THE FLEXIONS MOUNTED 



right leg that the rider corrects this tendency and 

 keeps the spine straight. I do not, at the beginning, 

 employ my legs to maintain the straight position; 

 but going straight, if I ask the flexion, and the 

 haunches have a tendency to swing (a tendency, 

 only, I say), I do not wait until the haunches have 

 actually swung it would then be too late but 

 at the first slightest feeling in my seat, my leg is 

 ready with its effect. But I do not kick. To kick a 

 horse with leg or spur is to me blasphemy. 



As the horse reaches the corner of ring or manege, 

 the rider continues the flexion of the neck to the 

 left, sends the horse forward by means of his left 

 leg, and turns it by the effect of the right, as in the 

 reversed pirouette done at the walk. In this, the 

 rider is entirely rational, in complete accord with 

 the nature and anatomy of the horse, the regularity 

 of its motion, and what it has been taught from 

 the beginning of its education. But I submit that, 

 after having taught the horse, with its head to the 

 left, to move its haunches to the left at the effect of 

 the right leg, as in the reversed pirouette or rotation, 

 it is the height of absurdity to turn a corner to the 

 right by means of right rein and right leg, a viola- 

 tion of the nature of the animal, a contradiction of 

 all that it has been taught, and the reason for those 

 terrible tempests of revolt so often experienced by 

 Baucher and Fillis, when they asked movements, 

 by lateral effects, when the r mounts were moving 

 in diagonal action at walk and trot, while they used 



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