Waldemar Seunig gives a brief biography of Ludwig Hünersdorf (1748-1813) in his book "Meister der Reitkunst und ihre Wege":
"Ludwig Hünersdorf is regiment écuyer with the Hessian garde du corps around the turn of the 18th to the 19th century. He then becomes grand écuyer to the Prince elector of Hessen and later to the king of Württemberg, who knights him in recognition of his equestrian merits.
"Having grown up at the dawn of an enlightened era, Hünersdorf has a strong personality. He no longer believes in a purely decorative equestrian art. The age of enlightenment and the French Revolution have done away with the old values. Although he still resorts to Guérinière whose teachings he holds in high esteem - he teaches the young garde du corps riders the feeling of rhythm and harmony on horses who are performing the piaffe and the levade between the pillars - he distinguishes clearly between the means and the end. His goal is to create a practical cross country and soldier's horse. He subscribes to Seydlitz's philosophy, and as the ideal for the average rider he envisions the campaign horse, i.e. a horse that is capable of performing the equivalent of a modern 3rd level test after a minimum of two years of training. In discussing the school conform halt, e.g. he says:
'We shall leave its execution to those who possess the skill to teach it to their horses without harming them, (which would be the case) if the rider did not have an extraordinarily good hand and the perfect coordination of the aids.'
"In the aftermath of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, when high school riding is in danger of outliving itself and appears to lose any contact with practical military equitation as it existed under Frederic II, Hünersdorf does not allow the connection between both organically related entities to be disrupted. He thus becomes the trailblazer and pacemaker for the masters of the 19th century, without any false conservatism, although he is at home at the highest levels of high school equitation. His 1791 'Instruction for the most natural and best way of training horses' is reprinted for the sixth time fifty years later. That edition is published by the equestrian author Seyfried von Tennecker, who calls the book 'the first classical work that we have on this subject.' It is noteworthy that the renowned French circus rider Baptiste Loiret writes critical comments for this reprint of the 'Instruction' and summarizes his opinion of the book with the words 'Hünersdorf's work is to the horseman what the bible is to the theologian'.
"The main merit of this book consists in the following:
- It is, as von Haugk says, "the first useful German riding instruction". Sohr's 1825 riding instruction is based upon Hünersdorf's findings in many cases.
- Our modern balanced seat becomes the basis for the application of the aids.
- Balance and (relative) elevation find an unambiguous explanation. Hünersdorf does not mention impulsion and straightness explicitly, and he begins the canter work much later than we do.
"General von Redwitz, the main author of the riding instruction of 1912 and next to colonel von Heydebreck one of the best connoisseurs of the entire hippological literature, says about Hünersdorf:
'Hünersdorf was the first one to formulate what the old masters felt and thought. His book is the first classical work on German horsemanship.' "
The following explanations on balance is from pp. 66ff. of Ludwig Huenersdorf's "Anleitung zu der natuerlichsten und leichtesten Art Pferde abzurichten".
"We assume that the thinking and educated rider does not do anything with his horse without asking himself and answering the question: why?
"Why does one say: the horse is not light yet, he has no mouth yet, although he has never had a bit in it, and can therefore not have been spoilt yet?
"Why does he subsequently become so light and sensitive in his mouth? Why is one horse lighter in the hand by nature than another? And why do some horses never become light? -
"All these questions can only be answered based on our first main principle. A horse cannot be light, unless he has been balanced first.
"When the rider analyzes the first rules of horsemanship, he will find that they serve no other purpose than to relieve the front end, or, rather, to shift the excess weight that naturally rests on it backward towards the hindquarters, until both ends carry the same amount of weight. As soon as the horse's haunches begin to acquire the necessary flexibility to maintain this balanced position, it becomes impossible for him to lie heavily on the hand. He must yield of necessity to the slightest pressure of the hand.
"It was not, and cannot be, the insensitivity of the mouth that caused the horse to lie on the rider's hand. On the contrary, one could expect the parts which are affected by the bit to become harder rather than more sensitive by the daily work. And innumerable incorrectly trained horses do indeed provide examples for just that. It was the excessive loading of the forehand which the hand initially had to move. For this reason, the cavesson is used with green horses in combination with the snaffle, because the mouth could suffer too much and could eventually become truly insensitive if the snaffle bit were used alone with strong rein aids."
pp.70ff:
"When is a horse balanced?
"A horse that is well placed in the bridle, that no longer leans, and maintains his upright position and his gait for a little while when the reins are released, that can be halted with the slightest half halt of the reins, or that will turn his forehand right or left upon the slightest rein pressure, and that obeys the calves with his haunches in the same manner, without requiring any special effort, in one word, a horse of which we say: he carries himself, is doubtlessly completely balanced. By the same token, a horse remains balanced as long as the lightness continues after a half halt. However, since most horses tend to lean onto the forehand and try to find support in the rider's hand again and again, partly due to their natural conformation, partly for other reasons that will be addressed later on, the rider has to renew the balance with new half halts all the time, until he learns to maintain it on his own (provided he is capable of it) and become light.
"I hope the rider will not confuse the hot horse's running against the bit with the green horse's leaning onto the hand. Conversely, he will be able to distinguish the lightness in the bridle from sucking back behind the hand.
"The horse that is light in the hand stays together and one can feel him with a steady contact on the bit. But he does not lean onto the hand. The latter, however, does not approach the hand at all. He does not yield in the front and remains, especially in the turns, behind the aids. As great as this difference is, it is incredible that one hears the aficionados judge it incorrectly. They sometimes consider a horse light before it has even approached the bit."
