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movement. But, as I have often said, I content myself with a little at the beginning of a new work.
Let us suppose, for example, that at the moment when the right leg is extended, I touch the horse sharply with the left spur, he will make a small leap forward : that is the first period. I content myself with this, and pat him on the neck. Then I begin again.
When I am sure of my first period, I do not demand a second, but I begin, quite simply, with the left leg, in the same manner as I did with the right.
When I have obtained from my horse a single time of the trot on each leg, I demand two, but only when such particular time is correct in length and height, and is done with ease.
If one leg is lazier than the other leg, which is almost always the case, I work only that leg, which is the best means of impressing the memory of the horse, and of making him understand, by means of my indications, that he uses that leg too slackly.
Having established harmony, I connect the two first periods and afterwards demand four ; but no more for a long time, not even when the horse tries to do more of his own accord.
It is better to be contented with four times well done, than to try to quickly obtain a greater number which would be doubtful.
In the Spanish trot, the horse displays great energy,[1] of
See Fig. 51. The thorough-bred Markir (by the thorough-bred Anglo- Arab Cyrus, out of the thorough-bred Thérésine), at the Spanish trot : right diagonal in the air ; perfectly in hand ; head a little beyond the vertical ; and jaw bent. Fig. 52, Germinal at the Spanish trot : left diagonal in the air ; and in hand. The cutting whip would never give extensions of the legs like those shown in these two illustrations, which were entirely an affair of the spurs. We can see in these two cases, how the hock which is in the air is brought well under the body, which is the whole secret of the elevation of the forehand. The expenditure of energy in Fig. 51 is so great that the fetlocks almost touch the ground. ↩︎