself; the new method makes use of it to contain him; that is, to give him that first position which is the mother of all the others.

Q. What are the functions of the legs during the attaques?

A. The legs ought to remain adherent to the horse's flanks and in no respect to partake of the movements of the feet.

Q. At what moment ought we to commence the attaques?

A. When the horse supports peaceably a strong pressure of the legs without getting out of hand.

Q. Why does a horse, perfectly in hand, bear the spur without becoming excited, and even without sudden movement?

A. Because the skillful hand of the rider, having prevented all displacings of the head, never lets the forces escape outwards; it concentrates them by fixing them. The equal struggle of the forces, or if you prefer it, their ensemble, sufficiently explains the apparent dullness of the horse in this case.

Q. Is it not to be feared that the horse may become insensible to the legs and lose all that activity necessary for accelerated movements?

A. Although this is the opinion of nearly all the people who talk of this method without understanding it, there is nothing in it. Since all these means serve only to keep the horse in the most perfect equilibrium, promptness of movement ought necessarily to be the result of it, and, consequently, the horse will be disposed to respond to the progressive contact of the legs, when the hand does not oppose it.

Q. How can we judge whether an attaque is regular?

A. When, far from making the horse get out of hand, it makes him come into it.

Q. How ought the hand to be supported at the moments of resistance on the part of the horse?

A. The hand ought to stop, fix itself, and only be drawn sufficiently towards the body to give the reins a three-quarter tension. In the contrary case, we must wait till the horse bears upon the hand to present this insurmountable barrier to him.

Q. What would be the inconvenience of increasing the pressure of the bit by drawing the hand towards the body in order to slacken the horse in his paces by getting him in hand?

A. It would not produce an effect upon a particular part, but would act generally upon all the forces, in displacing the weight instead of annulling the force of impulsion. We should not wish to incline to one side what we cannot stop.

Q. In what case ought we to make use of the cavesson, and what is its use?

A. We should make use of it when the faulty construction of the horse leads him to defend himself, when only simple movements are demanded of him. It is also useful to use the cavesson with restive horses, as its object is to act upon the moral, while the rider acts upon the physical.

Q. How ought we to make use of the cavesson?

A. At first, the longe of the cavesson should be held at from fifteen or twenty inches from the horse's head, held out and supported with a stiff wrist. We must watch the proper times to diminish or increase the bearing of the cavesson upon the horse's nose, so as to use it as an aid. All viciousness that leads him to act badly is to be repressed by little jerks, which should be given at the very moment of defense. As soon as the rider's movements begin to be appreciated by the horse, the longe of the cavesson ought no longer to act; at the end of a few days the horse will only need the bit, to which he will respond without hesitation.

Q. In what case is the rider less intelligent than the horse?

A. When the latter subjects him to his caprices, and does what he wishes with him.

Q. Are the defenses of the horse physical or moral?

A. At first they are physical, but afterwards become moral; the rider ought then to seek out the causes that produce them, and endeavor, by a preparatory exercise, to re-establish the correct equilibrium that a bad natural formation prevented.

Q. Can the naturally well-balanced horse defend himself?

A. It would be as difficult for a subject uniting all that constitutes a good horse to give himself up to disorderly movements, as it is impossible for the one that has not received the like gifts from nature, to have regular movements, if art did not lend him its aid.

Q. What do you mean by rassembler?

A. The reunion of forces at the centre of gravity.

Q. Can we rassembler the horse that does not contain himself under the attaques?

A. This is altogether impossible; the legs would be insufficient to counterbalance the effects of the hand.

Q. At what time ought we to rassembler the horse?

A. When the ramener is complete.

Q. Of what service is the rassembler?

A. To obtain without difficulty everything of a complicated nature in horsemanship.

Q. In what does the piaffer consist?

A. In the graceful position of the body and the harmonized precision of movement of the legs and feet.

Q. Is there more than one kind of piaffer?

A. Two; the slow and the precipitate.

Q. Which is to be preferred of these two?

A. The slow piaffer, since it is only when this is obtained that the equilibrium is perfect.

Q. Ought we to make a horse piaffe who will not bear the rassembler?

A. No; for that would be to step out of the logical gradation that alone can give certain results. Besides, the horse that has not been brought forward by this chain of principles would only execute with trouble and ungracefully what he ought to accomplish with pleasure and nobly.

