It has been a long time since the last installment of the Classical Quotes. I am currently reading Otto von Monteton's book "Über die Reitkunst", which was first published in 1877 and has recently been reprinted by Olms Press.
Monteton fills the entire book with criticizing the so-called Anglomania that had become popular in Germany in the second half of the 19th century, and seemed to take over even in the Prussian cavalry. This Anglomania refers to equestrian sport, which at that time consisted of thoroughbred racing and steeple chases. There was a strong current in the army to regard speed over a short distance and jumping obstacles as the be all and end all of equitation.
Educating the horses and riders had taken a backseat, High School dressage was largely regarded as stuffy and useless, and Monteton warned that the Prussian cavalry would very soon only be second rate, if the current trend continued, and the Art of Riding would die out. He gives innumerable examples for how superior unspectacular dressage training is compared to race track training. He argues over and over that the qualities that make a horse successful at the race track are utterly useless for a cavalry horse, and criticizes especially the premature unsoundness of all incorrectly trained horses, whereas in the army it is not important to run fast for 5 or 10 minutes, but to bring all horses home safe and sound after a battle, and to keep them sound on extensive long distance rides with rider and gear over rough terrain, in bad weather, and with insufficient feed. And that requires thorough dressage training. He says he marvels at the things the contemporary riders could accomplish in spite of the poor training of their horses, and that they even liked the stiffness and lack of rideability, whereas to a sophisticated rider, these horses felt awful and unsafe. An educated rider could not wait to dismount from a horse like that, because riding it felt like torture. There are quite a few things in his book that are still relevant today, because many of the negative attitudes towards true dressage are still rather widespread, as well as the common tendency to value competitive success more highly than serious studying and slow, systematic, and therefore unspectactular dressage work in the arena. The shortness of teachers who really know how to TRAIN horses and how to TEACH riders that Monteton predicted over 120 years ago became a reality a long time ago.
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 9f.:
"It is truly a great human artistic achievement to work every green neck thoroughly - this infallible rudder for controlling the machine. And if you possess sufficient talent, persistence, and patience, then don’t be afraid of the most poorly conformed green neck - I want to remark in parentheses that a thoroughly gymnasticized neck is never without beauty. However, changing even the most poorly conformed green neck into what is mistakenly called a 'swan neck' is child’s play compared to the enormous accomplishment of bringing the neck of a broken down race horse, that is hardened in its tilts and twists, into the correct shape which is the sole guarantor of control over the horse. Art can accomplish this. But where are the artists who are up to the task? I warn against tackling difficulties that are beyond a person’s capabilities, for one loses one’s passion for the achievements of the art. Such a broken down race horse is completely useless as a riding horse, in my opinion."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 10f.:
"I want to mention here also that nowadays you can hear every day that this or that horse has no problems whatsoever, and I am too polite to answer: Then you have not even progressed to his difficulties, yet. For with all the infinite variations in the horses I have never sat on a horse where I did not sigh secretly at some point: I wish he were a little less difficult."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 13f.:
"Practice makes indeed perfect - but only after a very serious apprenticeship under a master who introduces the disciple to the secrets of the art of choosing the right remedy and solving the problem."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 20:
"Those who are bored in the arena, whether they are riding or teaching, cannot claim to have entered the temple of art, because if they had, they would forget everything else in their enthusiasm."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 29f.:
"Everyone who trains horses will admit that one of the rider’s most important tasks is to sharpen his awareness in his seat, leg, and especially in his hand, so that he feels the slightest difference in pressure. As every mistake should be corrected right at the beginning - this is the only time where it is possible to correct it, because avalanches cannot be stopped in the psychological or in the physical world -, this is only perceptible and feasible with a pressure that is as small as that of our relaxed finger muscles. For a muscle loses its sensitivity for subtle nuances to the same degree that it contracts."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 30:
"Therefore, the calf should feel hairs, in order to detect the sideways drifting of the ribs and the haunches, so that it is able to re-establish the straight line by the same pressure."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 30f.:
"It seems indisputable to me that a horse is never allowed to push into the hand with more pressure than the relaxed muscles of fingers and wrist can support in the long run without fatiguing, if the sensitivity is to remain undiminished. And our Lord has probably endowed few fingers with the strength to support a weight that exceeds a few pounds, without tensing the muscles. In other words, those who have to increase their muscle tension all the time on account of the strong contact - which increases every five minutes on unbalanced horses -, kill their muscles for the equestrian art, i.e. they do not belong among the chosen few, whom God has given the talent to be an écuyer as well as a sportsman."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 31:
