THE SCIENTIFIC EQUITATION 



Or note how an athlete does a somersault. He 

 leaps into the air, and then, solely by the action of 

 his loins, he turns his feet up and his head down, 

 and then alights upon his feet. Or suppose a man 

 is running and falls. If, as he fell, he could bring 

 his loins into action sufficiently to bring his legs 

 under him, the fall would not occur. 



I have dwelt long on this topic of strength of 

 loins in the saddle horse, because it is my thorough- 

 going conviction that the various schools of equita- 

 tion have emphasized overmuch the correctness of 

 movements of the horse's limbs, to the complete 

 neglect of the muscular development of the coup- 

 ling, a matter which, in fact, they do not even men- 

 tion. It is to develop this part of the horse's body 

 that I employ the two piaffers, and especially the 

 slow one, just as soon as my mount has attained to 

 a muscular strength sufficient to begin a movement 

 needing so much power at the loins. 



I have asked and obtained the slow piaffer by 

 the methods of Baucher and Fillis; but I have al- 

 ways found that this procedure results in great 

 exertion, great fatigue, and very often irritation and 

 incipient stages of revolt. To obviate these draw- 

 backs, I have developed a procedure which has 

 never failed to secure the result at which I aim. 



I do not attempt the piaffer until my horse is at 

 the state of perfect equilibrium during all the move- 

 ments of the progression up to this stage, and is 

 complete as a park hack. Then I commence the 



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