34 NEW METHOD OF HORSEMANSHIP. 



mal ; by them, also, lie can judge of the regularity and 

 precision of his movements. The equilibrium of the 

 whole body is perfect, its lightness complete, when the 

 head and neck remain of themselves easy, pliable and 

 graceful. On the contrary, there can be no elegance, no 

 ease of the whole, when these two parts are stiff. Pre- 

 ceding the body of the horse in all its impulsions, they 

 ought to give warning, and show by their attitude the 

 positions to be taken, and the movements to be e;i:ecuted. 

 The rider has no power so long as they remain contract- 

 ed and rebellious; he disposes of the animal at will, 

 when once they are flexible and easily handled. If the 

 head and neck do not first commence the changes of 

 direction, if in circular movements they are not inclined 

 in a curved line, if in backing they do not bend back 

 npon themselves, and if their lightness is not always in 

 harmony with the different paces at which we wish to go, 

 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 powerful 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 band are always 

 either sideways, upward or downward. I at first con- 

 sidered the neck alone as the source of these resistances, 

 and exercised myself in suppling the animal by flexions, 

 repeated in every direction. The result was immense ; 

 but, although, at the end of a certain time, thesupplings 

 of the neck rendered me perfectly master of the forces 

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

 ance which I could not at first account for. At last I 

 discovered that it proceeded from the jaw. The flexibil- 

 ity I had communicated to the neck even aided this stiff- 



