ROTATION OF CROUP AND SHOULDERS, iii

remains stationary and serves as a pivot, which I have found to be a mistake. During breaking, none of the parts of the horse should be stationary, because immobility often degenerates into a means of defence. Therefore, instead of making the horse pivot, I try to make him describe a very small circle with the forehand round the centre, and a large concentric circle round it with the hind quarters.

Of course, I do not pass abruptly from lateral effects to direct effects, or from direct effects to diagonal effects. On the contrary, I go imperceptibly from one to the other, so that the horse may well understand what I want him to do, and that he may not evince any surprise or confusion. The employment of lateral effects has been a preparatory step towards the execution of the movement by direct effects. In the same way, direct effects are only a preparatory measure for diagonal effects.

This work would be of no use if its only object was to make the horse give way to the whip. Its great end is, without frightening the horse, to prepare him to obey the legs at first, and the spurs subsequently and by degrees.

We now come to mounted work, which I do by again passing from lateral effects to direct effects, and from direct effects to diagonal effects, as during work on foot.

If, when in the middle of the school, I wish to obtain the rotation of the croup (reversed pirouette) from the left to the right, I bring my left heel close to the animal's side. As a green horse does not know what I wish him to do, his first movement will be to lean against my leg, at which movement the good effect of the preceding work will come to my aid. I touch him lightly with my whip on the left side, as near as possible to my heel, and I avoid above all things touching him too far back, which would be almost certain to make him kick. At the same time I use the left snaffle rein to make him carry his croup to the right. I can assure my readers