mare Stella de Paulstra. Quick Star became a leading stallion and had sired Big Star, Nick Skelton’s Olympic gold medalist in Rio. The “new idea” of recognizing horse behavior im-
provement in the form of chewing and licking is not very far removed from Baucher’s idea of the “release of the jaw” as the sign of physical and emotional relaxation. The evaluation and modification of behavior became the central theme of natural horsemanship, a term coined by Pat Parelli. This recent obsession totally bypassed any understanding of biomechanics, in particular the func- tion of equilibrium (the uprightness of the horse from side to side and back to front) in relation to impulsion (the desire to move forward) and self-carriage (the mod- ulation of the horse’s speed and direction by the rider’s posture and a light contact on the reins). In other words, what is being attributed to the
horse’s good or ill will is a direct reflection of his innate asymmetry that makes him go faster in one direction and slower in the other when confronted by human interference (“the aids”). As far as horse training is con- cerned, what really matters is not the opinion of some author on the supposed intentions of a horse (nobody really knows that for sure), but what can be done to change the horse’s reactions to contact (“the School of the Aids”) and his activity and balance. For instance, a horse that is permanently keeping
his left front leg slightly ahead of his body, will have the “brakes” on in that direction, while standing above and ahead of his right front foot will create an unbalance in that direction. One solution for the horse is to con- tract his right side to prevent the unbalance, the other is simply to lose control over it and always go faster in that direction. Either way, this unbalance to the right (and subsequent muscular contractions) is responsible for a permanent degree of anxiety and a limitation of his breathing on that side. This brings us to two train- ing solutions: relaxing the back of the horse, particular- ly when going to the right, and re-establishing his up- rightness by teaching him to put the weight on top of
his left shoulder. (“Always place the shoulders in front of the haunches, and not the opposite” according to General L’Hotte and Gustav Steinbrecht.)
Reflections and Conclusions This is the difference between the education of horses and dogs or sea mammals: the manipulation of behavior for horses is all about the physical interaction between a human and an animal, while the training of other ani- mals is based on verbal cues and signals. This brings me to consider that horse training could be defined in four dimensions, interacting with each other. 1) The classical knowledge of the masters brought us the ideas of balance, impulsion, obedience from the horse and lightness to the aids developed by the prin- ciple of “diminution of the aids” (see the previous article on lightness in the September/October issue). 2) The ethological study of the horse’s behavior, from the specific point of view of his interactions with the herd, confirmed the ideas of dominance and leadership that were already well understood by previous genera- tions of trainers. 3) The science of behavior modification known as
“operant conditioning” was started by B.F. Skinner and brilliantly demonstrated by Ed Bailey, who trained 300 species. In a conversation, Ed told me that he had not worked horses whose training he considered to be com- pletely separate from all other species due to the physical rapport between horse and rider. 4) As for biomechanics and neurology of muscle ac-
tivity, the gaits of the horse are the result of the move- ment of each leg, each determined by the activity of its muscles according to the neurological messages they re- ceive. This means, in simple terms, that the asymmetry of movement (one front leg reaching further than the other, one hind leg engaging more or less, jerking upward or dragging its toe) can be attributed to an excess or a lack of muscle tone and the dysfunction of what is known as “the synchronicity of agonist/antagonist pairs” (for in- stance the biceps/triceps pair).
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