ment, who has already, in his youth, spoiled several horses, before being several times successful. One cannot hope to put a horse successfully at the passage until after he has trained five or ten horses. For when a master first begins the passage, the great, the nearly insurmountable difficulty is to obtain the first two or three manifestations of the cadence. But it is absolutely impossible for these first two or three steps to be at all pronounced or decided. They are like the ripples in a teacup compared to the steady undulation of the sea. But if the master does not recognize at once this earliest almost insensible ripple, and so continues to ask it of the horse, the horse becomes more and more confused. Neither understands what is being asked.
These first signs of the passage are, then, I say, very nearly imperceptible. But if they are recognized and rewarded, they are stored in the horse's memory. And since these first steps are the most difficult to obtain, everything possible must be done to fix the lesson in the animal's mind.
Both Fillis and I, at the first adumbrations of the passage, stop the horse, jump down, take off the curb chain and bridle, blanket the horse, give him some pieces of carrot, sugar, or apple, and dismiss him to the stable.
At the next lesson, I bridle the horse myself, using calmness and tact, and have him go through some movements in the state of perfect equilibrium,
