Introduction

 

Scholae Artis Equestris

Thinking Horsemen, exchanging Feel, expressing Naturalness, pursuing Unity.

Welcome to the Article site of the Scholae Artis Equestris. On this site, we'll publish several of our articles tackling several subjects relating to the goals of the Scholae Artis Equestris, ranging from historical analyses over practical horsemanship tips to subjects relating to horses.

 SAEquestris - what are we? 

The Scholae Artis Equestris - SAEquestris for short - translate as 'The schools of equestrian arts'. However, you could also translate 'equestris' as 'knightly', and that is not random choice given the great inspiration we draw from our equine cultural heritage. Nonetheless, our main basis for all things we do is the reality of the horse.

The goals of the SAEquestris can be summarized by three sentences:

A Horsemanship that sets you on the Road from Horse to Unity

To have Fun with Tradition

And to Honour the Horse that does not only carry Man but Mankind

1. A Horsemanship that sets you on the Road from Horse to Unity

The first and most important goal of the SAEquestris is to develop, train and teach a horsemanship that envisions a Unity between horse and rider. What this fundamentally comes down to is that we want to help horses to get along with humans and to help humans to help their horses. Eventually, such a path leads you to unity with your horse.

In order to realistically achieve such a purpose, we always need to start from the factual reality of the horse. A reality best understood through the means of science. For that reason, scientific insights in both behaviour and biomechanics are the basis on which we built our horsemanship.

The inspiration, which we test against this scietific reality of the horse, is often taken from traditional forms horsemanship. With this term, we do not point to the conventional horsemanship that dominates modern sport practices, but that has deviated quite a bit from the older forms of horsmanship. Rather, we mean the Vaquero Horsemanship of the American continent, the Gineta Horsemanship of the Iberian Peninsula or the historical dressage of the old masters of Europe. 

Based on both a historical and scietific analysis of these forms of horsemanship, we made a synthesis that we label Western Traditional Horsemanship that entails:

An organic and adaptive method

that uses principles to build qualities

on your road from horse to unity

Such an 'organic' horsemanship needs to build qualities in all the dimensions of a horse. It needs to adress all the 'pillars of horsemanship': communication, mental and physical. 

We teach our students to use learning, behavioural and biomechanical principles to build communicational, mental and physical qualities in their horses.

The main horsemanship program of the SAEquestris is taught in three schools, hence the name 'scholae'.

1. The first school, the school of the pillars, focuses on training a good all round horse. It envisions to build the necessary qualities that every horse and rider is supposed to have.
   
   
2. The second school, the school of the exercise, focuses on training horses that need to perform in one way or another. This school advances the qualities to such a degree that they are fit to be applied in numerous applications, whether sport, show, or other uses you may have for a horse.
   
   
3. The third school, the high school, focuses on enhacing the qualities to a master level for both rider and horse.

The SAEquestris uses this horsemanship not only to teach students in various ways, but also to train horses. Noteworthy is our work on the horse asylum, The Old Horse Lodge, which we try to support by rendering first training to very young horses or rehabilitating traumatized horses. A concrete implementation of this goal that is perhaps one of the most important manifestation of what we try to accomplish.

In this blog, you will find a lot of articles that will render impressions, analyses and practical information relating to this Western Traditional horsemanship. 

2. Fun with Tradition

Even though our horsemanship program is our most central goal, being able to apply it to do traditional applications with your horse, is without any doubt the most fun goal.

Based on the qualities we build in ourselves and our horses by using the Western Traditional Horsemanship adressed in the first goal, we can turn those qualities in applied qualities for a number of traditional practices.

Our most central application is Trail Riding. After all, all horse traditions used horses for the simple purpose of travelling. Whether it was the nobleman riding around his estates, the knight on campaign or the buckarroo looking for his herd, all travelled on horseback. Because of this reason, trail riding is the only application that is implemented in the general horsemanship programme and a requirement for graduating the first school of horsemanship.

Next to trail riding, our great specialisation - and I do dare to state that we are amongst the world authorities on the subject - resides in the Knightly Martial Arts. This involves learning to ride the 'tests' or 'courses', such as riding on the quintain or sword target practice. Secondly, we practice jousting, as it can be considered the most basic practice of the knightly martial arts. But our main focus is of course the broader martial arts as described in the fight books of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. This includes fighing with lances, swords and even bows, daggers, shields and bucklers, but also fighting unarmed on horseback.

Furthermore, the SAEquestris also retains an interest in its buckarroo tradition, pursuing practices such as roping and cattle work. Although we cannot claim a great degree of specialisation, it is certainly a tradition we hope to further explore and offer to our students.Finally, the SAEquestris has an interest to expand into other traditional practices in the future, such as the Iberian garrocha tradition or working equitation exploring the doma vaquera tradition.

What connects these practices is that they often require a broader use of several qualities established in the horsemanship training to be applied in these practices compared to modern sport practices. Therefore, it will both further and test your horsemanship. Morst importantly, however, these practices are simply so much fun to do with your horse.

3. The horse does not only carry man but mankind.

This sentence implies two goals:

1. To study and promote the historical and cultural importance the horse had for the development of human society in general and western society in particular.
   
   
2. To promote the importance that horses may still have in a heavily modernized world, particularly in terms of psychological benefits, and therefore to promote and advocate equestrianism, horses and horse keeping in a contemporary settting. 

To realize its other goals, the SAEquestris studies historical horsemanship methods, but such a study also requires an analysis of the broader context in which these methods were shaped. Such research quickly reveals the vast impact horses had on human history in general and the history of western civilisation in particular.

I am not merely talking about the direct implications of the development of cavalry on the military history. Its impact is far deeper, whether it is the development of knighthood shaping medieval society, the deep seeds of celtic culture honouring the horse still echoeing in modern folklore, or the face of rural America, from the Argentinian pampas to the North American plains, being shaped by the hard work of gaucho, vaquero or buckarroo. Not to mention the many small imprints that horses left on our history and culture, sometimes still silently present in our environment. Whether its the roads, called 'jaagpaden', along which horses drew barges alongside canals or the big doors of 19th century city houses allowing chariots to pass through.

Sadly enough, in a world dominated by mechanical and digital means, the legacy of the horse is often forgotten. Therefore, the SAEquestris endeavours to study and promote this legacy in different ways. This can take the form of articles or lectures but also in our participation in cultural events. For example, the legend of the Ros beiaard, a story particularly associated with Belgium and Flanders, carries great value within our schools.

The impact horses had on historical societies was closely related to their functional use for war, agriculture or transportation. Due to the industralisation and particularly the invention of the internal combustion engine, such a function has dissapeared from our society. However, that does not mean that horses have lost their role in modern societies and such a role can be far more important than simply recreational. 

As practices such as hippotherapy demosntrate, horses can have a deeply benefitial impact on the human psyche. This 'organic measure' that horses bring to humans stood already central within the historical dressage of the ancient masters, but is probably even more relevant nowadays, where more and more people are struggling with the increasingly mechanic and unnatural dynamics of modern society. Horses and horsemanship can provide an essential answer to these - often heavily - underestimated psychological pathologies. 

Therefore, the SAEquestris actively promotes horsemanship and horse keeping not just as a recreational activity but as one of the fundamental solutions to the mental crisis of modern societies. This is parituclarly true for highly urbanized regions such as Flanders. We therefore strongly promote this new mental role of horsemanship in society and consequently also advocate for the necessary place that horses deserve within the landscape and on the road, as well as for the rights of horse owners to keep their horses.