PLACING THE HORSE 



effects have to be used to counteract the fault of a 

 horse which is unequal in its movements, and which 

 refuses to be put straight or to stay straight. The 

 matter is seldom taught; and the causes, effects, 

 and corrections have been quite ignored. Authors 

 who have mentioned rein of opposition have not 

 explained it clearly. Frankly, I suspect that very 

 few men have really understood it. 



Unhappily, very few horses are straight when 

 mounted, for reasons which are discussed in part 

 under the captions, " Weight " and "Seat." But 

 the horse with a tendency to have the spine crooked 

 tends also to stride unequally, in order to compen- 

 sate for the first defect. This we correct by means 

 of the rein of opposition. 



Suppose, for example, that, instead of walking, 

 trotting, or galloping straight, a horse turns its 

 haunches to the right. The haunches are ap- 

 parently at fault, so we will start our problem from 

 them. The masters tell us to push the haunches to 

 the left with the right leg. This is an error, in that 

 it attacks the consequence and neglects the cause. 

 The real trouble is that the left front leg is making 

 a shorter stride than the right. The left hind leg 

 has, therefore, too little space for its step, and 

 comes to the ground too soon and too near the 

 right. This pushes the back part of the body to 

 the right, and throws the line of motion of the 

 right hind leg out of parallelism with the axis of the 

 body. The rider can, indeed, for the moment, push 



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