Dupaty de Clam is one of the great French authorities on classical dressage. Unfortunately, his name and his books are almost forgotten since he stands in the shadow of de la Gueriniere, and in the 19th century, Baucher's new training method drew everybody's attention to him and his students, away from most older authors.
Andre Monteilhet has a short biography on Dupaty de Clam in his book "Les Maitres de l'OEuvre Equestre" (1979, 106ff.)
There he says:
"Charles Mercier Dupaty, Marquis de Clam, was born on December 4, 1744, in La Rochelle, where his father was the president of the Tresoriers de France in the department of Finance, ... He received his first education as a young aristocrat at the academy in Caen, whose director was M. de la Pleigniere, a royal ecuyer, who was known for his talents in all areas, and who was married to de la Gueriniere's niece. Dupaty de Clam wrote a nice hommage to his teacher, 'the zealous citizen who has worked unselfishly and with an integrity that always followed in the footsteps of truth'.
"La Pleigniere possessed an assorted anatomical collection with which he demonstrated to his students the relationships between the skeleton and the muscles of the horse and of humans, as they relate to the principles and the practical execution of horsemanship.
"Dupaty de Clam also seems to have appreciated very much Lafosse's Traite d'hippiatrique who, in his words, 'has made this science certain, clear, and very easy to understand'.
"Dupaty de Clam's works, his academic discourses, and finally his translation of Xenophon's 'Horsemanship' show that M. de la Pleigniere gave his students at Caen a quite comprehensive education, since it is unlikely that a young nobleman would have learned Ancient Greek once he joined the musketeers. In fact, in May 1762, Dupaty de Clam joined the 1st company of the musketeers (the 'greys'), at the recommendation of his 'patron', where he served until his discharge (1 December 1769). ... At that point he dedicated his first book, 'Pratique de l'equitation' to his captain, M. de la Cheze.
"He returned to La Rochelle, and became a member of the Academie des sciences et belles-lettres of that city, later of that of Bordeaux, where he published his main work: La Science et l'art de l'equitation, demontres d'apres la nature (1776), preceded by the Discours sur les rapports de l'equitation avec la physique, la geometrie, la mecanique et l'anatomie.
"Dupaty de Clam died in Paris on November 12, 1782, at the age of 38. He was a very cultured man, sharing with many of his contemporaries an interest in the sciences and the traditional classical culture. He knew Ancient Greek and said that Xenophon's Horsemanship was 'one of the most beautiful monuments on horsemanship that the Ancients have left us.' He used the exact sciences and the natural sciences to demonstrate how well founded his equestrian theories were: 'geometry, anatomy and mechanics give us the first rules of horsemanship. Nobody in his right mind can doubt their validity. It is much wiser to take the known sciences as a guide, rather than merely following one's whims.'"
For this week's edition of classical quotes, I selected a chapter on the school walk from Dupaty de Clam's book, "La Science et l'art de l'equitation, demontres d'apres la nature", published in Paris in 1777. pp.250-253:
"The horse only executes the school walk well, if he carries himself without having to be maintained by the human's efforts. For it has to be feared, if one works too much with the hand, that the animal does not carry himself and that he does not go forward with determination. And if one uses the thighs and calves too forcefully, one will throw the horse onto his shoulders, instead of keeping him balanced. That happens every time one wants to chase the horse vigorously forward. In fact, this forcefulness of the thighs destroys the harmony and the connection that has to exist between the rider and his horse. It gives the haunches too much activity, and since the horse does not have enough time to place the hind legs, nor to balance himself, he falls onto his shoulders.
"It is therefore necessary, in order to execute the school walk well, that the horse be well balanced, and that the rider's leg aids do not give the animal a degree of movement in which he cannot maintain himself. It is furthermore necessary that the horse, finding himself at ease, i.e. not too compressed, can try to maintain his balance on his own. Every time one closes one's thighs forcefully, one has to be aware that one takes away the liberty of the horse's muscles, which can only respond with a violent contraction, since they are squeezed by foreign objects. And in almost all cases the force that we put into the violent pressure of the thighs, makes the horse brace, rather than go forward with determination.
"In order to take a horse into the school walk, one begins by sitting with relaxed thighs and calves, and by placing them without force, but in a manner which allows us to close them, should the horse become indecisive in his forward motion. The horse, feeling relaxed, establishes himself the connection. Then one raises the head. One places the neck with a light hand, so that the horse is positioned without an obstacle that obstructs his forward motion, and one animates him with the voice or a pressure of the calves. If the horse does not maintain his head in the same elevated position as he moves off, if he falls onto his shoulders, one elevates him again by a half halt of the hand, which one relaxes again, in order not to hold him back in any way. Gradually, he will reach a point where he can maintain the head position for an entire reprise.
"The challenge consists of maintaining the horse's balance without interfering with him, but also without giving him a degree of liberty he can take advantage of.
"One must avoid two mistakes which are often commited against this principle.
"The first one is to try and make the horse sit in spite of himself by holding him back too much with the hand. That way, one overloads the haunches, who cease to move, since they are no longer asked to go forward. And one feels how the animal, suffering pain in his hindquarters, falls apart, loses the unison of his gait, and holds himself back to the point of refusing to go forward at all. If one drives aggressively in an attempt to correct this, the horse coils up instead of elevating himself, and does not show any harmony in his gait.
"The other mistake is to give him too much freedom when he has obeyed, so that he falls apart completely, sticks out his neck, and loses the good rein contact. One must guide the head and neck with the highest degree of elevation, and keep a light hand throughout the entire exercise, because if one places the horse for two minutes, and then lets him go asunder, one will never accustom him to the strain that is inevitable in the first exercises. If he cannot support the rein contact, keep the hand very light, but do not allow him to lose his balance. On well conformed horses, the hand merely has to guide the forehand after having placed it.
"This gait is excellent for all horses. They enjoy it. It is good for the dressage horse as well as for the race horse. It makes especially the latter more supple and nimble, when he has to become rounder, because racing and hunting have made him stiff and fall onto the forehand."