"Those who understand more or less how difficult it is for the horse to throw the rider’s weight from the haunches towards the forehand with each canter stride, without seeking support for the forehand in the mouth, which would force him to forget everything he had learned (self carriage under the weight of the rider), - those who understand this, will also understand that you cannot canter a horse for any length of time, until the flexibility of the back and the haunches has increased enough so that the horse can place his hind legs underneath the center of his body for support, without throwing the weight onto the forehand."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 31:
"Those who train remounts and canter before the horse is able to step under correctly, can use all the diligence in the world in the trot, yet the work of months will soon be lost again."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 32f.:
"In a correct canter, the inside hind leg is supposed to carry the horse, whereas the outside hind leg thrusts. If both hind legs stay too close together, either one or the other function will not be performed sufficiently. He will either use both hind legs primarily to carry, in which case he will not be very fast. Or he will use both hind legs primarily to thrust, in which case the balance is lost. No rider can correct this mistake within the canter, even if he canters for years. But once the horse thrusts at the trot with long strides, encouraged by a lively calf, so that the muscles of each hind leg are stretched and strengthened, the underlying cause that prevented the horse from cantering correctly is removed. How foolish would it be to canter a horse, before these things are taken care of. You see, therefore, how the correct trot work forms the canter, whereas merely practicing the canter, which is all the Anglomaniacs do, is entirely without success."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 47:
"..., although in a certain way, art knows no punishment, only aids, and art never gets stuck in theory. Only artists get stuck in practical riding."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 56:
"A horsemanship from which artistic equitation has completely vanished cannot be rebuilt - thank God it has not come to that yet, but we are heading in that direction. The teachers of equestrian art would then be missing, and it takes generations to educate new ones. Equestrian art is too difficult. You cannot learn it on your own. Without a teacher who helps them over the hill, everybody only gets stuck,..."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 71:
"Any kind of collection requires the utmost relaxation, before the work on collection proper can begin."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 72f.:
"Any time the horse stiffens a joint he has to be asked to relax it trustingly. Everyone who practices this will recognize the importance of keeping his own limbs equally relaxed without tensing any muscle. For as soon as he stiffens a muscle, the horse braces with all of his muscles out of suspicion. This is the soul of the abovementioned thought: ‘Always place the same amount of weight into the horse’s mouth that he places into your hand, at the very moment in which he does it.’ You can see how bad things are, when you reverse the principle, since the horse will brace immediately, as soon as the rider becomes stiff. How attentive do we have to be in order to refine the feel in our entire body, so that we feel any stiffness immediately, and so that we are able to match the horse’s pressure."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 73:
"One will also realize how unartistic it is to force a movement onto a horse. For the horse is the one who tells the rider what he needs to ride in order to benefit the horse’s training. How long a certain exercise needs to be practiced depends entirely on the horse, not on the rider."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 73:
"How easy is it for a horse to execute all the movements, without ever learning anything from them, because he never relaxed, but became stiffer and stiffer. One could ride shoulder-in, or whatever, for two years, without improving the horse in the slightest, unless the horse indicates the need for the movement to the rider."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 76:
"The natural human does everything wrong, and all inexperienced riders want to teach their horses something. It shows some understanding, if someone merely wants to correct the horse’s mistakes, instead of trying to practice virtues with him. I have never progressed with horses beyond trying to improve on their flaws. God has given the horses the ability to use their limbs, and if the rider merely removes everything that impedes the optimal use of their limbs, the virtues will come all by themselves."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 104f.:
"A clumsy rider will hardly be embarrassed on a trained horse. The most skilled rider, on the other hand, can get into the most embarrassing situations on an untrained horse. For that reason: Always focus on the horses, not on the people. For in order to give correct aids, they have to sit correctly. But the most beautiful seat is useless on an untrained horse, and it is much more difficult to teach and to learn a good seat on an untrained horse, because everything becomes a struggle, whereas on a trained horse, who is completely supple, the seat falls into the correct shape all by itself and maintains itself in it."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 110f.
