OF THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE FORCES OF THE HORSE
BY THE RIDER.
(_Continuation._)
_Of the gallop._--I have said that, until now, the greater part of the
resources of horsemanship have not been understood, and had I need of
another proof to support my opinion, I would draw it from the error, the
suppositions, the innumerable contradictions that have been heaped
together in order to explain so simple a movement as the gallop. What
contrary opinions upon the means to employ to make the horse go off with
his right foot? It is the support of the rider's right leg which
determines the movement, one pretends; it is that of the left leg, says
another; it is the equal touch of the two legs, affirms a third; no,
some others remark, very seriously, you must let the horse act
naturally.
How can the truth be made out in the midst of this conflict of such
contrary principles? Besides, they come from such respectable sources;
the most of their authors were possessed of titles and dignities which
are generally only granted to merit. Have they all been deceived for a
hundred and fifty years? This is not possible; for many of them joined
to long practice a perfect knowledge of physics, anatomy, mathematics,
etc., etc. To doubt such authorities would be as presumptuous as
imprudent; it would have been considered a crime of high treason
against horsemanship. So the riders kept their ignorance and the horses
their bad equilibrium; and if any one succeeded, after two or three
years of routine labor, in making certain horses of a privileged
organization start with the desired foot, and in making them change feet
finally, at a fixed point, the difficulty then was to prevent them from
always repeating this movement at the same place.
Thus it is that the most palpable errors gain credit, and often are
perpetuated, until there comes a practical mind, gifted with some amount
of common sense, who contradicts by practice all the learned theories of
its predecessors. They try hard at first to deny the knowledge of the
innovator; but the masses who instinctively know the true, and judge
from what they see, soon range themselves on his side, turn their backs
upon his detractors, and leave them to their solitude and vain
pretensions.
To the mass of horsemen I address myself, when I say, either the horse
is under the influence of your forces, and entirely submissive to your
power, or you are struggling with him. If he gallops off with you,
without your being able to modify or direct with certainty his course,
it proves that, although subject to a certain extent to your power in
thus consenting to carry you about, he, nevertheless, uses his
instinctive forces. In this case, there is a perpetual fight going on
between you and him, the chances of which depend on the temperament and
caprice of the animal, upon the good or bad state of his digestion.
Changes of foot, in such a state, can only be obtained by inclining the
horse very much to one side, which makes the movement both difficult and
ungraceful.
If, on the contrary, the animal is made submissive to a degree that he
cannot contract any one of his parts without the intervention and aid
of the rider, the latter can direct at his pleasure the whole of his
moving parts, and, consequently, can easily and promptly execute changes
of feet.
We know the contraction of any one part of the horse reacts on the neck,
and that the stiffness of this part prevents the proper execution of
every movement. If, then, at the moment of setting off on a gallop, the
horse stiffens one of his extremities, and consequently his neck, of
what use in determining him in starting with the right foot can be the
support of one or the other leg of the rider, or even of that of both at
once? These means will evidently be ineffectual until we go back to the
source of the resistance, for the purpose of combating and destroying
it. Here, as in every other case, we see that suppleness and lightness
alone can make the execution of the work easy.
If, when we wish to make the horse start with the right foot, a slight
contraction of one part of the animal disposes him to start with the
left foot, and we persist in inducing the pace, we must employ two
forces on the same side, viz.: the left leg and the left hand; the first
to determine the movement, the second to combat the contrary disposition
of the horse.
But when the horse, perfectly supple and gathered, only brings his parts
into play after the impression given them by the rider, the latter, in
order to start with the right foot, ought to combine an opposition of
forces proper for keeping the horse in equilibrium, while placing him in
the position required for the movement. He will then bear the hand to
the left, and press his right leg. Here we see that the means mentioned
above, necessary when the horse is not properly placed, would be wrong
when the animal is properly placed, since it would destroy the harmony
then existing between his forces.
This short explanation will, I hope, suffice to make it understood that
things should be studied thoroughly before laying down any principles of
action. Let us have no more systems, then, upon the exclusive use of
such or such leg to determine the gallop; but a settled conviction that
the first condition of this or any other performance is to keep the
horse supple and light--that is _rassemble_; then, after this, to make
use of one or the other motive power, according as the animal, at the
start, preserves a proper position, or seeks to leave it. It must also
be understood that, while it is the force that gives the position to the
horse, it is position alone upon which the regularity of movement
depends.
