OF THE PIAFFER. 97 



efforts could induce them to clear things only half the 

 height of those that at first they leaped with ease. 



Of the piaffer."^ — Until now, horsemen have main- 

 tained that the nature of each horse permits of only a 

 limited numher of movements, and that if there are 

 some that can be brought to execute a piaffer high and 

 elegant, or low and precipitate, there are a great number 

 of them to whom this exercise is for ever interdicted. 

 Their construction, they say, is opposed to it; it is then 

 nature that has so willed it ; ought we not to bow before 

 this supreme arbiter, and respect its decrees? 



This opinion is undoubtedly convenient for justifying 

 its own ignorance, but it is none the less false. We can 

 hring all horses to piaffer, and I will prove that in this 

 particularly, without reforming the work of nature, 

 without deranging the formation of the bones, or that of 

 the muscles of the animal, we can remedy the conse- 

 quences of its physical imperfections, and change the 

 vicious disposition occasioned by faulty construction. 

 There is no doubt that the horse whose forces and weight 

 are collected in one of his extremities will be unfit to exe- 

 cute the elegant cadence of the piaffer. But a graduated 

 exercise, the completion of which is the rassembler^ soon 

 allows us to remedy such an inconvenience. We can now 

 reunite all these forces in their true centre of gravity, 

 and the horse that bears the rassemhler perfectly has all 

 the necessary qualifications for the piaffer. 



For ihoi piaffer to be regular and graceful, it is neces- 

 sary that the horse's legs, moved diagonally, rise 

 together and fall in the same way upon the ground at as 

 long intervals as possible. The animal ought not to bear 

 more upon the hand than upon the legs of the rider, that 



* " The piaffer is the horse's raising his legs diagonally, as in the trot, but 

 without advancing or receding."— iJauc/ter's " Dictionnaire d' Equitation.'' 



