a bad voluntary distribution of the forces in an animal which holds himself back and which does not wish to advance ; and his hocks do not do their work of pushing the mass forward. If we overload the forehand by lowering the neck, we add still more to the weight, and consequently we increase the difficulty of the work required from the hocks.^[1] We must therefore raise the neck in order to lighten the forehand ; but we should raise it from below upwards, and not from front to rear, while taking care not to exaggerate the movement and to keep the hand very light. A high position of the neck is the first condition of good equilibrium, and having obtained it, we should seek to give freedom to the hind quarters, while bringing them into action, and making the horse go freely forward, which we do by the flexions of the well-placed head, by the loosening of the jaw, and especially by the legs. A horse which is heavy in his hind quarters is behind his bit, and if he does not wish to go forward, he is behind the legs. With such an animal we must employ great lightness of hand and great energy of the legs, so as to change his distribution of weight by making him go up to his bit.^[2] We cannot obtain this result by a low position of the neck, which is the chief obstacle to lightness.

2. To fix the neck in the axis of the body by connecting to the shoulders the head rendered light by flexion. The unbent head is heavy at the end of the neck, which has become too movable. Hence the proverb, " Heavy head, slack neck." This is a case similar to that of holding a fishing-rod by its thin end. The flexed head, on the contrary, moves with lightness on the high neck, which is kept without stiffness on the axis of the body by the sole action of the good