Page:Equitation.djvu/283

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the matter here to emphasize the difference between myself, on the one hand, and Baucher and Fillis, on the other. They employ these airs of manege for the sake of public exhibition. I use them as a means of correction or development. I want a horse, sound, strong, and well developed, in order to have a square and equal walk, trot, or gallop. Since it is impossible to find a horse having these qualities by nature, I attain my object by means of gymnastic exercises derived from the movements of the high school.

I have, then, invented no new air of high school, though I have complicated some old ones, but always for the sake of more strength, more precision, more energy. I begin my course of training always by the work with the longe, the horse turning the circle successively at the two hands. It is during this first part of the horse's education that I make my diagnosis of the case, and my prognosis. That done, I attack immediately the local cause of any derangement.

For example, the horse, walking round the circle, proves weak in loins, coupling, hind quarters. I load it progressively with a proper weight, and watch its progress. When it carries the weight energetically with its hind quarters, I make it walk backward, a few steps at a time, several times at each lesson. When its progress becomes still more evident, I mount and continue the education by flexions, pirouettes, reversed pirouettes, and back-