Newcastle apparently did not realise that a man’s wrist corresponds to a horse’s knee, and a man’s heel to a horse’s hock.
The following extract will show hunting-men how little they know about leaping:—
“For Leaping-horses, there are four several airs, which are Croupades, Balotades, Caprioles, and a Step and a Leap....
“Croupades is a leap where the horse pulls up his hinder legs, as if he drew or pulled them up into his body.
“Balotades is a leap where the horse offers to strike out with his hinder legs, but doth not, and makes only an offer or half strokes; showing only the shoes of his hinder legs, but doth not strike, only makes an offer, and no more.
“Caprioles is a leap, that when the horse is at the full height of his leap he yerks, or strikes out his hinder legs, as near and as even together, and as far out as ever he can stretch them, which the French call nouër l’aiguilette, which is, to tie the point.”
It is a pity that the Duke does not inform his readers which of the “four several airs” of “the leaping-horse” are respectively most suitable for the negotiation of oxers, bulfinches and brooks.
In training the horse to make demi-pirouettes, demi-voltes, etc., not content with the powerful curb, the caveson with its reins fastened to the pommel of the saddle, and having the horse’s head tied by a rope to a pole fixed in the ground, Newcastle would have his rider wear terrible spurs on his heels and carry a poinson, which was a “short stick with an iron point at one end of it,” in his hand. And, as if even all this were not enough, he would have two men on foot to “help” the horse, one with a switch in his hand and the other with a “Scourge”. By these gentle means, he tells us, horses may acquire “airs built only of art”.
Let us next learn something about curvets.[158]