POINT OF VIEW
the rest of the lateral work was quick and collection was started in hand toward piaffe within a few months. The bottom line of Nuno’s approach was that if a horse really goes and thinks forward, the body is loosened up and the self-carriage is achieved from the beginning as the horse is never allowed to lean on the hand. The contact must be “honest”—the horse always going to the bridle, following it when the hand outside the turn advances, slowing when the hand is raised for a stride, or halting on a double upward action of the hand accompanied with a straightening of the rider’s torso. The entire schooling process is about developing the
quality of the horse’s responses to the aids, an educa- tion in language development. Learning to understand and follow the rider’s weight displacements and the ac- tions of the hand and legs while doing the exercises is the goal. A language without application is worthless, but exercises without the surety of comprehension and goodwill of the horse and the refinement of his respons- es have no real usefulness as a basis for dressage. Accord- ing to Nuno, the training of the horse does not consist in practicing exercises endlessly until the horse is dulled by the routine, but rather to shape his body and his mind through a physical conversation that becomes more and more sophisticated as time goes on. This process starts from the very first of the young horse’s training.
Dom Jose Athayde After my time with Nuno, I became an assistant to my recently departed master Dom Jose Athayde, who was the riding director for the National Stud of Alter do Chao where the Alter Real horses of the Portuguese School of Equestrian Art are bred. The farm started fifteen males and fifteen females every year for the purpose of decid- ing on their breeding value. The method was essentially the same as Nuno’s, as Dom Jose had worked with him
for many years as an assistant. Usually I was given the better three-year-olds, who had a chance to stay as fu- ture stallions, and I rode some of them until they were five and six, after which Dom Jose took them over if they were going to stay at stud their entire life. The mares were only ridden for a year after which they either went for auction or entered the broodmare band. My other job was to ride older stallions that Dom Jose
and Dr. Borba (founding teacher of the Royal Andalusian School and founding director of the Portuguese School) had previously trained. This allowed me to experience the continuity of training with horses ranging from three to eighteen. They all went the same way and were ride- able by any rider with a reasonable level of education. Self-carriage was never an issue, neither was obedience or general impulsion. The Alters are extremely sensitive horses who require delicate aids, so after four years of riding them, the Thoroughbreds I later rode while train- ing in England never felt too complicated.
New Developments in the U.S. When I moved to the United States in 1984, I witnessed an entirely different approach to horse starting: the “New Age of Horsemanship” was popular and every- body was talking about behavior and ethology. I had read the writings of Desmond Morris (The Naked Ape) and Konrad Lorenz (who won a Nobel prize for his work in ethology, the study of animal behavior, in particular animal language, the imprinting of goslings, aggres- sion, etc.). I met Tom Dorrance in California and also a student of Glen Randall (the trainer for movies includ- ing The Black Stallion and Ben Hur). I saw Pat Parelli give his early demos. I actually gave a dressage demo at Monte Roberts’ Flag Is Up Farms. I also started some jumping horses, Olisco, Faylor and Quick Star, for own- er Judy Lennon, who had bred them out of the French
In this series of photos JP and assistant trainer Cedar Potts demonstrate with Cades some of the steps they take when starting a youngster. They use Endotapping at every step of the process to ensure complete relaxation. They use feedbags and plastic jugs to desensitize, rubbing on the croup when mounting to eliminate surprises in the future. For more detail on JP’s training program, reread his ‘Training of Toti’ series that ran from July/August 2015 to November/December 2016.
64 November/December 2017
Photos by Kim Taylor
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