186 METHOD OF HORSEMANSHIP. 



horse s powers, and above all avoid pushing 

 bravado to the point of wishing to force the 

 animal over obstacles that are beyond his 

 powers. I have known very good leapers 

 that people have succeeded in thus disgust 

 ing 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 tlie piaffer* 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 forever interdicted. Their con 

 struction, they say, is opposed to it ; it is, 

 then, nature that has so willed it ; ought we 



* &quot; The piaffer is the horse s raising his legs diagonally 

 as in the trot, but without advancing or receding/ Bau- 

 cher s &quot;Dictionaire d Equitation .&quot; 



