Or note how an athlete does a somersault. He leaps into the air, and then, solely by the action of his loins, he turns his feet up and his head down, and then alights upon his feet. Or suppose a man is running and falls. If, as he fell, he could bring his loins into action sufficiently to bring his legs under him, the fall would not occur.
I have dwelt long on this topic of strength of loins in the saddle horse, because it is my thoroughgoing conviction that the various schools of equitation have emphasized overmuch the correctness of movements of the horse's limbs, to the complete neglect of the muscular development of the coupling, a matter which, in fact, they do not even mention. It is to develop this part of the horse's body that I employ the two piaffers, and especially the slow one, just as soon as my mount has attained to a muscular strength sufficient to begin a movement needing so much power at the loins.
I have asked and obtained the slow piaffer by the methods of Baucher and Fillis; but I have always found that this procedure results in great exertion, great fatigue, and very often irritation and incipient stages of revolt. To obviate these drawbacks, I have developed a procedure which has never failed to secure the result at which I aim.
I do not attempt the piaffer until my horse is at the state of perfect equilibrium during all the movements of the progression up to this stage, and is complete as a park hack. Then I commence the