Passing frequently from the gallop with the right foot to that with the
left, in a straight line, and with halts, will soon bring the horse to
make these changes of feet by the touch without halting. Violent effects
of force should be avoided, which would bewilder the horse and destroy
his lightness. We must remember that this lightness which should precede
all changes of pace and direction, and make every movement easy,
graceful and inevitable, is the important condition we should seek
before everything else.
It is because they have not understood this principle, and have not felt
that the first condition to dispose a horse for the gallop is to destroy
all the instinctive forces of the animal (forces that oppose the
position the movement demands), that horsemen have laid down so many
erroneous principles, and have all remained unable to show us the proper
means to be employed.
_Of leaping the ditch and the bar._--Although the combinations of
equestrian science alone cannot give to every horse the energy and
vigor necessary to clear a ditch or a bar, there are, nevertheless,
principles by the aid of which we will succeed in partly supplying the
deficiencies in the natural formation of the animal. By giving a good
direction to the forces, we will facilitate the rise and freedom of the
bound. I do not pretend by this, to say, that a horse of ordinary
capabilities will attain the same height and elegance in this movement
as one that is well constituted, but he will, at least, be able to
display in it all the resources of his organization to more purpose.
The great thing is to bring the horse to attempt this performance with
good will. If all the processes prescribed by me for mastering the
instinctive forces of the animal, and putting him under the influence of
ours, have been punctually followed, the utility of this progression
will be recognized by the facility we have of making the horse clear all
the objects that are encountered in his way. For the rest, recourse must
never be had, in case of a contest, to violent means, such as a whip in
the hands of a second person; nor should we seek to excite the animal by
cries; this could only produce a moral effect calculated to frighten
him. It is by physical means that we should before all bring him to
obedience, since they alone will enable him to understand and execute.
We should then carry on the contest calmly, and seek to surmount the
forces that lead him to refuse, by acting directly on them. To make the
horse leap, we will wait till he responds freely to the legs and spur,
in order to have always a sure means of government.
The bar will remain on the ground until the horse goes over it without
hesitation; it will then be raised some inches, progressively increasing
the height until the animal will be just able to clear it without too
violent an effort. To exceed this proper limit would be to risk causing
a disgust on the part of the horse that should be most carefully
avoided. The bar having been thus gradually raised, ought to be made
fast, in order that the horse, disposed to be indolent, should not make
sport of an obstacle which would be no longer serious, when the touch of
his feet sufficed to overturn it. The bar ought not to be wrapped in any
covering that would lessen its hardness; we should be severe when we
demand possibilities, and avoid the abuses that always result from an
ill-devised complaisance.
Before preparing to take the leap, the rider should hold himself
sufficiently firm to prevent his body preceding the motion of the horse.
His loins should be supple, his buttocks well fixed to the saddle, so
that he may experience no shock nor violent reaction. His thighs and
legs exactly enveloping the body and sides of the horse will give him a
power always opportune and infallible. The hand in its natural position
will feel the horse's mouth in order to judge of the effects of
impulsion. It is in this position that the rider should conduct the
horse towards the obstacle; if he comes up to it with the same freedom
of pace, a light opposition of the legs and hand will facilitate the
elevation of the fore-hand, and the bound of the posterior extremity. As
soon as the horse is raised, the hand ceases its effect, to be again
sustained when the fore legs touch the ground, and to prevent them
giving way under the weight of the body.
We should content ourselves with executing a few leaps in accordance
with the horse's powers, and, above all, avoid pushing bravado to the
point of wishing to force the animal to clear obstacles that are beyond
his powers. I have known very good leapers that people have succeeded in
thus disgusting forever, so that no efforts could induce them to clear
things only half the height of those that at first they leaped with
ease.
