Of their causes and effects.—The horse, like all organized beings, is possessed of a weight and a force peculiar to himself. The weight inherent to the material of which the animal is composed, renders the mass inert, and tends to fix it to the ground. The force, on the contrary, by the faculty it gives him of moving this weight, of dividing it, of transferring it from one of his parts to another, communicates movement to his whole being, determines his equilibrium, speed and direction. To make this truth more evident, let us suppose a horse in repose. His body will be in perfect equilibrium, if each of its members supports exactly that part of the weight which devolves upon it in this position. If he wishes to move forward at a walk, he must first transfer that part of the weight resting on the leg he moves first to those that will remain fixed to the ground. It will be the same thing in other paces, the transfer acting from one diagonal to the other in the trot, from the front to the rear, and reciprocally in the gallop. We must not then confound the weight with the force; the latter determines, the former is subordinate to it. It is by carrying the weight from one extremity to the other that the force puts them in motion, or makes them stationary. The slowness or quickness of the transfers fixes the different paces, which are correct or false, even or uneven, according as these transfers are executed with correctness or irregularity.
It is understood that this motive power is subdivided ad infinitum, since it is spread over all the muscles of the animal. When the latter himself determines the use of them, the forces are instinctive; I call them transmitted when they emanate from the rider. In the first case, the man governed by his horse remains the plaything of his caprices; in the second, on the contrary, he makes him a docile instrument, submissive to all the impulses of his will. The horse, then, from the moment he is mounted, should only act by transmitted forces. The invariable application of this principle constitutes the true talent of the horseman.
But such a result cannot be attained instantaneously. The young horse, in freedom, having been accustomed to regulate his own movements, will, at first, submit with difficulty to the strange influence which comes to take the entire control of them. A struggle necessarily ensues between the horse and his rider, who will be overcome unless he is possessed of energy, patience, and, above all, the knowledge necessary to gain his point. The forces of the animal being the element upon which the rider must principally work, first to conquer, and finally to direct them, it is necessary he should fix his attention upon these before anything else. He will study what they are, whence they spring, the parts where they contract the most for resistance, the physical causes which occasion these contractions. When this is discovered, he will proceed with his pupil by means in accordance with his nature, and his progress will then be rapid.
Unfortunately, we search in vain in ancient or modern authors, on horsemanship, I will not say for rational principles, but even for any data in connection with the forces of the horse. All speak very prettily about resistances, oppositions, lightness and equilibrium; but none of them have known how to tell us what causes these resistances, how we can combat them, destroy them, and obtain this lightness and equilibrium they so earnestly recommend. It is this gap that has caused the great doubts and obscurity about the principles of horsemanship; it is this that has made the art stationary so long a time; it is this gap that, I think, I am able to fill up.
And first, I lay down the principle that all the resistances of young horses spring, in the first place, from a physical cause, and that this cause only becomes a moral one by the awkwardness, ignorance and brutality of the rider. In fact, besides the natural stiffness peculiar to all these animals, each of them has a peculiar conformation, the more or less of perfection in which constitutes the degree of harmony that exists between the forces and the weight. The want of this harmony occasions the ungracefulness of their paces, the difficulty of their movements; in a word, all the obstacles to a good education. In a state of freedom, whatever may be the bad structure of the horse, instinct is sufficient to enable him to make such a use of his forces as to maintain his equilibrium; but there are movements it is impossible for him to make until a preparatory exercise shall have put him in the way of supplying the defects of his organization by a better combined use of his motive power. A horse puts himself in motion only in consequence of a given position; if his forces are such as to oppose themselves to this position, they must first be annulled, in order to replace them by the only ones which can lead to it.
Now, I ask, if before overcoming these first obstacles, the rider adds to them the weight of his own body, and his unreasonable demands, will not the animal experience still greater difficulty in executing certain movements? The efforts we make to compel him to submission, being contrary to his nature, will they not find in it an insurmountable obstacle? He will naturally resist, and with so much the more advantage, that the bad distribution of his forces will of itself be sufficient to paralyze those of the rider. The resistance then emanates, in this case, from a physical cause: which becomes a moral one from the moment when, the struggle going on with the same processes, the horse begins of his own accord to combine means of resisting the torture imposed on him, when we undertake to force into operation parts which have not previously been supplied.
When things get into this state, they can only grow worse. The rider, soon disgusted with the impotence of his efforts, will cast back upon the horse the responsibility of his own ignorance; he will brand as a jade an animal possessing the most brilliant resources, and of whom, with more discernment and tact, he could have made a hackney as docile in character, as graceful and agreeable in his paces. I have often remarked that horses considered indomitable are those which develop the most energy and vigor, when we know how to remedy those physical defects which prevent their making use of them. As to those which, in spite of their bad formation, are by a similar system made to show a semblance of obedience, we need thank nothing but the softness of their nature; if they can be made to submit to the simplest exercises, it is only on condition that we do not demand anything more of them, for they would soon find their energy again to resist any further attempts. The rider can then make them go along at different paces to be sure; but how disconnected, how stiff, how ungraceful in their movements, and how ridiculous such steeds make their unfortunate riders look, as they toss them about at will, instead of being guided by them! This state of things is all perfectly natural, unless we destroy the first cause of it: the bad distribution of their forces, and the stiffness caused by a bad conformation.
But, it is objected, since, you allow that these difficulties are caused by the formation of the horse, how is it possible to remedy them? You do not possibly pretend to change the structure of the animal and reform the work of nature? Undoubtedly not; but while I confess that it is impossible to give more breadth to a narrow chest, to lengthen too short a neck, to lower too high a croup, to shorten and fill out long, weak, narrow loins, I do not the less insist that if I prevent the different contractions occasioned by these physical defects, if I supply the muscles, if I make myself master of the forces so as to use them at will, it will be easy for me to prevent these resistances, to give more action to the weak parts, and to moderate those that are too vigorous, and thus make up for the deficiencies of nature.
Such results, I do not hesitate to say, were and still are forever denied to the old methods. But if the science of those who follow the old beaten track finds so constant an obstacle in the great number of horses of defective formation, there are, unfortunately, some horses who, by the perfection of their organization, and the consequent facility of their education, contribute greatly to perpetuate the impotent routines that have been so unfavorable to the progress of horsemanship. A well constituted horse is one, all of whose parts being regularly harmonized, induce the perfect equilibrium of the whole. It would be as difficult for such a subject to leave this natural equilibrium, and take up an improper position for the purpose of resistance, as it is at first painful for the badly formed horse to come into that just distribution of forces, without which no regularity of movement can be hoped for.
It is then only in the education of these last that the real difficulties of horsemanship consist. With the others the breaking ought to be, so to say, instantaneous, since all the springs being in their places, there is nothing to be done but to put them in motion; this result is always obtained by my method. Yet the old principles demand two or three years to reach this point, and when by feeling your way without any certainty of success, the horseman gifted with some tact and experience, ends by accustoming the horse to obey the impressions communicated to him, he imagines that he has surmounted great difficulties, and attributes to his skill a state so near that of nature that correct principles would have obtained it in a few days. Then as the animal continues to display in all his movements the grace and lightness natural to his beautiful formation, the rider does not scruple to take all the merit to himself, thus showing himself as presumptuous in this case as he was unjust when he would make the badly formed horse responsible for the failure of his attempts.