PrintDid you know that the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games start in 57 days? It seems like it wasn’t very long ago that the WEG was a far-distant speck on the horizon, and now it’s just around the corner.
Since the WEG is showcasing eight different equestrian disciplines, and many of you may not be familiar with all of them, I decided that each event needed its own history lesson on this blog. And since dressage could be considered the foundation of every equine sport, I decided to start our nine-week countdown with “ballet on horseback.”
So what is dressage, anyway?
The idea behind dressage comes from a horse’s natural ability to collect when he is at liberty. One theory of dressage training suggests that the first horse trainers witnessed horses playing and fighting with each other and sought to recreate their abilities while in the saddle for use in war.
It is believed, though widely debated, that horses were domesticated in the Eurasian Steppes (present day Ukraine) around 4,000-3,500 B.C. However, it wasn’t until 350 B.C. that Xenophon wrote one of the earliest surviving works, and possibly the most well known, on horsemanship and riding. (The oldest is a book written by Kikkuli about chariot horse training). On Horsemanship focused on several different aspects of horsemanship, including care and the training of military and general use horses. Interestingly, Xenophon actually refers to other works about horsemanship in his book, most often a trainer named “Simon,” but none of the works he mentions are known to exist today.
Xenophon’s book details the basic principles of what we call dressage, and he often speaks about training horses in a manner that is horse-friendly. His theories eventually made their way to the modern era.
“For what the horse does under compulsion, as Simon also observes, is done without understanding; and there is no beauty in it either, any more than if one should whip and spur a dancer.” – Xenophon
However, Xenophon’s theories were waylaid for many centuries, his style perhaps too sophisticated for his time. Throughout the Roman Empire and Dark Ages of Europe, the subtle, elegant horsemanship that Xenophon taught was, for the most part, abandoned in favor of rough, rudimentary training, probably due to the immobility of a knight’s armor during jousting competitions and battle. It wasn’t until the 15th century that Xenophon’s horsemanship began making a reappearance, and dressage, as we know it today, began to develop.
We can credit the Renaissance period for bringing back Xenophon’s theories, as people suddenly decided they wanted to be enlightened and sophisticated and riding fit into that equation. The idea of classical equitation soon became popular again, and many young nobles spent years in Italian schools learning all about being aristocrats, which included riding.
Horses were still used for war during that time and were taught the high school (Haute Ecole) movements that have been made famous by the Lipizzaner horses of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria. These movements include the levade, capriole and courbette.