He relates a story about his commanding officer who taught him a lesson about balanced down transitions:
‘Are you sitting in the old, dark arena again? Come outside. It’s nice and icy today. There you can see whether your horse is balanced.’ And then he cantered, of course in flawless posture, a large volte on a frozen sheet of ice, on our Herrenbreite - today you would call it a hippodrome. I was of course unable to do the same, only to admire him, both of which he appreciated. ‘Now I want to teach you something,’ he said one day during one of those rides. ‘Let’s trot here, and when we get to the sheet of ice, we’ll halt. If your horse slides with his front legs, he is not balanced yet. And the pressure that the halt transition exerts on the front legs, if it is done off balance, ruins them. On a sheet of ice you can see the best demonstration that unbalanced down transitions wear on the front legs.’ As instructive as the experiment might be, I didn’t really feel like enhancing my knowledge that way, as I have never been a great hero on ice - probably because I have fallen a lot on it. But he was already trotting, and I had no say in the matter. I was glad when I had skidded across the sheet of ice on knees and elbows without getting hurt. While I was still careening out of control, not knowing whether I would end up standing or lying, he said - only interested in the academic issue: ‘See, didn’t I tell you the dog was still unbalanced? A balanced horse can skid with his hind legs in the down transition, never with his front legs!’
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 117:
"Everyone will admit that a horse who requires the support of the rein in the walk, trot, canter, and in the carriere, in order not to get faster still has not mastered the ABC of horsemanship yet, and is furthermore very uncomfortable to ride. As long as the horse does not yield in all his joints, and as long as the rider cannot ride downward transitions from all gaits easily with his calf, one cannot say the horse is ridden."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 153:
"I want to mention one thing out of a thousand: the rider’s hand. I always call it the ‘glass of water hand’, because I don’t know a better description than to imagine carrying a full glass of water in each hand, without spilling anything. The invisible influence of the mind on the body achieves several things during this visualization. The fist must not make the same motions as the rider’s body. Otherwise the glass spills over. The horse must have an even, yielding contact. Otherwise it spills over as well. The muscles of the hand must be attentive and alive, but neither limp nor cramped. Otherwise the same scenario happens."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 177:
"There is only one profound principle on bitting: ‘A trained horse will go with any old thread instead of a bit, or any jaw breaker, if he is ridden by a ‘rider’.’ The flip side of the coin is that no bit in the world can replace or facilitate the training considerably. However, it can easily get in the way."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 186:
"Equestrian art merely asks the horse to learn to perform an exercise correctly, alone, and independently, without the rider’s support. The rider is always just the road sign, but never the servant of dressage, who does the work for the horse. The artist simply blocks all the 1000 wrong turns, keeping only the one correct road open, while merely aiding him, depending on the horse’s talent."
Otto von Monteton, Über die Reitkunst, 1877, 212, footnote:
"An écuyer told me: ‘My job would be perfect if I didn’t have to let the Prince sit on the horses!’ I laughed heartily, but I could empathize completely."
The principles of the training method are based on trust and respect, achieving obedience with the horse executing willingly the rider’s slightest “aids” and performing his duty to his last breath, without being helped by the rider. Methods that do not lead to this goal are useless. When horse and rider are in a permanent state of war, you can never count reliably on obedience. Correct dressage is only based on a secure trusting relationship. Equestrian art does not consist in defeating an enemy, but in the education and the gymnastic development of a trusting student whose body the teacher gradually gets so much under his control through anatomically correctly applied exercises that the physical power over the horse becomes so ingrained that it is impossible for the horse to be disobedient, even if the voluntary obedience should fail.
O.v.Monteton (1899, 47, translation: TR).
Everybody is taken with the races, nobody with art. Once again, I say: this modern day and age trains riders, but no horses, and no trainers, which is the same thing. The former is a craft, the latter an art, for riding is no art, but training is. The art says: The horse is the end, the rider is only the means, and this day and age confuses the means with the end.
O.v.Monteton (1877, 7, translation: TR).
The whole world worships progress, and the word “outdated” suffices to put the best thing down. Our fast paced time cannot wait for anything. It builds houses that fall down even before someone has moved in. How can such a time be expected to spend two years on riding a horse through, and the word “sport” makes it entirely impossible. For the word “sport” implies the concept of amusement. Equestrian art, however, is a very serious, difficult pursuit, that is not at all suitable to entertain the ladies or other ignorant people in a way that dazzles the senses, and “amusement” is inextricably linked with “not being able to wait” in the human heart.
O.v.Monteton (1877, 17f., translation: TR).
