CHAPTER III. 



THE SUPPLINGS. 



This work being an exposition of a method which up- 

 sets most of the old principles of horsemanship, it is 

 understood that I only address men already conversant 

 with the art, and who join to an assured seat a sufficiently 

 great familiarity with the horse, to understand all that 

 concerns his mechanism. I will not, then, revert to the 

 elementary processes ; it is for the instructor to judge if 

 his pupil possesses a proper degree of solidity of seat, 

 and is sufficiently a part of the horse; for at the same 

 time that a good seat produces this identification, it 

 favors the easy and regular play of the rider's extremities. 



My present object is to treat principally of the educa- 

 tion of the horse ; but this education is too intimately 

 bound up in that of the rider, for him to make much 

 progress in one without the other. In explaining the 

 processes which should produce perfection in the animal, 

 I will necessarily teach the horseman to apply them him- 

 self; he will only have to practise to-morrow what I 

 teach him to-day. Nevertheless,' there is one thing that 

 no precept can give ; that is, a fineness of touch, a deli- 

 cacy of equestrian feeling that belongs only to certain 

 privileged organizations, and without which, we seek in 

 vain to pass certain limits. Having said this, we will 

 return to our subject. 



We now know which are the parts of the horse that 

 contract the most in resistances, and we feel the ncces' 



