94 NEW METHOD OF HORSEMANSHIP. 



would destroy the harmony then existing between his 

 forces. 



This short explanation will, I hope, suffice to make it 

 understood that things should be studied thoroughly 

 before laying down 'any principles of action. Let us 

 have no more systems, then, upon the exclusive 

 use of such or such leg to determine the gallop; but a 

 settled conviction that the first condition of this or any 

 other performance is to keep the horse supple and light — 

 that is rassemhU / then, after this, to make use of one or 

 the other motive power, according as the animal, at the 

 start, preserves a proper position, or seeks to leave it. 

 It must also be understood that, while it is the force 

 that gives the position to the horse, it is position alone 

 upon which the regularity of movement depends. 



Passing frequently from the gallop with the right foot 

 to that with the left, in a straight line, and with halts, 

 will soon bring the horse to make these changes of feet 

 by the touch without halting. Violent effects of force 

 should be avoided, which would bewilder the horse and 

 destroy his lightness. We must remember that this 

 lightness which should precede all changes of pace and 

 direction, and make every movement easy, graceful and 

 inevitable, is the important condition we should seek 

 before everything else. 



It is because they have not understood this principle, 

 and have not felt that the first condition to dispose a 

 horse for the galloj) is to destroy all the instinctive forces 

 of the animal (forces that oppose the position the move- 

 ment demands), that horsemen have laid down so many 

 erroneous principles, and have all remained unable to 

 show us the proper means to be employed. 



Of leaping the ditch and the bar. — Although the com- 

 binations of equestrian science alone cannot give to 



