THE SPURS AND THEIR EFFECTS 



schools of equitation. But equitation, with the 

 progress made since de la Gueriniere's time, has 

 passed from the instinctive to the reasoned basis, 

 and now to the scientific. It is no longer a question 

 of practicing what our ancestors have done, but of 

 following a progressive education, a sequence of 

 reason, cause, and the effect of the means used by 

 the man on the horse. 



Now the first principle of the scientific equitation 

 is the force of effect; it denies forever the effect of 

 force. This being admitted, it is no longer by the 

 severity of the bit nor by the severity of the spurs 

 that we train the horse. I say train, as we still do, 

 mistakenly: I mean educate. Following a progres- 

 sive education, the horse is first taught by a trainer 

 on foot, by the use of the whip on its flanks, to 

 move forward against the bit. This practice with 

 the whip prepares the animal for the effects of the 

 legs upon the same part of the body, when the 

 rider is mounted and the legs give the impulse to 

 the entire machinery. This impulse of the legs 

 is received by the bit, making contact with the 

 bars, so that there is a continual fluctuation of the 

 equilibrium as the center of gravity shifts backward 

 and forward at each step. 



To make this matter clear, suppose a horse to be 

 mounted and standing, its training by the flexions 

 of mouth and neck being so far advanced that it is 

 well "in hand." In order to maintain the animal in 

 this position, the center of gravity at the center of 



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