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Afghanistan, 2008 (Photo: Friederike Boege)
When the haunches are stiff, the back stressed and movements unconsolidated the rider, for the time being, may forget about lightness. The horse will be heavy, long and low. Or it may be excitable and fleety. It must move and oxygenize to gain elasticity, strength and well being before any improvements in balance and responses to the rider may be expected. Today's rider's typical lack of time is the modern horse's most pertinent problem.
The raised horse reacts to the rider's aides. The long and low as well as the rushing horse may or may not respond. The warped horse's resonance on one side may differ from the other. The longer and lower it is the more so. No wonder Etienne Beudant in his 1929 summary states, first seek the horse's elevation.
When the well-built and adequately muscled horse lifts the nose to the horizontal, as it would to pick an apple from the tree, something changes in the hindquarters. The ligament in the upper line between poll and sacrum is released. The sacral joint closes. The back mounts. The root of the tongue is stretched and the autonomous nervous system impacted, which innervates not only mouth and larynx but functions as a system behind the systems. The forehand rises. The horse is prepared for action and the rider's guidance alike. The sides even out. These positive cumulative effects no doubt are the reason why Etienne Beudant recommends the raising of the head to the horizontal as the first step in any training of the horse.
The weak horse, however, responds to the nose lifted high in the sky quite differently. It releases the back muscles and drops the cantilevered back bone. Any high-spirited horse will associate this motion with the flight instinct and take off on the spot. It may demobilize, and - without a steady flow of energy from the hindquarters to the forehand - begin to swim, out of its own and the rider's control.
Mention Beudant's, or for that matter his intellectual grandfather Baucher's method to any German trained rider. You will get a look of deep seated fear. Take it away from anyone convinced of Baucher's ideas, he will no want to do without its positive effects. These contradictory and passionately defended views call for research. Which type of horse, when, first set off a fear, which steadfastly perpetrates to this very day? Notwithstanding the fact that after fifty years of peace in the Northern hemisphere today breeders world-wide produce ever better horses, which may soon make the dreaded weak back obsolete. And despite the fact, that throughout human history horses have held their heads high.
What happened in a horse that softly sets down its feet only to lift them as regular as a clock to transport the rider on. Head high it fulfills the rider's wishes. It appreciates the world with nearly human eyes. How was it spoken to?
