Balanced Seat Discussion Forum
The French Connection
America's Forgotten Tradition of French Classical Riding
by Bob Wood
The US Army began our US national equestrian school in 1908. I believe the effort was at first to catch up to the European cavalry schools, and later, particularly with arrival of Harry D. Chamberlin, the goal changed to one of becoming superior to any such school in the world. The first Mounted Service School (equestrian training for all mounted services including Artillery, Signal Corps, etc. was combined) manual was entitled “Saumur Notes”. It was translated at Fort Riley from the French by Capt. George H. Cameron. Permission to translate and use this Saumur Cavalry School manual was formally granted on March 15, 1909 in a letter that stated that, “the American General Staff may act with entire liberty in this matter”.
The US Army General
Orders No.186 November 23, 1908 requires the Mounted Service School to prepare
“a course of instruction in equitation be based upon that of the Mounted
Service School” and it directs the appointment of “a board of officers at
the Mounted Service School to prepare such instruction in equitation as should
be published to the Army.”
US Army General Orders No.186 November 23, 1908 - “As,
however, there is urgent need of at least an outline of the work to be pursued
and inasmuch a the General Orders 186, War Department 1908, specifically
approves and adopts the French System of Equitation it is considered that: The
manual used at the Cavalry School at Saumur, France entitled “Notes
d’Equitation, respondant au Questionaire de I’Ecole d’Application de
Cavalerie” should be translated and published.”
Here we learn that the top officers in directing the formation of the
Mounted Service School at Fort Riley included a directive to adopt the French
system. Furthermore, the General Staff directive specifically states that the
Saumur manual be used as a basis for the equitation curriculum of the US mounted
services. Clearly the perception at this
time in the Army is that the instruction of US mounted forces was at least
inferior to the French, and because the French were considered the equestrian
leaders at the time, the perception of inferiority most likely included all of
Europe.
Up until this time the standards of mounted instruction were
decentralized by regiment, an approach that was essentially British. By virtue
of Order 186, the US moved into the main stream of European standards of
equitation. Thirty years later, if
international competition was any measure, the US had caught up and surpassed
its European counterparts in almost every aspect of equitation.
The information posted above is contained in this book, “Saumur
Notes” translated by Capt. George H. Cameron from “Notes d’Equitation,
respondant au Questionaire de I’Ecole d’Application de Cavalerie”. This is
an actual first Mounted Service School 1909 manual.
These are three other French manuals that I am aware of that were
translated by the Mounted Service School, and later by the renamed Cavalry
School at Fort Riley. They are:
The Manual of Equitation if the French Army, 1912
And Seat, Gaits, and Reactions by L. De Sevy, 1930
The Gaits The Horseman by L. De Sevy, 1930
The 1909 “Saumur Notes” is very much a dressage book by today’s
standards. It deals with riding and
horse training, and starts off early in the text with concepts of unity of
motion of the rider and the horse. Personally, I get the feeling it was written
for officers. It is pretty sophisticated compared to the “Manual of Equitation
of the French Army for 1912” that followed.
In this manual three levels of riding are described. The first is for
troopers, the second for officers, and the third is for rider who wish to reach
a high degree of “finesse”. All
continue to follow what we could today call dressage based instruction. Even the
trooper level I would describe as more sophisticated in terms of biomechanical
movement than typical English riding lessons today.
The 1912 manual was reprinted in 1919.
The next two manuals “Seats, Gaits and Reactions” and “The Gaits
The Horseman”, both by L. De Sevy
and translated from the French at Ft. Riley, follow 18 years later.
Much had changed at Ft. Riley. The Mounted Service School for all mounted
branches was now the Cavalry School. Most
importantly Caprilli’s Forward seat, introduced in 1904 had become more
accepted and had found its way into the main stream of military riding by this
time. Harry D. Chamberlain, who had attended the Italian Pinerolo Cavalry School
and the French Cavalry School at Saumur, was a force at the Cavalry school. By
this time the French were considered the international leaders in military
equitation and theory, having succeeded beyond other nations in integrating the
new ideas of Caprilli into their Saumur seat.
It is, in my view, somewhat humorous that the name Caprilli does not
appear in these manuals. The new forward riding position simply appears as if
out of nowhere in these French manuals, even though the contributions of
Xenophon, the Duke of Newcastle, La Gueriniere and others are
specifically listed. There was a bit of a rub between the French and Italians.
When the French began referring to their new forward seat as the Saumur Seat,
the Italians changed their Forward Seat designation to the Italian Seat.
These last two French manuals have a distinctly more modern biomechanical
tone to them. What we call “unity” today was called “fixity” in the 1912
manual, now it is expanded to include “equilibrium”, a deeper more
sophisticated word to describe the unified motion of horse and rider. It is
worth noting that Caprilli came to his Forward Seat by means of a fresh look at
movement and biomechanics. Perhaps his work is expressed in the tone as well.
In answer to the question, “Are these dressage manuals?”
I would have to answer "no" regarding the last three, not in the sense of
the way we use the word dressage today. The
French had come up wit the term “dressage sportif” to describe their unique
integration of traditional dressage (“high school” to us today) into the new
forward field riding method. These manuals are written in the same depth and
with the same sophistication as the earlier pure dressage texts, (I believe they
were written primarily for officers.) and I therefore believe that the French
Army felt that this was the new military seat, and treated it with the same
respect and detailed analysis as they had the old.
In short, this was the new dressage.
I want to emphasize that this is my broad-brush analysis of the evolution or comparison of the progression of these four French manuals. I suspect a more advanced high school dressage rider could point out all the subtleties of the evolution in technique. From my view I see a coherent body of understanding of the horse, and from that a method of riding that is based in unity of motion, both before Caprilli’s influence and after. I am shocked at how even troopers are instructed to maintain soft contact with horse’s mouth, and the absence of the kinds of “heels down” forms that make up the contemporary basis for teaching riding. These manuals are written with military precision and obviously governed by very high standards.
French