The best piaffe ever?

Caol Ila

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Also works for passage. As it's summer, the farmers have their cows out in fields now, so time to get out there and get practicing those high school movements. Her passage is lovely -- shame it involves having just about NO CONTROL and is usually followed by levade, then bucking and spinning and some gorgeous, but very fast, canter half-pass. All very amusing in the middle of the road.
 

Cortez

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Actually, if you read some of the late 16c/17c cavalry training manuals you will see that, in theory at least, all of the highly collected movements had a very real purpose in the conduct of battles. And i have no doubt whatsoever that you would have seen legions of piaffing, levading, terre-a-terre-ing horses during a battle, which were somewhat more leisurely affairs than Hollywood would lead you to believe. I take a great academic interest in the training of Portuguese bullfight horses, where you will see horses piaffing and passaging in the course of the "attack" and "defense"; of course it is all about macho bravado and massive showing off (in a manly way), but I believe that it not unrelated to the attitudes of martial conduct in the 16th and 17th centuries.
 

MrsMozart

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In a number of these videos I see little in the way of the beauty and grace of the horse, in my view it is rather the 'I [human] do it because I can' mentality.

An arena for me to stay away from as I see some of that, such as repeated hard bouncing on concrete, to be on a par with the overworked donkeys, just better fed.

It's my opinion.
 

Cortez

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Much as I appreciate the Mestre (Nuno Oliviera) and understand why he is held in such regard by all the "classical" advocates, I would posit that he doesn't actually hold up well when viewed in old videos. Compared to the very best of more modern trainers in many movements (flying changes particularly) there is often a lot of throwing the horse about, strong tension and "incorrect" rhythm disturbances, etc. Modern conceptions of classical riding being all about softly-softly nicey-nicey are pretty confusing; that's not what emerges if you actually look at historical illustrations or read period training tracts.

The piaffe is a tense movement BTW, in nature it is only seen when the horse is very stressed and trying to escape. A great many of the things we seem to think should be relaxed are in fact natural movements that a horse will only perform when it is trying to get away, e.g. all extended gaits (running away), change of leg (jinking away from a pursuer), rein back (submitting to a dominant herd member), passage (showing off, usually a stallion to a mare), levade (rearing, obvs), jumping (escaping). Think about it.

Best piaffe ever? Try searching for Absent on YouTube, or Goldstern, or pretty much any Spanish/Lusitano horse out there.............

Oh, and that chap doing terre á terre is doing it VERY badly. I have one who will do this, it's a preparation for the airs above the ground and needs to be very powerful (and tense), low to the ground, but not produced by pulling backwards on a clearly pissed off horse. Nasty.
 
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TarrSteps

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Much as I appreciate the Mestre (Nuno Oliviera) and understand why he is held in such regard by all the "classical" advocates, I would posit that he doesn't actually hold up well when viewed in old videos. Compared to the very best of more modern trainers in many movements (flying changes particularly) there is often a lot of throwing the horse about, strong tension and "incorrect" rhythm disturbances, etc. Modern conceptions of classical riding being all about softly-softly nicey-nicey are pretty confusing; that's not what emerges if you actually look at historical illustrations or read period training tracts.

The piaffe is a tense movement BTW, in nature it is only seen when the horse is very stressed and trying to escape. A great many of the things we seem to think should be relaxed are in fact natural movements that a horse will only perform when it is trying to get away, e.g. all extended gaits (running away), change of leg (jinking away from a pursuer), rein back (submitting to a dominant herd member), passage (showing off, usually a stallion to a mare), levade (rearing, obvs), jumping (escaping). Think about it.

Best piaffe ever? Try searching for Absent on YouTube, or Goldstern, or pretty much any Spanish/Lusitano horse out there.............

Oh, and that chap doing terre á terre is doing it VERY badly. I have one who will do this, it's a preparation for the airs above the ground and needs to be very powerful (and tense), low to the ground, but not produced by pulling backwards on a clearly pissed off horse. Nasty.

Very true and important points. It goes for other disciplines as well - very few horses jumping 4* or GP are free of significant tension, loping along on a loose snaffle rein. 'Tension' is a continuum.

