A Training System Based on the Methods of D'Aure, Baucher, and L'Hotte

Originally written and published in 1949, Academic Equitation is considered by many dressage experts to be the most important contribution to classical training in the twentieth century.

This book was intended as a preparation for international dressage competitions but is far more than this. It discusses the subjects of academic equitation, the riding master, and the choice of horse before introducing the reader to the author's systematic program, covering the very early training right up to the most advanced movements. The appendix deals with longeing, work in hand, long reins, and pillar work.

General Decarpentry was not only a distinguished scholar of artistic equitation but also equally versed in putting the theories into practice. He deals with the education of the young horse and the complications and details for advanced schooling with the hand of a master.

Although he claims that nothing in the book is his - his training system is based on the methods of D'Aure, Baucher and L'Hotte - the General's wisdom and deep knowledge are manifest throughout. It was the General's great wish that traditional teachings on the art of equitation should not be lost to those who wished to study equitation. In this most important work he has succeeded in presenting these teachings in such a way that allows both layman and expert to obtain a deeper insight into this fascinating subject.

(hardcover, photos, illustrations, 282 pgs.)

Excerpt from the book:

The first aim of academic equitation is to restore to the mounted horse the gracefulness of attitudes and movement which he possessed when he was free, but which becomes marred by the weight and interference of the rider.

To the solely utilitarian education which he has received in order to become serviceable, it adds, in the first place, in the exercises of the "low school", gymnastics intended to re-establish the regularity of his gaits and the straightness of his deportment.

It claims, thereafter, in the words of Newcastle, "to improve on Nature by the subtlety of Art."

It then subjects the horse to the progressive lessons of an aesthetic education destined to develop the rhythm and harmony of his movements, so that they are brought to a degree of "stylized" perfection which will gradually transform them into the "airs" of the high school, though their essential characteristics are scrupulously respected.

Equestrian art thus, is akin to choreographic art, and the high school to classical dancing.