by way of his seat the action of the hind legs, everything is right for a beginning. One must be careful at this stage not to keep the horse too long at the exercise. Five or six repetitions are sufficient.
As for the fingering of the hand on the reins, this has to meet three conditions. The fingers should close on the reins in the same tempo with the diagonal effect of the legs, and should be proportioned to the cadence and strength of these. The fingering must allow the center of gravity, so to say, to filter imperceptibly to the front side of the medial plane, and not under any condition let it get behind this position. A fortiori the fingering must maintain always the assemblage, collection, and equilibrium.
As soon, therefore, as any derangement of these conditions appears, no matter how slight, all diagonal effect must stop instantly, and the horse be sent forward with decision and energy. After a few forward steps, the horse is once more brought to a stand, its calmness reestablished, the equilibrium once more obtained, and the piaffer again asked. As a general principle, every execution of the piaffer, no matter what the stage of progress, should be followed by at least one or two steps forward. Otherwise, the horse would get into the way of stopping with its legs inside the perpendicular, and this, with time and habit, would create the acculer.
When the piaffer is first obtained, no one can prophesy how it will develop. It nearly always begins as the quick form; and with this, at first, the
