| NetPets® |
these are the standard faire on our plate for all issues they may not always have anything written, but it is a start. feature are always welcome * suggestion are prayed for
::-) QUOTED AND COOL :-)
MOLDY OLDY - rare book quotes
FEATURE ARTICLES
TO THE POSTS
THE DIRECTOR - camera and action
CLINIC REVIEW
BOOKS REVIEWED
THE COMMERCIAL
HOW ABOUT A DATE
THOUGHTS ON TME
ADMINISTRATIVE
WHAT WE HOPE TO BE"The free consent of the horse brings more conveniences than approaches in which one tries to force the horse."
Salomon de La Broue, "Precepts of the French Cavalry" 1594 Book 1, Page 129 (original translation, Craig P. Stevens 1997, Bothell, WA all rights reserved)
"Traite d'Equitation", by Comte d'Aure is an original translation by Craig P. Stevens copyright NY, NY 1990 all rights reserved)
BACKGROUND
Comte d'Aure was a French nobleman was born in 1799. He graduated the school of Saint-Cry in 1815 and was as a sous-lieutnnant in the infantry was detached to the school at Versailles where the Viscount d'Abzac noted his talents with a horse. In 1817 he was named Ecuyer cavalcadour to Louis XVIII eventually he taught a Versailles until it was decommission in 1830. He founded a private school in Paris where he taught important noblemen until 1847 when he became Ecuyer en chief at Saumur, retaining that post to 1854. He served under Napoleon III to 1861 when he became inspector general of the stud. He died in 1863 in Saint-Cloud.
His work formed the body of main stream French equitation and is still a powerful influence on modern riding, though he was eclipsed by Baucher. Their rivalry was what turned the 19th century horse world on it ear... In spite of military regulations an a political atmosphere favoring D'Aure's method and outlawing Baucherism, Baucherism went underground and was practice in secret in his own cavalry school.
He was a brilliant horseman and a bold rider who adapted classical work to hunting and outdoor riding.
PREFACE
Notes largely unfinished that I had written in 1824, and that appeared in 1833 under the title " Traite d'Equitation " could indicated the ways used by the School of Versailles in its last days. A complete work on equitation and knowledge of the horse had been useless; too many people had written on these various questions, with a skill that I did not have hope of doing better. It is a question of marking the transition and divesting the knowledge of equitation from charlatanism, and the superfluous, rejecting useless difficulties in the art that is of necessity simple, which addressing every classes of society and that it is one of almost general usefulness.
The belated criticism that was made of the first publishing of this work, twelve years after its publication, empowers me to doubt of its sincerity, especially when a new publisher has come to me to offer to publish at his expense a second publishing.
Having not in any way varied my manner of working, the second publishing will be similar to the first; nothing will be changed, even in the impropriety of the style. I again therefore open myself up to my detractors.
The truth has been falsified to the point of judging the School of Versailles with my school in Paris, when it is my way to fight prevailing obsolete and falsely interpreted ideas. Was it revolting to compare a largely organized instruction, where young pupils depend on one leader over the course of several years, with a commercial establishment, receiving men of every age and type who want to become horseman in twenty lesson. Can one make any analogy between an establishment providing for itself, meeting in each instant one thousand obstacles, and a school sustained by the royal liberality? By reproaching me not to have taught in my school restrained and softened ways, some persons have concluded that I ignored them, but are the schools of Paris destined to form horse trainers, may I ask you? Is it not already a lot to be able to motivate a pupil for enough time to give him good posture, and place him to manage somehow a fully trained horses? It is, I believe, the only thing to which one should claim. I will always consider seeking to initiate a pupil into the application of ways which are only able to be really understood after great training as very harmful. It is a feeling for the horse which is always very difficult to acquire finally, and which can never be obtained from pupils similar to those that frequent our schools.
In seeking to prove that a lot of precepts given today as innovation were known for a long time in our schools, I will try to injure none who are innocent. The bitterness of new controversy can bring no happy result, to which, who would decide indeed the value of pretensions of each when judges and courts have disappeared which can end all these debates? France, in every period, has given itself a duty to encourage the arts. Formerly equitation more than all others was extensively maintained, it was completely understood that the study of the equitation entails expenses which the other arts are exempt from, our country felt it was very important to increase knowledge from which our cavalry could emanate as a force and as an outlet for of our equine production.
Today, industries of all kinds, the most futile arts receive large encouragement from the government, while equitation alone remains abandoned, thanks to the characteristics of the livery industry, offering only ruin to those who want to seriously study. Equitation can be sustained only by debasing it and which also, that such a state of things exists that the nobody has the zeal to preserve the good traditions. They will slip into the past only too soon and memory is very imperfect.
