THE SCIENTIFIC EQUITATION 



Some ten years ago E. L. Anderson, author of 

 Modern Horsemanship, wrote me, complaining that 

 the Spanish walk and trot disturbs the fineness of a 

 horse's mouth, so necessary for the piaffer and the 

 passage. I replied that this is certainly the fact. In 

 the passage and the piaffer, the exertion being less 

 than in the Spanish walk and trot, the rhomboideus 

 acts more strongly than the mastoido-humeralis. In 

 the Spanish walk and trot, which involve greater 

 exertion, the conditions are reversed, and the mas- 

 toido-humeralis acts the more strongly. But it is 

 the action of the first of these muscles, the rhom- 

 boideus, that gives the more sensitive contact 

 against the hand. 