It has ramifications for discussions about NH systems as well. It's very easy to do 'de-spooking' and exercises to dissipate tension when you don't need/want brilliance and peak athletic effort. Developing ridability in the face of high performance demands is much trickier.

The whole idea of 'Classical = kind' I find very confusing. Even a cursory examination of history doesn't really support that view.
 
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_GG_

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Much as I appreciate the Mestre (Nuno Oliviera) and understand why he is held in such regard by all the "classical" advocates, I would posit that he doesn't actually hold up well when viewed in old videos. Compared to the very best of more modern trainers in many movements (flying changes particularly) there is often a lot of throwing the horse about, strong tension and "incorrect" rhythm disturbances, etc. Modern conceptions of classical riding being all about softly-softly nicey-nicey are pretty confusing; that's not what emerges if you actually look at historical illustrations or read period training tracts.

The piaffe is a tense movement BTW, in nature it is only seen when the horse is very stressed and trying to escape. A great many of the things we seem to think should be relaxed are in fact natural movements that a horse will only perform when it is trying to get away, e.g. all extended gaits (running away), change of leg (jinking away from a pursuer), rein back (submitting to a dominant herd member), passage (showing off, usually a stallion to a mare), levade (rearing, obvs), jumping (escaping). Think about it.

Best piaffe ever? Try searching for Absent on YouTube, or Goldstern, or pretty much any Spanish/Lusitano horse out there.............

Oh, and that chap doing terre á terre is doing it VERY badly. I have one who will do this, it's a preparation for the airs above the ground and needs to be very powerful (and tense), low to the ground, but not produced by pulling backwards on a clearly pissed off horse. Nasty.

Agree with all of this.

The points on tension are particularly interesting. It is something we don't want to see in a well trained horse that knows what it is doing, but it is a natural part of the animal...there will be tension in training the horse to do anything. It can be a trainers friend as much as it can be foe. If you can learn to make the tension work for the horse, you're onto a winner.
 

Cortez

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Agree with all of this.

The points on tension are particularly interesting. It is something we don't want to see in a well trained horse that knows what it is doing, but it is a natural part of the animal...there will be tension in training the horse to do anything. It can be a trainers friend as much as it can be foe. If you can learn to make the tension work for the horse, you're onto a winner.

Very, very true: Edvard Gal, anybody?
 

PolarSkye

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It's very easy to do 'de-spooking' and exercises to dissipate tension when you don't need/want brilliance and peak athletic effort. Developing ridability in the face of high performance demands is much trickier.

Completely agree. However, whether it's down to the horses he picks, or the way he trains them, I do see Carl Hester succeeding somewhat in this regard. His horses, while talented, and obviously not dobbins (he has described many of them as "hot") "look" ridable . . . well, by him and Charlotte ;).

The fact that he hacks them and turns them out must have something to do with it - but so must the way he trains them, no?

P
 

Cortez

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Absolutely; CH is one of the great trainers, IMO. And he both picks 'em, and trains 'em, right. He knows what he needs to do his job, which is probably 80% of the job, and he also moves something on pretty quickly if it isn't going to do that job.

When I was talking to a very famous and highly regarded (in Portugal) trainer he told me that the piaffe is actually more related to the canter than the trot, which was interesting. He also said that he wouldn't ask a horse to canter until it could piaffe, which was even more interesting (but then most horses are taught to piaffe in the pillars when they are being broken in).
 

PolarSkye

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Absolutely; CH is one of the great trainers, IMO. And he both picks 'em, and trains 'em, right. He knows what he needs to do his job, which is probably 80% of the job, and he also moves something on pretty quickly if it isn't going to do that job.

What he has given to the sport simply cannot be measured. His methods, his approach and his generosity . . .

When I was talking to a very famous and highly regarded (in Portugal) trainer he told me that the piaffe is actually more related to the canter than the trot, which was interesting. He also said that he wouldn't ask a horse to canter until it could piaffe, which was even more interesting (but then most horses are taught to piaffe in the pillars when they are being broken in).

