STIFFNESS OF NECK. 73 



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 power- 

 ful 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 hand are 

 always either sideways, upward or down- 

 ward. I at first considered the neck alone 

 as the source of these resistances, and exer- 

 cised myself in suppling the animal by flex- 

 ions, repeated in every direction. The re- 

 sult was immense ; but although, at the end 

 of a certain time, the supplings of the neck 

 rendered me perfectly master of the forces 

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

 slight resistance which I could not at first 

 account for. At last, I discovered that it 

 proceeded from the jaw. The flexibility I 

 had communicated to the neck even aided 

 7 



