OF THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE FORCES OF THE HORSE
BY THE RIDER.
When the supplings have subjected the instinctive forces of the horse,
and given them up completely into our power, the animal will be nothing
more in our hand than a passive, expectant machine, ready to act upon
the impulsion we choose to communicate to him. It will be for us, then,
as sovereign disposers of all his forces, to combine the employment of
them in correct proportion to the movements we wish to execute.
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]
[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.
_The walk._--This pace is the mother of all the other paces; by it we
will obtain the cadence, the regularity, the extension of the others.
But to obtain these brilliant results, the rider must display as much
knowledge as tact. The preceding exercises have led the horse to bear
the combined effect of hand and legs, which could not have been done
previously to the destruction of the instinctive resistances; we have
now only to act on the inert resistances which appertain to the animal's
weight; upon the forces which only move when an impulse is communicated
to them.
Before making the horse go forward, we should first assure ourselves of
his lightness; that is to say, of his head being perpendicular, his neck
flexible, his hind-part straight and plumb. The legs will then be closed
lightly, to give the body the impulse necessary to move it. But we
should not, in accordance with the precepts of the old method, give the
bridle hand at the same time; for then the neck, being free from all
restraint, would lose its lightness; would contract, and render the
motion of the hand powerless. The rider will remember that his hand
ought to be to the horse an insurmountable barrier, whenever he would
leave the position of _ramener_. The animal will never attempt it,
without pain; and only within this limit will he find ease and comfort.
By the application of my method, the rider will be led to guide his
horse all the time with the reins half tight, except when he wishes to
correct a false movement, or determine a new one.
The walk, I have said, ought to precede the other paces, because the
horse having three supports upon the ground, his action is less, and
consequently easier to regulate than in the trot and gallop. The first
exercises of the supplings will be followed by some turns in the
riding-house at a walk, but only as a relaxation, the rider attending
less to animating his horse than to making him keep his head, while
walking in a perpendicular position. Little by little he will complicate
his work, so as to join to the lightness of the horse that precision of
movement indispensable to the beauty of all his paces.
He will commence light oppositions of the hand and legs to make the
forces of the fore and hind-parts work together in harmony. This
exercise, by accustoming the horse always to yield the use of his forces
to the direction of the rider, will be also useful in forming his
intelligence, as well as in developing his powers. What delights the
expert horseman will experience in the progressive application of his
art! His pupil at first rebellious will insensibly yield himself to his
every wish; will adopt his character, and end by becoming the living
personification of him. Take care, then, rider! If your horse is
capricious, violent, fantastic, we will have the right to say that you
yourself do not shine by the amenity of your disposition, and the
propriety of your proceedings.
In order to keep the measure and quickness of the walk equal and
regular, it is indispensable that the impulsive and governing forces
which come from the rider, should themselves be perfectly in harmony. We
will suppose, for example, that the rider to move his horse forward,
should make use of a force equal to twenty pounds, fifteen for the
impulse forward, and five to bring his head into position. If the legs
increase their motion without the hands increasing theirs in the same
proportion, it is evident that the surplus of communicated force will be
thrown into the neck, cause it to contract, and destroy all lightness.
If, on the contrary, it is the hand which acts with too much violence,
it will be at the expense of the impulsive force necessary to move the
horse forward; on this account, his forward movement will be slackened
and counteracted, at the same time that his position will lose its
gracefulness and power.
This short explanation will suffice to show the harmony that should
exist between the legs and hands. It is understood that their motion
should vary according as the formation of the horse renders it necessary
to support him more or less before or behind; but the rule is the same,
only the proportions are different.
As long as the horse will not keep himself supple and light in his walk,
we will continue to exercise him in a straight line; but as soon as he
acquires more ease and steadiness, we will commence to make him execute
changes of direction to the right and left, while walking.
_Changes of direction._--The use of the wrists, in the changes of
direction, is so simple that it is unnecessary to speak of it here. I
will only call attention to the fact, that the resistances of the horse
ought always to be anticipated by disposing his forces in such a manner
that they all concur in putting him in the way of moving. The head will
be inclined in the direction we wish to go by means of the snaffle-rein
of that side, the curb will then complete the movement. General rule:
the lateral resistances of the neck are always to be opposed by the aid
of the snaffle, being very careful not to commence to wheel until after
destroying the obstacle that opposed it. If the use of the wrists
remains very nearly the same as formerly, it is not so with the legs;
their motion will be diametrically opposite to that given them in the
old style of horsemanship. This innovation is so natural a one, that I
cannot conceive why some one never applied it before me.
It is by bearing the hand to the right, and making the right leg felt,
people have told me, and I have myself at first repeated it, that the
horse is made to turn to the right. With me, practice has always taken
the precedence of reasoning; and this is the way I first perceived the
incorrectness of this principle.