Q. Are all riders alike suited to conquer all the difficulties and seize all the effects of touch?

A. As in horsemanship, intelligence is the starting point for obtaining every result, everything is subordinate to this innate disposition; but every rider will have the power to break his horse to an extent commensurate with his own abilities to instruct.

CONCLUSION.

The difficulties of horsemanship have long been the same, but formerly constant practice, if not taste, kept it up; these stimulants exist no longer. Fifty years ago, every man of rank was expected to be able to handle a horse with skill, and break one if necessary. This study was an indispensable part of the education of young people of family; and as it obliged them to devote two or three years to the rough exercises of the manège, in the end they all became horsemen, some by taste, the rest by habit. These habits once acquired were preserved throughout life; they then felt the necessity of possessing good horses, and men of fortune spared nothing in getting them. The sale of fine horses thus became easy; all gained by it, the breeder as well as the horse. It is not so now; the aristocracy of fortune, succeeding to that of birth, is very willing to possess the advantages of the latter, but would dispense with the onerous obligations which appertained to an elevated rank. The desire of showing off in public places, or motives still more frivolous, sometimes lead gentlemen of our times to commence the study of horsemanship, but, soon wearied of a work without satisfactory results, they find only a monotonous fatigue where they sought a pleasure, and are satisfied they know enough as soon as they can stick passably well in the saddle. So insufficient a knowledge of horsemanship, as dangerous as it is thoughtless, must necessarily occasion sad accidents. They then become disgusted with horsemanship and horses, and as nothing obliges them to continue the exercise, they give it up nearly altogether, and so much the more easily as they naturally care very little about the breeds of horses and their perfection. We must then, as a preliminary measure in the improvement of horses, raise up horsemanship from the low state into which it has fallen. The government can undoubtedly do much here; but it is for the masters of the art to supply, if necessary, what it leaves undone. Let them render attractive and to the purpose studies which have hitherto been too monotonous and often barren; let rational and true principles make the scholar see a real progress, that each of his efforts brings a success with it; and we will soon see young persons of fortune become passionately fond of an exercise which has been rendered as interesting to them as it is noble, and discover, with their love for horses, a lively solicitude for all that concerns their qualities and education.

But horsemen can aim at still more brilliant results. If they succeed in rendering easy the education of common horses, they will make the study of horsemanship popular among the masses; they will put within reach of moderate fortunes, so numerous in our land of equality, the practice of an art that has hitherto been confined to the rich. Such has been the aim of the labors of my whole life. It is in the hope of attaining this end that I give to the public the fruit of my long researches.

But I should say, however, that if I was upheld by the hope of being one day useful to my country, it was the army above all that occupied my thoughts. Though counting many skillful horsemen in its ranks, the system they are made to follow, impotent in my eyes, is the true cause of the equestrian inferiority of so many, as well as of their horses being so awkward and badly broken. I might add that to the same motive is to be attributed the little taste for horsemanship felt by the officers and soldiers. How can it be otherwise? The low price allowed by government for horses of remount, causes few horses of good shape to be met with in the army, and it is only of these that the education is easy. The officers themselves, mounted upon a very common sort of horses, strive in vain to render them docile and agreeable. After two or three years of fatiguing exercise, they end by gaining a mechanical obedience, but the same resistances and the same faults of construction are perpetually recurring. Disgusted by difficulties that appear insurmountable, they trouble themselves no more about horses and horsemanship than the demands of the service actually require.

