TO PASSAGE 251 



that of his leading fore leg ; for he would then be liable to 

 cross his legs and come down; but a well-taught animal 

 under similar conditions would change the leading leg of 

 his own accord, and would thus obviate all risk of making 

 a mistake. Some horses are naturally so clever that they 

 will do this without any previous instruction. 



TO PASSAGE. 



Although the passage (to employ a riding school term) is 

 generally regarded as a manege movement ; it is of such 

 general utility when done at a walk, that I shall here describe 

 its execution at that pace. 



The passage is a side movement, in which the track of the 

 hind legs is apart from and parallel to that of the fore ones. 

 It can best be done when the horse is collected at the walk ; 

 for if he is uncollected, he may fail to raise his outward feet 

 (the near if going to the right and vice versa) high enough 

 to clear the inward ones. A man can easily close (take 

 ground) to the right or to the left, while facing to the front ; 

 because he is capable of moving his legs freely to one side, 

 without changing the position of his body ; but a horse 

 possesses this power of lateral leg-movement to such a very 

 slight extent, that he is practically unable to close to the 

 right or to the left without altering the position of his body. 

 Therefore his body has to be inclined towards the direction 

 of the closing movement. If the angle thus made is more 

 than 45 p the animal will as a rule have difficulty in 

 executing the movement. An angle of from 30 to 35^ will 

 generally be found to meet all requirements. It is evident 

 that if a rider wanted to close a little to the right or to the 

 left, as might often occur at a check in a crowded hunting 

 field or at the starting post in a race, he might fail to do so, 

 if he did not know how, or was unable, to make his horse 

 passage. To execute the passage, the horse is placed 



