Reasons that cause a horse to overload its hindquarters
Comte D’AURE
When the forehand is high, and the shoulders free, while the small of the back is weak, the haunches short, the hocks blemished or feeble, the hindquarters having to bear the superiority of the forehand, and, being thus overloaded, will collapse.
Under such circumstances, when the horse walks, the shoulders and the arms movements are very marked, very elevated, albeit covering little ground; the forehand looks like pulling the parts located behind it which look like being dragged instead of pushing the horse forward.
When the movements are shortened, the horse’s head comes near the vertical, and stays there while taking a light and uncertain weight on the hand.
The head gets out of this frame only when the jerks of a clumsy hand will upset the hindquarters sensitivity - but then it raises high with nose nearly horizontal.
When a horse built in such a way is requested to get away from his shortened gaits in order to extend them, he is obliged more than any other to make use of his neck and his head in order to form a lever which must help him in pulling his mass forward. He must hence extend his neck and lower his head so as to load the shoulders, and let the hinds all the means of action possible.
In order to get the best out of such a horse, in the shortened gaits one will fix the hand in a soft and mellow way which will invite him to lean upon it, and limit one’s requests to simple, measured movements which will not upset the hind’s sensitivity in any way.
In the extended gaits, the hand shall be set low, it shall allow the head getting low and steady in order to give the mouth a contact without which the gait could not extend.
It is easy to understand that with such horses, neck flexions should be used sparingly if at all; it is necessary, on the contrary, to maintain all its strength, I daresay all its stiffness to this part of the body, for fear of condemning the horse to have shortened, wobbly, uncertain gaits.
Should the horse, taking excessive advantage of the contact offered by the hand, were to lean too much upon it, it would suffice to mark some resistances in order to raise the neck and the head and yield the hand alternatively as I explained earlier.'
I was aware of Pacha's somewhat weak hindquarters, and of the disproportion between his forehand and his hind, which is not uncommon among Iberians. I sensed that working 'long neck' was useful to him, and not only as a stretching/relaxation exercise. But this text is a light bulb to me, explaining his panic about canter in his early days, his tendency to get behind the hand, or to rush with head high and horizontal when ridden by beginners with shaky hands. Everything in this text applies and explains Pacha's behaviour.
The main learning that I take from it is that the search for more confirmed contact is a priority for us which pushes back in time the development of lightness, still an ultimate objective. The point that I missed was that with a horse like him, the path towards lightness as described by Faverot may not apply straight away at least from a timing point of view and in the case of a modest amateur like me.
With a Baucherist background, I realized that I left d'Aure aside, as many often do. Baucher's main contender was indeed a great Master, and I better understand now General L'Hotte's purpose and exceptional achievement in attempting such a brilliant synthesis between his two Masters which his two books ('Questions Equestres' and ' Un Officier de Cavalerie') are.
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