He describes seven stages in the regular course of training. First, the horse was paced, that is, taught to amble. "Secondly, you must teach him to light at stop.… Thirdly, to advance before, and yerk out behind." Markham advises one to train his horse to "yerk out behind, yet so as it may be perceived it is your will and not the horse's malice." Blundeville's fourth stage is "to turn, readily on both hands with single turn and double turn." The fifth is "to make a sure and ready manage." The sixth and most important stage refers to the carrierre. "When your horse is perfect in the manages aforesaid, then you may pass a career at your pleasure, which is to run a horse forthwith at his full speed, and then making him stop quickly, suddenly firm and close in the buttocks." Brevity of duration and the sudden termination were the essential qualities of a good career.[1] Into the seventh class of things taught to a horse, Blundeville puts all such fancy but useless accomplishments as the curvet, which he describes as "a certain continual prancing and dancing up and down, still in one place, like a bear at a stake, and sometimes sidling to and fro, wherein the horse maketh
- ↑ The difference between this meaning and the modern connotation of the word career has led to some misunderstanding of the text of Shakespeare. An interesting discussion of this subject is to be found in Madden page 297.