Yet it is indispensable that a cavalry officer be always master of his horse, so much so as to be able, so to say, to communicate his own thoughts to him; the uniformity of man[oe]uvres, the necessities of command, the perils of the battle-field, all demand it imperatively. The life of the rider, every one knows, often depends upon the good or bad disposition of his steed; in the same way the loss or the gain of a battle often hangs on the degree of precision in man[oe]uvring a squadron. My method will give military men a taste for horsemanship, a taste which is indispensable in the profession they practise. The nature of officers' horses, considered as so defective, is exactly the one upon which the most satisfactory results may be obtained. These animals generally possess a certain degree of energy, and as soon as we know how rightly to use their powers by remedying the physical faults that paralyze them, we will be astonished at the resources they will exhibit. The rider fashioning the steed by degrees will regard him as the work of his hand, will become sincerely attached to him, and will find as much charm in horsemanship as he previously felt ennui and disgust. My principles are simple, easy in their application, and within the reach of every mind. They can everywhere make (what is now so rare) skillful horsemen. I am sure that if my method is adopted and well understood in the army, where the daily exercise of the horse is a necessary duty, we will see equestrian capacities spring up among the officers and sub-officers by thousands. There is not one among them who, with an hour a day of study would not soon be able to give any horse in less than three months the following qualities and education:

1. General suppling.

2. Perfect lightness.

3. Graceful position.

4. A steady walk.

5. Trot steady, measured, extended.

6. Backing as easily and freely as going forward.

7. Gallop easy with either foot, and change of foot by the touch.

8. Easy and regular movement of the haunches, comprising ordinary and reversed pirouettes.

9. Leaping the ditch and the bar.

10. Piaffer.

11. Halt from the gallop, by the aid of first, the pressure of the legs, and then a light support of the hand. I ask all conscientious men: have they seen many horsemen of renown obtain similar results in so short a time?

The education of the men's horses, being less complicated than that of those intended for officers, would on that account be more rapid. The principal things will be the supplings and the backing, followed by the walk, the trot and the gallop, while keeping the horse perfectly in hand. The colonels will soon appreciate the excellent results of this exercise, in consequence of the precision with which all the movements are made. The important flexions of the fore-hand can be executed without leaving the stables, each rider turning his horse around in the stall. It is not for me to point out to the colonels of regiments the exact way of putting my method in practice; it is enough for me to lay down my principles and to explain them. The instructors will themselves supply the details of application too long to enumerate here.

I must again repeat, this book is the fruit of twenty years of observation constantly verified by practice. A long and painful work without doubt, but what compensation I have found in the results I have been happy enough to obtain. In order to let the public judge of the importance of my discoveries, it is sufficient here to give their nomenclature, and I present these processes as new ones, because I can conscientiously say that they never were practised before me. I have added then successively to the manual of the horseman the following principles and innovations:

1. New means of obtaining a good seat.

2. Means of making the horse come to the man, and rendering him steady to mount.

3. Distinction between the instinctive forces of the horse and the communicated forces.

4. Explanation of the influence of a bad formation upon the horse's resistances.

5. Effect of bad formations on the neck and croup, the principal focuses of resistance.

6. Means of remedying the faults, or supplings of the two extremities, and the whole of the horse's body.

7. Annihilation of the instinctive forces of the horse, in order to substitute for them forces transmitted by the rider, and to give ease and beauty of motion to the ungraceful animal.

8. Equality of sensibility of mouth in all horses; adoption of a uniform bit.

9. Equality of sensibility of flanks in all horses; means of accustoming them all to bear the spur alike.

10. All horses can place their heads in the position of ramener and acquire the same lightness.

11. Means of bringing the centre of gravity in a badly-formed horse to the place it occupies in a well-formed one.

12. The rider disposes his horse for a moment, but he does not determine the movement.

13. Why sound horses often are faulty in their paces. Means of remedying this in a few lessons.

14. For changes of direction, use of the leg opposite to the side towards which we turn, so that it may precede the other one.

15. In all backward movements of the horse the rider's legs ought to precede the hands.

16. Distinction between the reculer and the acculement; the good effect of the former in the horse's education; the bad effect of the latter.

17. The use of the spurs as a means of education.

18. All horses can piaffer; means of rendering this movement slow or precipitate.

19. Definition of the true rassembler; means of obtaining it; of its usefulness to produce grace and regularity in complicated movements.

