ing, until finally I come to the assemblage. When this state is attained, I use the piaffer from the beginning, progressively. When a saddle horse can execute the piaffer, the hind hand has all the strength needed to carry weight over wall, hurdle, or ditch.
Another example. My horse shows that it is weak in its left stride. I immediately begin the Spanish walk, demanding more movement of the left front leg than of the right. Then I exact progressively the Spanish trot, provided that the trouble is localized in the left shoulder, a point easy to verify by the lack of contact upon the left rein. How? Well, if the contact upon the left bar gives the fixed point at the atlas region, this fixed point is the center from which originates the action of the two muscles, rhomboideus and mastoido-humeralis, which by their contraction raise the left front leg and extend it forward. But, of course, if the shoulder is weak, the horse is not willing to move this left shoulder or leg, and so refuses the contact, in order not to establish the fixed point from which the action starts. But if the difficulty is not in the shoulder, but in the arm from the humerus to the knee, by a little more steady flexion with my rein, I flex the arm upon the humerus. The head, being now more flexed, gives the fixed point to the rhomboideus, but prevents the action of the mastoido-humeralis. The leg, therefore, raises, with the arm extended and the knee flexed.
