GENERAL PRINCIPLES. Ill 



It is precisely for this reason that a proper command 

 over the horse's neck is of such value to the rider, 

 enabling him to vary the condition of equilibrium as 

 suits his views for the moment, and to weight one or 

 both of the hind legs, alternately or simultaneously, as 

 may best serve his purpose. It is on a perfect knowledge 

 of this principle that the success of handling young 

 horses, or the overcoming the vices of those that have 

 been injudiciously handled, depends ; and there is no 

 more frequent cause of restiveness or indocility than 

 an abuse of the lever action of the neck with young 

 animals. 



Some years ago a great sensation was produced by a 

 system of riding, or rather handling horses, introduced 

 by M. Baucher, a French riding-master. According to 

 this gentleman, the power of resisting the will of the 

 rider, and therefore the seat of all restiveness, is located 

 in that part of the neck which forms the articulation 

 with the head; and he found that, by getting the horse's 

 head into a particular position, and fixing it there, he 

 could more or less perfectly master the volition of the 

 animal. But it soon appeared that M. Baucher's 

 system had the radical defect of destroying all the 

 horse's paces; and the Due de Nemour's condemnation 

 of it, or rather the sentence he passed on it, " Je ne 

 veux pas d'un systeme qui prend sur T impulsion des 

 chevaux," was most perfectly justified.* 



Now the error into which M. Baucher fell was this : 

 The horse's neck is, no doubt, a very powerful agent in 

 our hands ; it is, as we have already shown, the lever, 

 and the only one too, by which we obtain a command 



* This, too, was the error of the Duke of Newcastle's system, 

 which drove us into the opposite extreme. 



