“The classicists from Xenophon through the Renaissance to France, to Italy, to Germany, they were brilliant. Imagine people inventing the impression of impulsion, the exactness of straightness, imagine inventing half pass, piaffe, passage, all the classical movements that make the horse better to ride.”
“The classicists taught us these rules centuries ago, and I am very reluctant to go off the track of these rules. The Masters from the very beginning taught us there were two types of flexions. The first is lateral, where the horse turns his head slightly, yields his jaw to one rein. The second is direct flexion where the neck is straight and the horse yields his lower jaw to both reins. This flexion, especially this lateral flexion, is a very good technique because it relaxes the jaw, which in turn bends the poll which is a seat for resistance in the horse. Ancient classical principle, flexion de la bouche…”
“The problem is that some of today’s riders took that great technique to an extreme, so that it has become a defect. That happens with every technique… “
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