|
|
QUOTES BY GASPARD DE SAUNIER
On Training the Horse and Rider
"Each student who starts to rides with the cavesson spoils his hand, without saving the horses’ mouths. The horse’s nose is less sensitive, as I have already remarked. Consequently, the student has to hold the cavesson reins more firmly than those of the bridle. He therefore makes his hand hard. When he mounts a horse that does not have a cavesson on his nose, and he has to use the bridle reins, he will never be able to ride with a light hand with the bridle reins, to which he is not accustomed, since he is used to pulling on the cavesson reins with force."
|
|
|
|
"Secondly, the rider's legs must not be carried too far forward, as the pistol holster, because in that position, the aids would always be too big, but never delicate. Apart from the bad posture of the rider, the horse would not feel the aids enough and would have to defend himself against anything one could ask of him. Thirdly, the rider's legs must not be placed too far back, as this position would also cause the horse to defend himself, either by kicking or other actions which the rider does not expect. Besides, every rider who has his legs too far back often pokes his horse, who then gets accustomed to swishing his tail from side to side, not to mention that he hardens and becomes insensitive to the spurs. It is a bad habit for a horse to swish his tail, because when he has to work on bad roads or in the rain, the rider's clothes get soiled."
|
|
"Fourthly, to return to the good posture of the rider, I said that our forbears made their students sit straight, as if they were standing on the ground, and they wanted them to have their legs straight as batons. The rider's seat bones can hardly touch the back of the saddle. While I reject this method, I don't claim that one should sit as on a chair, either, as the rider would then have his seat bones all over the back of the saddle.
Instead, I wish that they are placed in the middle of the saddle. And that is what I call a rider who is well placed on his fork, and not how all the Ecuyers understood it who read the old books and who say, without further explanation, that a student must sit on his fork: by which they understand that a man must be straight and stiff as a baton, without his seat bones touching the back of the saddle. In addition to what I have said about the rider having to sit on the back of the saddle, it is even more important that his torso is straight, his chest and stomach very open and carried forward, so that his back forms a kind of hollow between his shoulders. He must also carry his head straight ahead and free, so that it allows him to maintain his balance, always looking without constraint between the horse's ears. It is furthermore necessary that the legs, far from appearing stiff, seem, on the contrary, to be supple alongside the girth, with the toes pointing towards the horse's ear, while the heels point towards the croup. The point of the foot is placed in the middle of the stirrup. The point of the foot must not be higher than the heel.
Finally, in order to use it when the occasion arises, the leg must be , as I have said: For if a rider has lost the effectiveness of his hamstrings by stiffening them unnecessarily, and the horse makes some unforeseen leaps, he will find himself without stability. "
|
|
"I can still hear the Ecuyers tell their students, during their lessons: 'Close your legs firmly, close your calves firmly.' But how do these gentlemen propose that their disciples have stability, once their strength is lost by having closed their knees and calves too tightly? As for me, I have always recommended to my students to have flexible legs and calves. They are thus rendered very stable. This enables them to have a very gentle and light hand, which is impossible without good stability."
|
|
"Fifthly, to return to the good rider, I will add here that the legs must be turned in from above, i.e. the knees and thighs. Otherwise they would look like claws, and they would make the rider appear ungraceful, who must also not have straight legs at all, as is taught otherwise, for his knee must be slightly bent, so that his leg falls alongside the girth, as I have said.
Sixthly, after the legs have been placed as I have taught, and the rider maintains his balance well, he will not lack stability. For this purpose, the legs and calves must remain flexible, because this is the true touchstone for guiding a horse delicately."
|
|
"In order for a rider to please the eyes of those who watch him work in the manège, he must not only sit as I have described, but he must also be able to apply his aids so well that nobody sees which hand or which leg is addressing his horse. For, if one sees one of the rider's legs by the horse's shoulder and the other one by his flank, one calls it 'seeing one leg in Rome and the other one in Constantinople'. This not only makes the rider ungraceful, but it also renders the horse dull to the aids and very often leads to tail swishing."
|
|
"The reins are the bond that holds the horse captive in the rider's hand. It is through them that the animal knows all the demands one can place on him, all patterns, all the changements and all the movements he has to practice. It is through them that he receives the shape and perfection of his most beautiful postures, his skill, his expressiveness, his restraint, his docility and all the advantages that the manège provides. But how much precision, how much experience, how much sensitivity is necessary for the hand that wants to wield this double rudder well: Of all the points of the art I know no other that requires more attention, or more accuracy than this. For if the hand is in the habit of holding the reins only slightly too short, or too long, or uneven, or of flexing the poll without reason, without precision, or without gentleness, it provokes impressions in the animal that make him lose his calmness, that destroy his tuning, and reverse his best qualities, as I can easily demonstrate.
