Page:Equitation.djvu/318

 the more easily obtained, since it needs less energy on the part of the horse and less tact on the part of the rider. Notice that, although I say less tact, the tact must nevertheless be of a high order.

The slow piaffer is rarely seen. Baucher, Fillis, and myself have obtained it from a limited number of horses, each of which has left a name in the countries where it has been shown. Even the quick piaffer, though attained by a greater number of animals, is no ordinary feat of horsemanship.

It would take volumes to describe and explain the machines, straps, pillars, and other instruments, more or less complicated, which have been employed to obtain an action so agreeable, so elegant, and so difficult as the quick piaffer, and to set forth the theories of able masters with regard to it. But to obtain the slow piaffer, what study is needed, what labor without end ! It is the dream which few, very few, masters have realized.

From Xenophon to Pluvinel, horsemen have sought the rassemble or assemblage. In Pluvinel's time the pillars were used to obtain this state; and as master has succeeded master, some horses have come to the piaffer by this and other mechanical means. Even to-day the pillars are still employed in the military riding-schools of the nations of the world, always for the same reason and to the same effect. Results are uncertain or negative. Brilliant as the outcome may sometimes be, all the evidence goes to show that they are seldom enough anything