This is fascinating . . . I'd love to know/be able to read more about this . . . ?

P
 

Mearas

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What he has given to the sport simply cannot be measured. His methods, his approach and his generosity . . .



This is fascinating . . . I'd love to know/be able to read more about this . . . ?

P

I think this is quite common in Portugese/French training. Many horses are taught to piaffe in hand earlier in their training to emcourage engagement behind. In some cases training has become very linier now you do lateral work, flying changes, then piaffe etc. . But piaffe is only an exercise as much as any other exercise to be used as and when it is needed depending on the needs of the horse. I know my trainer teaches piaffe before canter if appropriate.

Also wanted to say how much I agree with your comments on CH.
 
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Cortez

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Well, I am a historian (part of my job) and would always go to the primary sources, in the case of riding, training, dressage that would be de la Guériniére's "School of Horsemanship", Antoine de Pluvinel's "la Maniege Royale", or William Cavendish's (the Duke of Newcastle) "A General System of Horsemanship". If people are talking about classical riding, this is where it lies. It is also where most Spanish and Portuguese trainers do their reading. But be prepared to be surprised, even dismayed, by what you read there.
 

PolarSkye

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Well, I am a historian (part of my job) and would always go to the primary sources, in the case of riding, training, dressage that would be de la Guériniére's "School of Horsemanship", Antoine de Pluvinel's "la Maniege Royale", or William Cavendish's (the Duke of Newcastle) "A General System of Horsemanship". If people are talking about classical riding, this is where it lies. It is also where most Spanish and Portuguese trainers do their reading. But be prepared to be surprised, even dismayed, by what you read there.

Well, now I'm intrigued! Thank you :).

P
 

Mearas

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Cortez are you able to shed any light in the use of dressage movements on the battlefield please?

Whilst I agree with those who say that exercises where used to develop strength for the battlefield and display I can't see this training used in isolation though? I imagine a battlefield to be strewn with bodies, sadly, but also rocks trees uneven terrain and that you may well need to use any of the movements in you repertoire to avoid being killed?
 

Cortez

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In theory (and I stress that it just that), most of the collected movements were preparations for the airs (levade, courbette, capriole, croupade, lancade, etc.), which all had their specific uses in the course of battle, Bearing in mind that only a general or high officer would have had a fully "dressed" (i.e. highly trained) horse at his disposal, common troopers would have had horses schooled to the "campaign" level (about advanced medium in today's parlance, without the airs). Again in theory, the levade was a movement to help the general see above the heads of his troops in the midst of a meleé, the courbette was a way to bounce out of a tight spot, the capriole and croupade was to break free from a close encounter from behind, the lancade (a movement combining a levade with a strike out with the front feet) to clear a path to the front.

Remember that the primary weapon of the cavalry was the sword, and the primary opponent was a foot soldier so the horse had to be a fighting platform for the rider, and keep him close enough to the enemy to allow him to use the sword. This is where the piaffer was most useful; it kept the horse mobile yet in one place, ready to leap out of the way at the slightest indication and steady to allow the use of the sword. Half passes to either hand were necessary to dress the lines of horses, to keep them tightly packed together, stirrup to stirrup, for the career (charge) when they were most vulnerable to being picked off by musket fire, and for the big wheeling manoeuvres to turn up to 1,000 horses at once. Whether this is actually how it all worked in the heat of battle, I have my doubts, but it is certainly the way cavalry tactics were taught for the better part of 400 years, and the basis for many of the dressage movements we use today.
 

_GG_

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In theory (and I stress that it just that), most of the collected movements were preparations for the airs (levade, courbette, capriole, croupade, lancade, etc.), which all had their specific uses in the course of battle, Bearing in mind that only a general or high officer would have had a fully "dressed" (i.e. highly trained) horse at his disposal, common troopers would have had horses schooled to the "campaign" level (about advanced medium in today's parlance, without the airs). Again in theory, the levade was a movement to help the general see above the heads of his troops in the midst of a meleé, the courbette was a way to bounce out of a tight spot, the capriole and croupade was to break free from a close encounter from behind, the lancade (a movement combining a levade with a strike out with the front feet) to clear a path to the front.

