times, he tells us that Nestier rode out hunting every day, combining elegance, control and boldness, even on the most difficult horses. He was reputed to have had powerful legs and used their pressure close to the girth. (His hunting boots cut higher than the knee did not al- low him to bring his legs back very easily.) He controlled his horses by collecting them from the core and had no need for the leverage of the long curbs used by all his colleagues. He could gallop his horses and slow them down by using his body weight and the collection from his fixed legs (working as a point of leverage) rather than the forceful action of the hand on a powerful bit. As the horse builds his core and becomes able to


maintain collection on his own, the legs diminish their pressure intensity until it becomes a mere squeeze. The lightness Nestier could achieve with all the horses he rode came from a technique that was later explained and named by Baucher as “the effect on the whole horse” (l’Effet d’Ensemble in French), with the differ- ence that Nestier was an outdoor rider, crossing all kinds of terrains at serious speed and always in company of hounds and excited riders.


L’HOTTE’S INFLUENCE General L’Hotte was first taught by the Commandant Dupuy who had received his own education in the re- nowned school of Marialva at the Portuguese royal court. L’Hotte has the distinction in the entire French tradition to have been the favorite student of the two rival mas- ters of the time: Baucher, who taught him everything he knew about high school dressage, and Count D’Aure, who was the father of sport equitation in France and, for a time, the head trainer at the Cavalry School in Saumur. L’Hotte was the product of three great currents of Euro- pean riding: the best baroque riding from Portugal, the sport riding coming from England and the high school novelty of Baucher. L’Hotte was also an excellent writer and scholar who


understood the history of the art he was passionate about. In his retirement, he rode his three horses until his death at 77 and wrote two seminal books, A Cavalry Officer and Equestrian Questions. They offer a synthesis of the education he received from his two masters. Bauch- er’s dressage was all about control, balance and the re- sulting lightness, while D’Aure’s teaching was about the rider’s aids and position that could guarantee impulsion and solidity across country. L’Hotte learned how to utilize horses practically, re-


gardless of their level of training. Contrary to the ongo- ing polemic surrounding his two masters’ public rivalry, L’Hotte found the wisdom to advise his readers on the


appropriateness of each approach and to make sure they did not compromise each other’s benefits. The es- sential of the French dogma can be found in those fas- cinating books, including a comprehensive vision of lightness in A Cavalry Officer. Here are a few ex-


cerpts from A Cavalry Officer, with my own notes in brackets for further explanation. “The perfection


we dream of, as much for the rider as for the horse, reside not so much in the perfor- mance of the ‘eques- trian difficulties’ [jump- ing higher, doing complicated tricks or complex dressage movements], but rather in the purity of the movements [the gaits, as well as the correctness of the basic exercises].” “This purity is achieved when the demands of the


Alexis L’Hotte in 1864.


rider, as well as the effort of the horse, only use the ef- fort necessary to the movement wanted, [in other words, never more force than needed by the rider, but as much as necessary; never more contraction from the horse as indis- pensable to the exercise]. To obtain a pure movement, it is therefore necessary to eliminate all the contractions that oppose it, that are not useful, in a word, all the ‘re- sistances’ [such as tightening of the back or retracting of the neck, or a lack of engagement or shoulder freedom]. The work that results is of a great delicacy and may de- mand the most diverse combinations of aids. This nec- essary inventiveness is what sustains the interest of the trainer in the accomplishment of even the simplest movements.” “It is in the perfection that can be reached in the use of his muscular effort by the horse [the fluidity of the movement performed with energy and balance], as I just defined it, that resides the expression of the supreme lightness.” “…At the end of his life, Baucher insisted on perfecting simple movements. He told me that ‘yesteryear, I used to quickly get into the complicated movements. Today I spend 6 months focusing on my horses walking straight and turning properly.’ [Pluvinel in 1600 already wrote that turning was the hardest thing to teach a horse, and I fully agree with this opinion; we spend a lot of time perfecting turns because the symmetry of turns greatly improves the ability of the horse to center himself and become upright, the basis for balance, and therefore greatly improving his


Warmbloods Today 57


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