Dom Diogo de Bragança (longtime stu- dent of Nuno Oliveira). (1930 – 2012)


French Tradition, is ex- emplary in that sense. Diogo was a student of Oliveira and a schol- ar of Baucherism. His book tells the techni- cal story of the French dressage continuum, while explaining the reasons why this or that method works better for some prob- lems, the limits of each concept (head vertical-


ity, collection, engagement, etc.) and the issues presented by different breeds that require varying solutions. Even though the language differs, there is often a com-


mon thread in the important authors: L’Hotte came to the principle of “calm, forward and straight” (The Quest for Lightness in Equitation) while Steinbrecht advised to “place the horse straight of shoulder and haunches and ride him forward.” The idea is the same while the or- der may be different. We must listen to these masters. Experience teaches


Alexis-François L’Hotte (1825–1904)


us that rigid step-by- step processes are not always practical. One horse may need to be sent forward before he calms down, another will not go forward until his body is brought to some degree of uprightness


by work-in-hand, a third one will need to be made calm be- fore he understands anything at all. These observations has made me particularly wary of “training scales” presented as an orderly system that starts at an arbitrary point in train- ing. A horse does not trot in a relaxed, cadenced tempo— “losgelassenheit”—before a lot of other goals have been achieved: manners, willingness to go forward, the ability to stop and turn, the ability to give a few backward steps and a degree of suppleness that only comes from being made upright. The horse must also be able to respond symmetri- cally to basic demands, such as leading from both sides and turning.


On the other hand, I have observed that the neurologi-


cal response to a stimulus (an “aid”) generally follows the same sequence (with some overlap). The muscle touched


will “resist the aid” at first (the horse fidgets)—this requires a continuing, lighter touch; then “ignore the aid” during a normal desensitization phase (only interrupted by a higher intensity of the stimulus); “relax on the aid” (enter the rest- and-digest state manifested by swallowing —“lick and chew”—to which the trainer responds by acknowledg- ing the progress with a brief interruption of the stimulus and some soothing sound; “learn the meaning of the aid” through a relaxed response; and finally “retain the mean- ing of the aid” through low-pressure repetitions demand- ed with a progressive diminution of the aid intensity over time. The majority of books and articles we read today con-


tains many clichés, repeated from book to book as articles of faith. Riders and trainers need to know if this informa- tion has a solid basis in the (serious) ethology, physiology and, most importantly, neurol- ogy that controls the horse’s movements and reactions, which in turn influence his be- havior. Without a realistic and logical why determined after the how has been described, with its value proven under the unforgiving test of training many complicated horses to the highest level, all we read is a concoction of riding reci- pes from which the trainer chooses the most fashionable ones. Without serious scientific references that will comfort him/her in the training decisions, particularly when it does not work immediately, trainers advance blindly and end up arbitrarily changing their path too often—or never chang- ing it, which might be even worse. For science to progress, we need to forget the “double-


Nuno Oliveira (1925 – 1989)


blind proofing studies” business for a moment, and reflect on Albert Szent-Gyorgi’s comment: “Research is to see what everybody else has seen and to think what nobody else has thought.” To achieve that, we need to read the valuable ob- servations from the past and observe some more to help us form valid training strategies adapted to the horse we are dealing with in the moment. When we know the why of the how, we have the op-


portunity to become familiar with the phases of the horse’s development in his reactivity and biomechanics which leads us to a whole new level of understanding horses. We can learn to recognize the true reasons for his behavior and plan the next training step without tainting it with anthro- pomorphism and emotion. The notions learned from ethol- ogy and neurology give us practical solutions to training problems, particularly to eliminate the resistances that are


Warmbloods Today 73


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84