Manual of Equitation and Horse Training 97 



this gait, for the manner in which the horses take it, keep 

 it, modify, or leave it has great influence on their value. 



Besides, the study of one complex movement, which 

 necessitates all the rider's skill and absolute obedience on 

 the part of the horse, gives occasion to apply in one con- 

 crete case the principles set forth in training, and to show 

 in detail the role and value of the aids. To completely 

 analyze the gallop departs is to sum up all of training and 

 set forth in the study of one movement how all others are 

 obtained. 



The horse at liberty takes the gallop in several different 

 waj^s. As a general rule, he breaks into the gallop accord- 

 ing to the circumstances which have provoked it; some- 

 times by a sort of loss of balance in throwing his weight 

 forward, sometimes by taking on the hind quarters the 

 weight of the fore hand, engaging his hocks under the 

 mass, balancing himself, as it were. 



Mounted, he acts in the same way when a cause foreign 

 to the rider's will leads him to take the gallop (cluck of 

 the tongue, crack of the whip, fear, etc.). 



When the rider wishes to impose the gallop by author- 

 ity of the aids he must consider in the choice of means the 

 effects which the hand and legs may have, since, according 

 to the degree of his training the horse can only understand 

 a part of the effects of the aids. 



To make the horse understand that the sensation that 

 he perceives commands the gait of the gallop, he must be 

 placed in a situation which, in taking away from him all 

 hesitation, only leaves one movement to execute— the one 

 demanded. 



Whether the horse takes the gallop by losing his bal- 

 ance or by balancing himself, position should always pre- 

 cede action. 



It is the very mechanism of the gallop which indicates 

 the position which the horse should be made to take. The 

 gallop is characterized by one lateral biped being more ad- 

 vanced than the other; thus in the right gallop the two 

 right legs are more advanced than the two left legs, and 

 inversely. 



(a) With young horses, ignorant or imperfectly disci- 

 plined to the aids, and who, meanwhile, must be galloped 

 for their development, and to advance their conditioning, 

 the object should be to start the horse on some circular 



