STIFFNESS OF NECK. 73 



the horse will be free to execute these 

 movements or not, since he will remain 

 master of the employment of his own forces. 

 From the time I first noticed the power 

 ful influence that the stiffness of the neck 

 exercises on the whole mechanism of the 

 horse, I attentively sought the means to 

 remedy it. The resistances to the hand are 

 always either sideways, upward or down 

 ward. I at first considered the neck alone 

 as the source of these resistances, and exer 

 cised myself in suppling the animal by flex 

 ions, repeated in every direction. The re 

 sult was immense ; but although, at the end 

 of a certain time, the supplings of the neck 

 rendered me perfectly master of the forces 

 of the fore-parts of the horse, I still felt a 

 slight resistance which I could not at first 

 account for. At last, I discovered that it 

 proceeded from the jaw. The flexibility I 

 had communicated to the neck even aided 

 7 



