Kip Mistral
Cultivating legacy and posterity for classical horsemanship and traditions

Reasons for Riding (On the Freedom, Lightness and Enjoyment of the Horse)

Reasons for Riding (On the Freedom, Lightness and Enjoyment of the Horse)

(I printed out this article from an old internet site (http://members.ozmail.com.au/) on 7/12/02. It does not display the name of the author. The site’s name may have had something to do with Inner Riding. I put out a call for help on Facebook to see if anyone is familiar with the author, his/her esoteric writing or the old site, but so far have had no luck. If I could be in contact of course I would seek permission to reprint! I have kept the original UK spellings of the wording.)

Reasons for Riding: On the Freedom, Lightness and Enjoyment of the Horse

Watching riders work their horses, and handling them on the ground, makes me wonder sometimes why we own horses. I see riders who seem to have lost all sight of why they first were attracted to horses and riding, or what they are trying to achieve with their horses.

They shout at their horses and hit them every time they do something wrong (‘wrong’ in their owners’ eyes, anyway). I wonder if they realise that all they’re doing is displaying their lack of knowledge and understanding of horses.

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“The Horse Rampant” by Captain James Joseph Pearce (1947) and The Comprehensive Nature of Traditional Horse Training

“The Horse Rampant” by Captain James Joseph Pearce (1947) and The Comprehensive Nature of Traditional Horse Training

(“THE HORSE RAMPANT: How to Learn to Train and Ride, A New and Simple Method for the Education and Training of Horses and Riders” by Captain James J. Pearce, Formerly Equitation Instructor: Cavalry School and Weedon School of Equitation. London, Robert Hale Limited, 1947)

Rampant: rearing upon the hind legs with forelegs extended.

When I first saw the title of this book, immediately my curiosity was engaged. The cover image of the rider raising his horse in levade suggested that the reader would learn advanced training methodology. However, the subtitle (A New and Simple Method for the Education and Training) confused the issue for me, since learning to ride and train a levade is anything but simple.  My curiosity was amply rewarded when the battered old book arrived and I read the author’s Preface. It alone was a real eye opener for me.

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Now for Your Cherishings – Gervase Markham 1676

Now for Your Cherishings – Gervase Markham 1676

(Peter Paul Rubens – Detail from Equestrian Portrait of the Duke of Lerma – The Collection – Museo Nacional del Prado)

“Now for your Cherishings, they are those which I formerly spake of;

Only they must be used at no time but when your Horse doth well,

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Horsemanship in the Riding School

Horsemanship in the Riding School

(“Horsemanship in the Riding School,” by Florence Baillie-Grohman. Country Life, Vol. XIII.-No. 336, Saturday, June 13, 1903. Pages 780-783. Engravings by Johann Elias Ridinger (2-16-1698 to 4-10-1767) from his books “The New Art of Riding” and “The New Riding School”.)

The term art would not have been applied by the horseman of the old school to that kind of riding which enables a man to stick on in some fashion or other, while his horse carries him across country after, or too often on to, the hounds; nor to certain monkey-like performances on the neck of the horse by which some modern jockeys bring their mounts first past the winning-post. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, when Johann Elias Ridinger limned the pictures here given of a riding school, the art of riding meant that knowledge which enabled both horse and rider to show themselves off to best advantage, in all the dignity and ceremony befitting the position of a courtly cavalier and a stately steed.

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