20. Means of bringing all horses to step out freely at a trot.

21. Rational means of putting a horse at a gallop.

22. Halt at a gallop, the legs or the spur preceding the hand.

23. Force continued in proportion to the forces of the horse; the rider should never yield until after having annulled the horse's resistances.

24. Education of the horse in parts, or means of exercising his forces separately.

25. Complete education of horses of ordinary formation in less than three months.

26. Sixteen new figures of the manège proper for giving the finishing touch to the horse's education, and for perfecting the rider's touch.

It is understood that all the details of application appertaining to these innovations are new also, and likewise belong to me.

THE END.

INDEX.

Page

Backing 64-107

Back to, with a halt 111

Bit, false and true, yielding to the 55

" form of 57

" pressure, of the 54

Breaking, succinct exposition of the method of 113

Croup, flexions of the 59

Horse, concentration by the rider of the forces of the 78

" education of the 23

" " first lesson 100

" " second lesson 101

" " third lesson 101

" " fourth lesson 102

" " fifth lesson 102

" employment of the forces of the, by the rider 69

" gathering the 88

" how to make him come to you 35

" of the forces of the 25

" resting his chin on his breast 53

" education of Partisan, Capitaine Neptune, and Buridan 104

Jaw, flexion of the 36

Knees, flexions of the 22

Leaping 94

Leg, flexions of the 21

Neck, depression of the 40

" direct flexions of the head and 48

" lateral " " on foot 45

" " " " horseback 47

Piaffer, the 94

Riding, preparatory lessons for 19

Saddles, exercises in the 19

Seat, new means for obtaining a good 17

" of the rider 18

Spurs, the use of the 78

Supplings, the head and neck 32-58

" Recapitulations 67

Trot, the 74

" " backward 109

FOOTNOTES

[A] "The commission was composed of Lieutenant-General Oudinot, Col. Carrelet, Commander of the Municipal Guard, the Chef d'Escadrons De Novital, commanding the Cavalry Riding-School, and the Captain-instructors deGues, of the 5th Cuirassiers, and De Mesanges, of the 3d Lancers." (Return)

[B] I have divided all the flexions into two parts, and, in order to facilitate the understanding of the text, I have added to it plates representing the position of the horse at the moment the flexion is about to commence, and at the moment it is terminated. (Return)

[C] Ramener means to place the horse's head in a perpendicular position.— Translator. (Return)

[D] The full meaning of the word rassembler will be understood after reading the chapter, further on in this work, under that head. With regard to the other word, ramener, to avoid the constant circumlocution of saying, "placing the horse's head in a perpendicular position," it will be used in future wherever it occurs.—Translator. (Return)

[E] This position of the hand at a distance from the saddle and the body will be criticised; but let the rider be reassured, eight or ten lessons will suffice to make the horse change the position of his head, and allow the hand to resume its normal position. (Return)

[F] The word equilibrium, so often repeated in the course of this work, must be categorically explained. People have never rightly understood what it means, this true equilibrium of a horse, which serves as the basis of his education, and by which he takes instantly, at the rider's will, such a pace, or such a change or direction.

It is not here a question of the equilibrium which prevents the horse from falling down, but of that upon which depends his performance, when it is prompt, graceful and regular, and by means of which his paces are either measured or extended at will.

Equilibrium of Baucher. Croup————————————————————————Head.

Here the weight and the forces are equally distributed. By means of this just distribution the different positions, the different paces, and the equilibriums that belong to them, are obtained without effort on the part of man or horse. (Return)

[G] The bars are the continuations of the two bones of the lower jaw between the masticating and the front teeth. It is on these that the bit rests. (Return)

[H] The mouth-piece of the bit consists of three parts: the port, to give freedom to the tongue, and the two canons, which are the parts that come in contact with the bars.—Translator. (Return)

[I] See note, page 63. (Return)

