LIVING AND WORKING WITH THE HORSE OF SPAIN GLIMPSE OF THEPAST DRESSAGE - A


By Peter Maddison-Greenwell International Dressage Trainer


may be agood place to start. Fully understanding the art of training horses can take alifetime and there are so many approaches to the training itself. Each rider will interpret concepts that have gone before, perhaps building on or adapting amethod or a system to suit their own purpose; some will be good, some not so good. We are all different and consequently bring something different to the field of training. The systematic approach to classical


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training can be found in the writings of the great horsemen of our past: Xenophon, Francois Robichon de la Guérinière, Francois Baucher, James Fillis, Nuno Oliviera to name but a few. Many may question the relevance of some of their work for modern- day dressage competition, but you cannot question the contribution these masters of equitation made to the development of horsemanship. Xenophon (431–?355 BC) wrote


the first treaties covering the health, well-being and training of the horse. His approach was that of reward, kindness and caring, an approach that millennia later we still recognize and practise. But there have been periods in between when horse training was barbaric, the Dark Ages for example, but considering it was a time when people were publicly hanged, drawn and quartered, this would, no doubt, have been in keeping with the era. Francois Robichon de la Guérinière


(1688-1751) is believed to be the father of the shoulder-in, or shoulders-in depending on your view on angles. Guérinière stated that the shoulder- in was the alpha and omega of all exercises. His work was so profound and thorough that the Riding School in Vienna has based their training system on his work as outlined in Ecole de Cavalerie (School of Horsemanship). In this book, there are thorough


descriptions of the airs above the ground including those two lesser known movements: the terre-à-terre and the mézair. The former is a two-beat form of canter on two tracks, when the horse raises his front legs at the same instant and places them on the ground, again at the same instant. The hind legs follow the same action as the front. In effect, it


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is a succession of small jumps, executed in a rocking-horse movement that can be used to build up to the higher airs above the ground. In Guérinière’s day it would have been done sideways (on two tracks); today the terre-à-terre is seldom seen and when it is, for example at the Royal Andalusian School in Jerez, it is performed in a straight line, and usually within the sequence: piaffe, terre-à-terre and capriole. Strictly, the mézair is a half air when,


again, the forehand is elevated. It is a leap which, although included in the airs above the ground, is but a little higher than the terre-à-terre and was often referred to as a half-courbette. This describes it well because, unlike


Farolero in Piaffe


the full courbette, the forelegs return to the ground before the horse moves forward a short distance and the next mézair is performed. As with all classical movements like these, the picture must be graceful and when the legs are brought up, they must be held together. The mézair should be poised and not a stumble back into a rear with the forelegs flapping like a dog begging for a titbit, which describes the movement (purportedly a mézair) I once saw in a poor attempt to emulate a performance by The Riding School of Vienna. Francois Baucher (1796-1873) was


the first to perform the tempi changes, the change of leg at each canter stride, which ranks amongst the most difficult


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raining ahorse is about so much more than circles and straight lines, although school figures


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