RIDING AND TRAINING. 143 



CHAPTER XVII. THE HIGH SCHOOL. 



THE movements of the school are employed for the 

 double purpose of teaching the horse a prompt and 

 exact obedience to every indication of the aids, and 

 for exhibiting in the managed animal some of the 

 more brilliant actions of the horse at liberty. It can 

 readily be understood that a horse which has been 

 disciplined by school training will be under perfect 

 control, but it is not generally recognised, that the 

 Spanish trot, the piafTer, and the curvet are motions 

 and actions that are common to horses of a gay and 

 lively temper when at liberty, and that some of the 

 other school airs are often volunteered by restless 

 animals in their resistances. 



The Spanish Trot is an exaggerated action in 

 which, at each stride, a fore-leg is thrust boldly to 

 the front, and there is a poise or l^alf halt as the horse 

 is in air, procured by the support of the rein and the 

 heel opposite to the raised fore-leg. The legs are 

 moved exactly as in the united trot, that is, the 

 horse goes from one pair of diagonal legs to the other 