When the reins are too short, the rider cannot turn his horse easily right or left, because he cannot let his animal feel very well what he wants him to do. For as one hand pulls on the rein of the side to which he wants his horse to turn, the other hand resists, the rein being too short, and hinders the horse's obedience. The horse, feeling that he is assaulted by two opposing forces, cannot help becoming nervous and resisting the hand that guides him so poorly.
When the reins are too long, the horse's head, lacking contact, drops to the degree that it acts and by and by loses all the charm of an elevated, vigorous and youthful posture. It often happens that a rein that is too long gets tangled up in a part of the saddle and pulls the horse to one side, while the hand wants to pull him to the other.
The hand that holds the reins unevenly cannot flex the horse's poll, as the head immediately turns in the direction of the shorter rein, which produces a very disagreeable effect. And one can imagine that the animal is restive, because he is anything but docile.
There is nothing more tiring for a horse, nothing that aggravates him more than if the hand flexes the poll rudely and frequently, as some hicks do, under the pretext of reviving or correcting the gait. Since this is far from achieving the desired effect, the animal will on the contrary become duller and duller and learn to fear these violent saccades so that he tosses his head as soon as he feels the slightest touch of the hand, without feeling or understanding what the rider wants from him.
Many others hold the reins rigidly, without moving the bit, without ever giving the reins, which produces an even more pernicious and more irreparable mistake than the previous one. For experience shows every day that this harshness makes the horse's mouth harder and harder, until it loses all sensitivity and consequently the basis for the horse's obedience is annihilated. Soldiers, ploughmen, coachmen, and most grooms are guilty of this abuse, especially if they have lively horses or young horses, because they think that they can control them more easily, or give them a look of elevation by keeping the reins tight all the time, which causes the majority of horses that these people have to have mouths that are so hard, so strong, that nothing can make them obey gracefully.
From all this it is easy to tell that in order to train a horse well, and to ride him in accordance with the principles, one must conduct the reins with the proper weight and measure, never violently or insensibly, but always with the appropriate moderation, be it to support the horse's head, flexing his poll gently from time to time, and yielding the reins without excess, or be it to turn right or left, loosening ever so slightly one rein while slightly shortening the other one. And similarly for all the other aids I mentioned in the chapters on the training. This shows that a Horseman must carry his hand without negligence, active without force, and skillful without distraction."
|
|
"Everyone knows that the closer the point of contact is to the fulcrum and the further the force is removed from it, the more efficiently the lever works. This principle suffices to show that the shorter upper shank is and the longer the lower shank is, the more the curb bit will have a lowering effect on the horse's head. Conversely, the longer the upper shank is and the closer the rein ring is to the bit, the milder is the curb action.
To the extent that the hand pulls the lever in one direction, the force leads the weight into the opposite direction. Hence the opposite effects of soft and hard branches. The term soft branches is used for those bits whose lower shanks are behind the line of the eye and the bit, towards the chest. The term hard branches is used for those bits whose lower shanks are in front of the line of the eye and the bit, opposite the soft branches. When the reins act upon the soft branches, the lever action lengthens the horse's neck and stretches it in front of the withers, while the force brings the mouth closer to the chest. The opposite happens when the reins act upon hard branches, because the force pushes the mouth away from the chest, while the lever action has to shorten the neck and bring the head closer to the withers.
It is more or less difficult to give horses poll flexion or elevation, depending on whether their head carriage is more or less stiff and high, or weak and low. That is why I have given the instruction to make the branches either softer or harder, depending on each case.
Straight branches have the same effect as curved ones, if their eyes are equally high, and if the lower shanks are equally far away from their point of contact, the bit. But, one will ask, why the difference? The reason is that while straight branches are much less pleasing than curved ones, they are much more difficult to break than the curved ones. They are therefore much more suitable for young horses, whose antics must be nipped in the bud, whose temper tantrums must be stopped without delay. That is too risky with curved shanks which, due to their fragility, are only suitable for trained horses who are accustomed to the bit.
If the lips are too thick at the corners of the mouth, or if they are too little divided opposite the bars, the horse feels pressured on both sides by the branches of the bit that they hold. They intrude on the bars and impede the bit in lying on the bars, which consequently makes the horse lean onto the hand. In order to correct this mistake the sides have to be larger so that the corners of the lips have room and do not enter into the mouth."
|
|
|
|
|
Last Update: January 13, 2007