Remember that the primary weapon of the cavalry was the sword, and the primary opponent was a foot soldier so the horse had to be a fighting platform for the rider, and keep him close enough to the enemy to allow him to use the sword. This is where the piaffer was most useful; it kept the horse mobile yet in one place, ready to leap out of the way at the slightest indication and steady to allow the use of the sword. Half passes to either hand were necessary to dress the lines of horses, to keep them tightly packed together, stirrup to stirrup, for the career (charge) when they were most vulnerable to being picked off by musket fire, and for the big wheeling manoeuvres to turn up to 1,000 horses at once. Whether this is actually how it all worked in the heat of battle, I have my doubts, but it is certainly the way cavalry tactics were taught for the better part of 400 years, and the basis for many of the dressage movements we use today.

That is how I have always understood it. That each movement related to a particular "usefulness" in the battlefield and that they were trained to produce the movements on command because it developed a horse strong enough to replicate the required movements many times over, rather than horses being dragged where they needed to be and breaking down.

I am the same though. I have no doubt at all that the movements as trained would have been used in some parts of battle, but that on the whole, it was the strength and stamina it produced in the horses that made it such a valuable training tool.

I am nowhere near, not even on the same planet as Cortez in terms of knowledge about such things...but looking at it logically, I just can't see thousands of horses going through the years of training necessary. Some, yes...all, no.

What I do believe though is that the horse was recognised as being one of the most valuable assets of a cavalry and so the training was developed to help the horses cope.
 

Mearas

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In theory (and I stress that it just that), most of the collected movements were preparations for the airs (levade, courbette, capriole, croupade, lancade, etc.), which all had their specific uses in the course of battle, Bearing in mind that only a general or high officer would have had a fully "dressed" (i.e. highly trained) horse at his disposal, common troopers would have had horses schooled to the "campaign" level (about advanced medium in today's parlance, without the airs). Again in theory, the levade was a movement to help the general see above the heads of his troops in the midst of a meleé, the courbette was a way to bounce out of a tight spot, the capriole and croupade was to break free from a close encounter from behind, the lancade (a movement combining a levade with a strike out with the front feet) to clear a path to the front.

Remember that the primary weapon of the cavalry was the sword, and the primary opponent was a foot soldier so the horse had to be a fighting platform for the rider, and keep him close enough to the enemy to allow him to use the sword. This is where the piaffer was most useful; it kept the horse mobile yet in one place, ready to leap out of the way at the slightest indication and steady to allow the use of the sword. Half passes to either hand were necessary to dress the lines of horses, to keep them tightly packed together, stirrup to stirrup, for the career (charge) when they were most vulnerable to being picked off by musket fire, and for the big wheeling manoeuvres to turn up to 1,000 horses at once. Whether this is actually how it all worked in the heat of battle, I have my doubts, but it is certainly the way cavalry tactics were taught for the better part of 400 years, and the basis for many of the dressage movements we use today.

Thank you so much for this information Cortez it is quite fascinating and interesting to learn about something I had very little knowledge of. Any further information that you have I would love to read it.

Actually, if you read some of the late 16c/17c cavalry training manuals you will see that, in theory at least, all of the highly collected movements had a very real purpose in the conduct of battles. And i have no doubt whatsoever that you would have seen legions of piaffing, levading, terre-a-terre-ing horses during a battle, which were somewhat more leisurely affairs than Hollywood would lead you to believe. I take a great academic interest in the training of Portuguese bullfight horses, where you will see horses piaffing and passaging in the course of the "attack" and "defense"; of course it is all about macho bravado and massive showing off (in a manly way), but I believe that it not unrelated to the attitudes of martial conduct in the 16th and 17th centuries.

I found this particularly interesting and watched the Merlin bullfighting video again and I can really imagine this being applicable to a war situation. I don't enjoy watching bullfighting myself but the riding is amazing. I don't mean this post to start a debate about bullfighting, please ;)
 
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