Overview of the Various Types of Equitation since the 16th Century until Our Day
In Italy the first principles of equitation developed. They underwent modifications, changes, and improvements, because of the differences in the breed as well as the type of service to which the horse was to be used. Chivalry, considering the art of handling a horse correctly as the first necessity and instituted rules for the manage so as to exert a positive influence on the young in the practice of equitation. The individual work, indispensable to making a good appearance in tournaments, or with grace in carrousels, entailed a very long study. This was because not only was it necessary that the rider be practiced but also that it was also necessary that the horse was supple, affable and submit completely to the will of his master. The fear of the spur, changes of hand, the voltes, demi voltes, passades, pirouettes, etc., were tricks put to use to hamper an adversary and to attack him successfully.
All of these various movements had to be executed with a correct and infinite precision, because the horseman which by hands or leg movement permitted his actions and intentions to be seen, would give an experienced enemy great advantage that could be exploited. It is because of this that it was necessary to be placed on a horse in such a manner that the hand holding a weapon was perfectly free with legs which needed to be close and draped to maintain the horse between the heels. This allowed the body of the horseman to move as he need in attacks that had to made, or blows which he had to parry and finally that the fixed bridle hand maintaining the horse and controlling his movements, should not show any means of restraining, contracting and preventing advancement. Of what usefulness, I ask, would there have been for a man of war to use a type of equitation where the two hands and the two legs of the horseman are continually occupied, and where each movement of the horse is anticipated, because of the apparent manner with which the hand and legs act? A horseman has need to be at his ease. He has to, by possessing the horse, permit him to develop qualities which are correct. It is as a result of this while taking the base of the equitation of chivalry, we have to prune the superfluous and only take what is need for our military and civilian instruction. Equitation had received few modifications. Any changes it did undergo were because of the movement of time, the breed of horses and progress of our civilization. Equitation had to seek to rejuvenate the art. Here is what had made School of Versailles, one that had completely lost its memory.
Qualities that were given our horses by blood gave us an aide in simplifying equitation, since nature gave to the race horse an affable suppleness and especially an energy that former écuyers did not always find in their horses, but which they recognized as advantageous and which they strove to encourage in the work to which they submitted their horse. Since the fifteenth century until our days, the progressive change that has occurred in the different varieties and breeds have necessarily obliged the écuyers to modify their ways of acting, increasing them, and soften them, because of horses that they possessed.
We have the advantage today of being able to take from each school that which can be applied with results to our work. It is in order that and by reason of the horses that we can borrow from Grison his brutality, from Newcastle and from Pluvinel their ways of softening, to la Guerinière the fineness and the regularity, to d'Abzac the precision and energy, and from our period the vigor and expression.
Is it in good taste, I ask, to come to discuss, and know the merit of the men of whom I have spoken? Can one suppose that having studied the horse their whole life, they have not known ways to completely take every advantage, and a lot better then men who are presently alive, with all of their science in the training of a few miserable school horses and which having no idea of the use of the horse in our normal manner. They strive to suffocate by their repressive ways this vigor in whose quality and movements the old equitation sensed every advantages, and that we have knowingly conquered by the introduction of the blood into the our breeds?
Nothing was more reasonable, to the former écuyers. To the contrary, why did Grison use brutality? It is because horses of his times were heavy and apathetic. They lacked breeding and consequently sensitivity, and they needed to be more strongly excited.
While seeking to awaken their action, rendering them affable, he recommended especially not to supple the neck too much. He understood that a horse loose in the collar, as it is called, loses his sharpness. It is by the means of attacks of the spur that he awaked the action, and suppled the hindquarters to obtain the voltes, the pesades, courbettes, short turns. While in order to giving the shoulders lightness if they lacked it, he would take the horses out to work in plowed farrows, stone paths, rivers, and in the sea, to induce them to lift their legs and by this, give the shoulders development. He also sought to stimulate the action by making them excited in varying distances, but, as I have said, he recommended particularly not to break the neck, knowing that in a strong horses which had neither energy nor speed, it is necessary to avoid to permit him to take a bend which can diminish this speed and energy. He had recognized that the horse of his period which was not firm in the collar was not a good war horse and that often too much flexibility in this part made him unreliable and evasive.
(editor/translators note- Time change and yet remain the same. It is interesting to note D'Aure's complaints about his times and to see how he subtly digs at Baucher for the flexions in his first manner. D'Aure also innocently confesses his "crime" in failing to full and faithfully transmit the memory of the school of Versailles. He is however a man of his times and as such share the joy and dismay of his period.)
| Top | Next Page |
 NetPets® Main Page |
 The Horse Center |