Note (Return) — Chapter X

The young horse, at first stiff and awkward in the use of his members, will need a certain degree of management in developing them. In this, as in every other case, we will follow that rational progression which tells us to commence with the simple, before passing to the complicated. By the preceding exercise, we have made our means of acting upon the horse sure. We must now attend to facilitating his means of execution, by exercising all his forces together. If the animal responds to the aids of the rider by the jaw, the neck and the haunches; if he yields by the general disposition of his body to the impulses communicated to him, it is by the play of his extremities that he executes the movement. The mechanism of these parts ought then to be easy, prompt and regular; their application, well directed in the different paces, will alone be able to give them these qualities, indispensable to a good education.[M]