12/07/2023
In keeping with busting the myths and clarifying the misconceptions of modern dressage, today I say that they do not know what they have. Before all of us were born, authentic dressage became obsolete because it was primarily used to train cavalry recruits. “Dressage” translated then roughly to "training" horses and soldiers for war. WW2 changed the nature of war from pre-industrial horse cavalry and infantry foot soldiers to mechanized troops. Ultimately, dressage was redefined as a civilian horseback ballet. Untethered from its roots, dressage became a shadow fantasy of its former practicality.
European dressage transformed horses and their riders into the ultimate battlefield weapon for both offensive and defensive missions in its time. The collage of images you see below are called haute ecole or high school “Airs above the ground”. These movements were battlefield techniques, not ballet. This history has been forgotten.
The pictured “Airs” were used to intimidate, injure or kill enemy soldiers on a battlefield. The Courbette at lower right, was an offensive technique designed to break formations of foot soldiers. From their rearing position, a line of horses would hop forward on hind legs, threatening foot soldiers with the horses' front feet striking down toward the heads of infantry. The foot soldiers broke and ran from such techniques when a line of cavalry horses in the Courbette approached.
The Capriole at lower left was used to defend an individual cavalry rider who became separated from his unit on the battlefield. Foot soldiers would swarm such isolated cavalry horses and attack them with bayonets, clubs and pikes. To counter such a swarm, a well trained cavalryman would use the Capriole. The rider would cause his horse to rise up and kick out front and hind, which literally kicked the heads off the shoulders of a swarming foot soldier. Cavalry horses would do repeated Caprioles, landing and turning a few degrees and executing another Capriole until these actions created a wide berth from which the horse and rider could escape.
In the top is collection of the haute ecole "Airs Above the Ground", each pictured movement is of a weaponized horse. The movement's names are French because the French Cavalry, such as Napoleon's Imperial Guard, were the best trained in these battlefield movements.
I wonder how many modern dressage riders know this historical basis for their discipline and its most revered “artful” movements. I sincerely doubt that many have an inkling that the Haute Ecole movements were lethal battle techniques. A lack of historical understanding has allowed modern riders in many disciplines to adopt fantasy ideas of horsemanship that are based on nothing more than human imaginings.