_Of the piaffer._[R]--Until now, horsemen have maintained that the
nature of each horse permits of only a limited number of movements, and
that if there are some that can be brought to execute a _piaffer_ high
and elegant, or low and precipitate, there are a great number of them to
whom this exercise is for ever interdicted. Their construction, they
say, is opposed to it; it is then nature that has so willed it; ought we
not to bow before this supreme arbiter, and respect its decrees?
[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._"
This opinion is undoubtedly convenient for justifying its own ignorance,
but it is none the less false. _We can bring all horses to piaffer_, and
I will prove that in this particularly, without reforming the work of
nature, without deranging the formation of the bones, or that of the
muscles of the animal, we can remedy the consequences of its physical
imperfections, and change the vicious disposition occasioned by faulty
construction. There is no doubt that the horse whose forces and weight
are collected in one of his extremities will be unfit to execute the
elegant cadence of the _piaffer_. But a graduated exercise, the
completion of which is the _rassembler_, soon allows us to remedy such
an inconvenience. We can now reunite all these forces in their true
centre of gravity, and the horse that bears the _rassembler_ perfectly
has all the necessary qualifications for the _piaffer_.
For the _piaffer_ to be regular and graceful, it is necessary that the
horse's legs, moved diagonally, rise together and fall in the same way
upon the ground at as long intervals as possible. The animal ought not
to bear more upon the hand than upon the legs of the rider, that his
equilibrium may present the perfection of that balance of which I have
spoken in another place. When the centre of the forces is thus disposed
in the middle of the body, and when the _rassembler_ is perfect, it is
sufficient, in order to induce a commencement of _piaffer_, to
communicate to the horse with the legs a vibration at first slight, but
often repeated. By vibration I mean an invigoration of forces, of which
the rider ought always to be the agent.
After this first result, the horse will be put at a walk, and the
rider's legs gradually brought close, will give the animal a slight
increase of action. Then, but only then, the hand will sustain itself in
time with the legs, and at the same intervals, in order that these two
motive powers, acting conjointly, may keep up a succession of
imperceptible movements, and produce a slight contraction which will
spread itself over the whole body of the horse. This reiterated activity
will give the extremities a first mobility, which at the beginning will
be far from regular, since the increase of action that this new exercise
makes necessary will for the moment break the harmonious uniformity of
the forces. But this general action is necessary in order to obtain even
an irregular mobility, for without it the movement would be disorderly,
and there would be a want of harmony among the different springs. We
will content ourselves, for the first few days, with a commencement of
mobility of the extremities, being careful to stop each time that the
horse raises or puts down his feet, without advancing them too much, in
order to caress him, and speak to him, and thus calm the invigoration
that a demand, the object of which he does not understand, must cause in
him. Nevertheless, these caresses should be employed with discernment,
and when the horse has done well, for if badly applied they would be
rather injurious than useful. The fit time for ceasing with the hands
and legs is more important still; it demands all the rider's attention.
The mobility of the legs once obtained, we can commence to regulate it,
and fix the intervals of the cadence. Here again, I seek in vain to
indicate with the pen the degree of delicacy necessary in the rider's
proceedings, since his motions ought to be answered by the horse with an
exactness and _a propos_ that is unequaled. It is by the alternated
support of the two legs that he will succeed in prolonging the lateral
balancings of the horse's body, in such way as to keep him longer on one
side or the other. He will seize the moment when the horse prepares to
rest his fore leg on the ground, to make the pressure of his own leg
felt on the same side, and add to the inclination of the animal in the
same direction. If this time is well seized, the horse will balance
himself slowly, and the cadence will acquire that elevation so fit to
bring out all its elegance and all its majesty. These times of the legs
are difficult, and require great practice; but their results are too
splendid for the rider not to strive to seize the light variations of
them.
The precipitate movement of the rider's legs accelerates also the
_piaffer_. It is he, then, who regulates at will the greater or less
degree of quickness of the cadence. The performance of the _piaffer_ is
not elegant and perfect until the horse performs it without repugnance,
which will always be the case when the forces are kept together, and the
position is suitable to the demands of the movement. It is urgent, then,
to be well acquainted with the amount of force necessary for the
performance of the _piaffer_, so as not to overdo it. We should, above
all, be careful to keep the horse _rassemble_, which, of itself, will
induce the movement without effort.