during the three defences I have mentioned, is to remain master of him. If he resists the attacks of the spurs, when he is stationary, I make him go forward at all hazards. I then close my legs, and begin again, until he yields. The point upon which I insist is, that we are always master of a horse when we can make him go forward.

These observations, of course, do not apply only to the piaffer and passage. My reason for having dwelt on this subject so long, is that the means I have mentioned are always the same which I use for combatting defences—always the same which the horse adopts when he is touched by the spur, while he is kept in one place.^[1]

Men of the new school, of whom I had occasion to speak in the preceding chapter, employ, in order to teach the piaffer, means not less strange, though more brutal, than that which they use for teaching the Spanish walk. They open the door of the school, and place the horse, with his head turned to the side of the stable, close to the opening of this door, to make him impatient. One man is on his back, another holds the caveson, and a third stands behind the animal, with a driving whip in his hand.^[2] They then put on each pastern a leather hobble, to which is attached a piece of wood in the shape of an egg.

When the horse moves a foot, or rather when he puts it down,