[Johan Elias Ridinger (Attributed) “Cheval d’Holstein”]
© Kip Mistral 2024
“We shall take great care not to annoy the horse and spoil his friendly charm, for it is like the scent of a blossom – once lost it will never return.” ~ Antoine de Pluvinel (1552-1620)
In the United States, my country, in many communities it is common practice to put a young horse under saddle on or around the time of its second birthday. For some reason, to many people that mark in time seems to make a horse fair game for work. Why feed a horse that isn’t earning its keep, seems to be a sentiment simmering in the background.
So I wonder why the French masters of the 18th century whose work I study, waited until a horse was six years old or older, as was the practice at the Kings’ stud farm at Pompadour, before putting it under saddle. What in the world could they be thinking?!
Apparently they understood that a horse doesn’t physically mature until that time, and if you put a younger horse to physical work earlier, injury would break it down and make it useless. Today we have floating around the internet colorful diagrams highlighting different skeletal structures and when they finish maturing. It is ironic that the diagrams indicate that the last system to finish hardening is the spine…right where a rider sits…and that doesn’t happen until the horse’s sixth year.
So these horsemen were somehow already aware of this principle and they respected it.
And not only is a horse not physically mature until that time, he isn’t mentally or emotionally mature either.
Then, what might the ground training, behavior training and general preparation to introduce the horse to the human world include?
I see lots of 18th century engravings, particularly those of Johann Elias Ridinger, depicting handlers and horses from many countries taking walks afield away from the stable or stud. I see engravings of longeing. There is a certain amount of desensitizing with loud noises. I would expect that young horses were also ponied from older horses that were well-trained and experienced. In the French court, a particular position was created in the King’s stables called “Ecuyer Cavalcadour.”
The Cavalcadour was a young ecuyer who had proceeded through all of the required training (taking years) and been awarded the Ecuyer Eleve position (ecuyer student) which he would have occupied for several years or longer, depending on when an Ecuyer Cavalcadour opening came up. The Cavalcadour needed to be an especially talented horseman who was patient and tactful with training young horses, and this was one of his most important duties to fulfill.
As Antoine de Pluvinel suggests in his statement, raising young creatures is something we can only do once, and to create a bond of trust with our horse, dog, or child takes time and consistency. A popular model is that the horse must always be submissive no matter what, but this approach doesn’t do anything positive for the horse-human inter-relationship. What I really like to see is people just simply spending companionable time with their horse, to deepen the bond between them.
Just simply trying to see this world through the horse’s eyes can be a revelation because horses and humans are so very different from each other, and humans rarely realize how vastly accommodating horses are in trying to understand and live in the world we construct for them. Taking time to sit with and observe how the horse interacts with his world, both his natural one, and our human world–which is artificial to him–opens up a space where the imagination and a sense of magical realism can nurture the interspecies bond. Forging this connection is probably the most important step you will ever take with your horse.
Especially when many, if not most, people today seem to know little about the nature of horses at all, or bother to learn who their horse is before they start trying to change him. Horsemanship is not really about learning how to ride, it is learning what makes horses “tick” and using that knowledge to put them first.
I’ve seen many comments recently about “going back to the basics.” But how many actually know what the basics are? This book will teach you the activities that will help you get your young horse carefully and thoughtfully to the point of being ready to ride. It will greatly help you learn how to be an Ecuyer Cavalcadour.
