I regularly come across social media posts bemoaning the decline of correct riding in our modern age. Many armchair experts blame this on laziness, which, according to them, did not exist in the good old days, when each and every respectful, hardworking, and humble student spent many years learning the art of riding from one of the great dressage masters. I have a ton of respect for the old masters of any tradition of horsemanship, but I take statements like these with a grain of salt. Why?
First of all, in those “good old days” of dressage, i.e. in Europe a few hundred years ago, riding was the privilege of the wealthy, the aristocratic, and the male. Poor kids could serve as grooms or stable hands, but they didn’t get to practice dressage. Girls, if they belonged to the right social class, practiced ladylike pursuits, like embroidery or piano playing. If they did ride, it was in a side saddle. Most of us horse crazy 21st century women would not have been encouraged or even allowed to spend our days on and around horses, especially not with our legs wrapped around them. Today, riding is still, to some degree, the privilege of the wealthy, but it has become more accessible to a wider range of people over time. Let’s not forget that. Let’s continue that trend.
Second, not all changes the modern era has brought are bad for horses and horsemanship. Today, we enjoy the luxury of looking at horses as partners, rather than as beasts of burden.
Ii is true: we’ve created a more challenging world for horses. Pasture land is diappearing. Pavement is taking over. Hay is a precious commodity. Cars and motorcycles make roads too dangerous to ride along or even cross. And our phones lure us into spending more time in a make-believe world where horses can’t follow us. In spite of all that, we have one distinct advantage: horses are not a necessary part of our civilization anymore. They still function as status symbols, but they are no longer useful for transportation or warfare like they used to be. Horses have become an indulgence, requiring large amounts of time, space, and money. There is nothing practical about keeping horses, even less about riding them. So, why do we insist on doing both, still, in spite of common sense telling us not to? Our need for a continued relationship with these animals is the only explanation that makes sense. Outside the constraints of utilitarian purpose, we are now free to focus on it, to reexamine it, to reimagine it.
Third, science is now a tool we can use to confirm some parts of the old knowledge about horses and riding, while de-bunking others. Traditions about horsemanship formed because information found its way from one generation of horsemen to the next. Some was passed along through verbal instruction, some through hands-on teaching. Some of it was written down in books, or captured in drawings. I wasn’t there, but I bet a lot of valuable insights got lost along the way. A lot more probably became distorted over time, or was taken out of context.
Today, science is on our side. We have learned much about equine biomechanics, horse brains, and horse behavior. We continue to learn more. We can examine the elements of horsemanship through a scientific lens. If they are valid, they become more valid. If they weren’t, we learn to do better.
And finally, today’s horse world has become much more connected. The old masters and their students used to live and ride in relative isolation from each other. Today, we can see the common ground between different traditions of horsemanship. We are realizing that the horse world is larger than the dressage arena, larger than each tiny sliver. Good horsemanship has so many components that no one is, or ever was, a master of all of them. Would Nuño Oliveira have been able to gentle a wild mustang? Would the Dorrance brothers have been able to ride all the high school movements? Would Reiner Klimke have excelled at liberty work? Probably not without a lot of extra practice. Some great horsemen have perfected the art of long lining, others the art of cattle work, or that of re-building trust in troubled horses. All great horse people have a few core qualities in common. All of them are calm, consistent, compassionate, curious and humble, but beyond that, their skill sets and techniques vary widely. Some compete, but many don’t. And to complicate things further, the great masters of one or another technique or discipline are often not the best teachers, because putting mastery into words is difficult. Today’s serious students of horsemanship have to navigate their way through a jungle of schools and opinions, scientific evidence and traditions, real experts and fake gurus. The road to mastery has always been long, but it has become more winding and often leads through periods of uncertainty or down a few dead ends along the way. This may be more challenging than an approach that blindly follows anyone or anything, but it’s also an opportunity to expand our view beyond the rigid walls of dogma.
Great horsemanship is like a jigsaw puzzle, with each piece glued to a solid backing of the core qualities mentioned above. As long as people spend their lives honestly trying to learn about horses and horsemanship, there is no real danger of decline. Instead, I see a widening of horizons, a re-thinking of definitions, an evolution toward a world that includes more types of horses, riders, and riding traditions. I don’t see a reason to regret this. I see plenty of reasons to celebrate.
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