Whatever lightness my horse had in a straight line, I remarked that this
lightness always lost some of its delicacy when moving in small circles,
although my outside leg came to the assistance of the inside one. As
soon as the hind leg put itself in motion to follow the shoulders in the
circle, I immediately felt a slight resistance. I then thought of
changing the use of my aids, and of pressing the leg on the side
opposite to the direction of wheeling. At the same time, in place of
bearing the hand immediately to the right, to determine the shoulders in
that direction, I first, by the aid of this hand, made the opposition
necessary to render the haunches motionless, and to dispose the forces
in such a way as to maintain the equilibrium during the execution of the
movement. This proceeding was completely successful; and in explaining
what ought to be the function of the different extremities, I recognize
this as the only rational way of using them in wheeling.
In fact, in wheeling to the right, for example, it is the right hind leg
which serves as pivot and supports the whole weight of the mass, while
the left hind leg and the fore legs describe a circle more or less
extended. In order that the movement should be correct and free, it is
necessary that this pivot upon which the whole turns be not interfered
with in its action; the simultaneous action of the right hand and the
right leg must necessarily produce this effect. The equilibrium is thus
destroyed, and the regularity of the wheeling rendered impossible.
As soon as the horse executes easily the changes of direction at a walk,
and keeps himself perfectly light, we can commence exercising at a trot.
_The trot._--The rider will commence this pace at a very moderate rate
of speed, following exactly the same principles as for the walk. He will
keep his horse perfectly light, not forgetting that the faster the pace,
the more disposition there will be on the part of the animal to fall
back again into his natural contractions. The hand should then be used
with redoubled nicety, in order to keep the head and neck always
pliable, without affecting the impulse necessary to the movement. The
legs will lightly second the hands, and the horse between these two
barriers, which are obstacles only to his improper movements, will soon
develop all his best faculties, and with precision of movement, will
acquire grace, extension, and the steadiness inherent to the lightness
of the whole.
Although many persons who would not take the trouble to examine
thoroughly my method, have pretended that it is opposed to great speed
in trotting, it is not the less proved that the well-balanced horse can
trot faster than the one destitute of this advantage. I have given
proofs of this whenever they have been demanded of me; but it is in vain
that I have tried to make people understand what constitutes the motions
of the trot, and what are the conditions indispensable for regularity in
executing it. So, I was obliged in a race of which I was judge, to make
the bets void, and to prove that the pretended trotters were not
trotting really, but were ambling.
The condition indispensable to a good trotter, is perfect equilibrium of
the body. Equilibrium which keeps up a regular movement of the diagonal
fore and hind feet, gives them an equal elevation and extension, with
such lightness that the animal can easily execute all changes of
direction, moderate his speed, halt, or increase his speed without
effort. The fore-parts have not, then, the appearance of towing after
them the hind-parts, which keep as far off as possible; everything
becomes easy and graceful for the horse, because his forces being in
perfect harmony, permit the rider to dispose of them in such a way that
they mutually and constantly assist each other.
It would be impossible for me to count up the number of horses that have
been sent me to break, and whose paces have been so spoiled that it was
impossible for them to trot a single step. A few lessons have always
been sufficient for me to get them back into regular paces, and these
are the means I employed.
The difficulty which the horse experiences in keeping himself square in
his trot, almost always proceeds from the hind-parts. Whether these be
of a feeble construction, or be rendered useless by the superior vigor
of the fore-parts, the motions of these parts, which receive the shock
and give the bound, in each case become powerless, and in consequence,
render the movement irregular.[N] There is, then, weakness in one
extremity, or excess of force in the other. The remedy in each case will
be the same, viz: the depression of the neck, which by diminishing the
power of the fore-parts, restores the equilibrium between the two parts.
We have practised this suppling on foot, it will be easy to obtain it on
horseback. We here see the usefulness of this perpendicular flexion,
which allows us to place on a level the forces of the two opposite
extremities of the horse, in order to make them harmonious, and induce
regularity in their working. The horse being thus placed, can bend and
extend his fore and hind legs, before the weight of the body forces them
to resume their support.
[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 _a 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?
The practice of this and some other principles that I explain in this
work, will place in the rank of choice horses, animals whose inferiority
caused them to be considered jades, and that the old method would never
have raised from their degradation. It will suffice to accustom the
horse to trot well, to exercise him at this pace only five minutes in
each lesson. When he acquires the necessary ease and lightness, he can
be made to execute ordinary _pirouettes_, as well as the exercise on two
lines, at a walk and a trot. I have said that five minutes of trotting
were enough at first, because it is less the continuance of an exercise
than its being properly done that perfects the execution of it. Besides,
as this pace requires a considerable displacement of forces, and as the
animal will have been already subjected to a rather painful exercise, it
would be dangerous to prolong it beyond the time I mention. The horse
will lend himself more willingly to your efforts when nicely managed,
and of short duration; his intelligence, becoming familiar with this
efficient progression, will hasten success. He will submit himself
calmly and without repugnance to work in which there will be nothing
painful to him, and we will be able thus to push his education to the
farthest limits, not only without injury to his physical organization,
but in restoring to their normal state organs that a forced exercise
might have weakened. This regular development of all the organs of the
horse will not only give him grace, but also strength and health, and
will thus prolong his existence, while increasing a hundredfold the
delights of the true horseman.