CHAPTER V. 



OF THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE FORCES OF THE HORSE BY THE 

 RIDER. 



"When tlie snpplings have subjected the instinctive 

 forces of the horse, and given them up completely into 

 our power, the animal will be nothing more in our hand 

 than a passive, expectant machine, ready to act upon the 

 impulsion we choose to communicate to him. It will be 

 for us, then, as sovereign disposers of all his forces, to 

 combine the employment of them in correct proportion 

 to the movements we wish to execute. 



The young horse, at first stiff and awkward in the use 

 of his members, will need a certain degree of management 

 in developing them. In this, as in every other case, we 

 will follow that rational progression which tells us to 

 commence with the simple, before passing to the com- 

 plicated. By the preceding exercise, we have made our 

 means of acting upon the horse sure. We must now 

 attend to facilitating his means of execution, by exercis- 

 ing all his forces together. If the animal responds to 

 the aids of the rider by the jaw, the neck and the 

 haunches ; if he yields by the general disposition of his 

 body to the impulses communicated to him, it is by the play 

 of his extremities that he executes the movement. The 

 mechanism of these parts ought then to be easy, prompt 

 and regular ; their application, well directed in the dif- 



