CHAPTER XXIX 

 THE PASSAGE 



OF all the low airs which a horse can execute, the 

 passage is the most rhythmic, the most artistic, and 

 the most scientific. It is not an artificial gait, but 

 an entirely regular and natural movement. Let a 

 horse of any conformation, trained to any kind of 

 service, be out of the stable and free. He trots at 

 the passage. His head is up, his neck well placed, 

 his tail in the air. Hocks, haunches, knees, and 

 shoulders flex on their centers of motion, high, with 

 energy, cadence, and balance. The back and loins 

 are supple, the nostrils are well opened, and the 

 breathing is deep even to snorting. Every joint 

 is loose. Every limb functions with suppleness, 

 rhythm, elegance. The horse is like a hunting-dog 

 bounding around his master as he holds a shot-gun. 

 He is in the air as if he would fly. (Figures 36, 37.) 

 But, alas, as soon as the harness is on, and the 

 driver is on the box or the rider in the saddle, all 

 this cadence, tempo, rhythm, elegance, departs. 

 The horse becomes heavy, stupid, brutish, without 

 energy, a slave without initiative, a submissive vic- 

 tim when he understands what is wanted and a 

 restive victim when he does not. To raise the har- 

 nessed animal to the standard of its natural beauty 



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