New Method of Horsemanship Part 9

_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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 circ.u.mspection, 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 const.i.tutes 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 circ.u.mstances 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 chastis.e.m.e.nt is in the contained position that the _attaques_ and the hand make the horse a.s.sume. As the latter then finds himself in a position where it is impossible to make use of any of his forces, the chastis.e.m.e.nt 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?