[J] "La piste is an imaginary line upon which the horse is made to walk. When the hind legs follow the same line as the fore ones, the horse is said to go d'une piste, or on one line. He goes de deux pistes, or on two lines, when his hind legs pass along a line parallel to that traced by the fore legs."—Baucher's Dictionnaire d'Equitation. (Return)

[K] "The pirouette is executed on the fore or hind legs, by making the horse turn round upon himself, in such a way, that the leg on the side he is going, acts as a pivot, and is the principal support around which the other three legs move."—Baucher's Dictionnaire d'Equitation. (Return)

[L] These displacements of the croup mean sideway displacements, or the horse's croup not being in a line with the shoulders.—Translator. (Return)

[M] It must not be forgotten that the hand and legs have their vocabulary also; and a very concise one. This mute, laconic language consists of these few words. You are doing badly; this is what you should do; you do well now. It is sufficient for the rider to be able to translate, by his mechanism, the meaning of these three remarks, to possess all the equestrian erudition, and share his intelligence with his horse. (Return)

[N] I am not of the opinion of those connoisseurs who imagine that the qualities of the horse, as well as his speed in trotting, depend principally on the height of his withers. I think, that for the horse to be stylish and regular in his movements, the croup should be on a level with the withers; such was the construction of the old English horses. A certain kind of horses, very much à la mode, called steppers, are constructed after an entirely different fashion; they strike out with their fore legs, and drag their hind-parts after them. Horses with a low croup, or withers very high in proportion to their croup, were preferred by horsemen of the old school, and are still in favor now-a-days among amateur horsemen. The German horsemen have an equally marked predilection for this sort of formation, although it is contrary to strength of the croup, to the equilibrium of the horse, and to the regular play of his feet and legs. This fault of construction (for it is one) has been scarcely noticed till now; nevertheless, it is a great one, and really retards the horse's education. In fact, we are obliged, in order to render his movements uniform, to lower his neck, so that the kind of lever it represents, may serve to lighten his hind-parts of the weight with which they are overburdened. I ought also to say, that this change of position, or of equilibrium, is only obtained by the aid of my principles. I explain the cause and effect, and I point out the remedies. Is this not the proper way for an author to proceed? (Return)

[O] Previously explained. (Return)

[P] I have often proved that horses that were considered dull, or unable to move their shoulders freely, have not the defect that is supposed; in other words, that it is very rare that they are paralyzed in their shoulders so as to injure the regularity and speed of their paces, principally as regards trotting. The shoulders of the horse, if I may use the comparison, resemble the wings of a wind-mill; the impulse given by the hocks replaces the motive force. There undoubtedly exist some local complaints that affect the shoulders; but this is very rare; the defect, if there is one, has its origin in the hind-parts. For my part, I have been able to make all such horses very free in their movements, and that after fifteen days of exercise, half an hour a day. The means, like all I employ, are very simple. They consist in suppling the neck to get the horse in hand, and then, by the aid of the legs, and afterwards slight use of the spurs, in bringing his haunches nearer the centre. Then the hocks will obtain a leverage, by which they can propel the mass forward, and give the shoulders a freedom that people would not expect. (Return)

[Q] I would never have thought that this means, which serves as a corrective to the processes used by all horsemen, would have aroused the sensibility of some amateurs. These latter have preferred to be affected by exaggerated or erroneous reports, rather than satisfy themselves by observation, that this pretended cruelty is in fact the most innocent thing in the world. Must we not teach the horse to respond to the spur as well as to the legs and the hand? Is it not by this spurring, judiciously applied, that we bring in at will the hind legs more or less near the centre of gravity? Is not this the only way of increasing or diminishing the leverage of the hocks, whether for extending or raising them in motion, or for the purpose of halting? (Return)

[R] "The piaffer is the horse's raising his legs diagonally, as in the trot, but without advancing or receding."—Baucher's "Dictionnaire d'Equitation." (Return)

[S] The use of the spurs. (Return)

[T] Acculement and reculer have been previously explained; one is the horse backing falsely, the other backing correctly.—Translator. (Return)

[U] Much in this chapter, though written for France, applies with great appropriateness to our own country. (Return)