horseback riding – THE LEGEND OF THE GREAT HORSE trilogy

Meagan Roberts, Hero

The heroine of The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy is resourceful, quick-witted and brave … her name is Meagan Roberts.

The trilogy follows the development of horsemanship in human history, and horses have given the world such rugged male icons as cowboys (and indians), knights in shining armor and cavalry charges, not to mention Ben-Hur. Yet my initial main character “Michael” kept dismounting to let Meagan aboard.

The story concerns a modern-day rider, and it is an unfortunate fact that young men in America today do not dedicate themselves to horsemanship in nearly the numbers that young women do … this comes after the majority of human history depicted horsemanship as a strictly male pursuit. Times change and horsemanship changes with it.

Discovering and writing a female hero was natural enough, as my former experience teaching riders meant coaching battalions of young women for every male. My idea for Meagan is the young college student who stays up all night grooming horses in return for a trailer ride to the next day’s competition. Meagan is the excited young girl whose straight-A report card finally convinces a carpool-weary parent to add one more stop at the stables. She is the shy adolescent whose eyes light up with confidence after a good round, the dependable ingénue who quietly keeps herself and her horses glowing, the serious junior who quietly listens and plans her way to success.

Horseback riding has historically been a respected, even hallowed method of youth development, turning out thoughtful, responsible leaders with empathy and depth of character for millennia. Meagan is a compilation of the qualities that horsemanship imparts: she is resourceful, diligent, fair-minded, and brave, and able to lead while engaging in both teamwork and strategic planning. These heroic qualities are all human virtues to be improved in the sandy classroom of our great teacher: the horse.

Equine Benefits: Riding horses is therapeutic and educational

I recently read an inspirational story about an occupational therapist teaching South African street children to ride horses.

The horse has had many roles in our society, some of which have been replaced by technology (eg., transportation, war, food) … however some of the horse’s most important roles in human lives remain vital. Horses are wonderful therapy, as many riders know, and are effective in both intensive rehabilitation and simple therapeutic recreation.

It is exciting to see the spread of horsemanship happening in our technological age, and it signals a recognition that our relationship with our longtime partner is still valued and valuable: a recognition that would seem to credit not only the horses, but also us humans.

Horsemanship is a Mirror of Civilization

Chariots of early history (16th century BC)

This is my third “Mirror” post in a row, and where I finally explain the use of the metaphor and close the barn door after it.

In the first post of this Mirror trilogy, I mentioned becoming interested in reading about history while browsing the shelves of the doomed used bookstores in Harvard.

I didn’t and don’t have answers about what history people should remember, or what conclusions should be drawn. I am simply interested in knowing about factual history and discussing it. That interest led to the idea of The Legend of the Great Horse trilogy.

My blog’s “Mirror” Trilogy Concludes

Horses were a common factor in almost every time from primitive man and antiquity to the Renaissance and the American West. The animal has literally been with mankind every step of the way. As someone who competed in equestrian sports and worked in the horse industry, I found this to be an example of common knowledge not commonly explored.

Horsemanship was not an obvious process to humanity: it took thousands of years for mankind to learn to control a horse as a rider. While the first uses of horses are misty and inconclusive, truth be told early horsemanship was a dog’s breakfast of nose-rings, superstition and brutality. So poor were the prospects of the first mounted riders ending up where (and how) they wished to arrive, that as a practical matter driving appears to have been the main use for horses in the early days of civilization.

This changed in the last millenia B.C. with a new kind of horsemanship based on working with the horse in an empathetic and humane way. The horse responded to empathetic methods so well that the new art, today called “dressage,” led to a revolution in mounted riding. As the human consciousness arced up our horsemanship advanced to new levels of cooperation and partnership.

da Vinci’s “Rearing Horse”

However, when Rome fell into centuries of brutalized Dark Ages, dressage was lost to Western Civilization. In fact, dressage was one of the “rediscovered” Classical arts that sparked the new age of the European Renaissance. Riding schools were set up and Riding Masters emerged as students in the laboratory of the ménage. Horsemanship recovered its humane component and advanced to unprecedented heights of sport and art.

The history of horsemanship seems to highlight the relationship between empathy and human progress. It is fascinating to see how horses have adapted to the different stages of human development; horses are not only a true link with our past but a reflection of their times. Progress in horsemanship has mirrored the progress of mankind itself.

It makes for a fascinating study–and the greatest canvas on which to tell a story.

The Long, Colorful Road of Horsemanship

The Legend of the Great Horse traces horsemanship from its earliest beginnings. The premise of the story is that Meagan, a horse-interested teenager of modern day, is whisked back in time to relive history … on horseback. As she travels in “jumps” from the earliest days of man’s association with horses, Meagan and the reader experience the changes in horsemanship that mirrored the advance of civilization.

A hallmark of skilled modern riding is that it looks “easy,” but it has not always been this way. The casual spectator watching well-groomed horses cantering a jumping field or half-passing down the centerline may be forgiven believing things such as “the horse is doing all the work” or “anyone could do it” etc. Riding looks easy when done well because the rider remains in balance with the horse, maintaining a fluid rhythm with the mount’s athletic motion. This is not how horsemanship has looked through most of history, and nothing we now take for granted about riding was obvious or simple for humans to discover.

The “Greek Seat”

The origins of horseback riding are lost in the mists of time, but using the horse to pull wagons, carts and chariots represented the first phase of practical horsemanship. Mounted horsemanship does not appear in clear view until antiquity, and after at least 3000 years of development it wasn’t terribly impressive. The horses were guided with nose-rings by a rider who sat far back toward the horse’s hindquarters, though the Greeks modified this by inching forward to sit on the middle of the horse’s back. It literally took the human race thousands of years to discover where, exactly, to properly sit on horseback.

To humans, horses possess an alien mind, and what seems obvious today was not “obvious” at all. As one example, stirrups were not invented until after the fall of the Roman Empire—which itself was more than 25,000 years from the days that prehistoric man’s preoccupation with the animal was shown by painting in caves. First came a “toe loop” which developed in India (c. 500BC) for the holding of the rider’s big toe. A few centuries later nomadic “Sarmatians” of southern Russia and the Balkans invented a single stirrup for use in mounting. Over the next half-millennium, Asia brought the stirrup to fruition; it was copied by Europeans and revolutionized war.

One might consider that our ancestors were not the most clever ponies in the stable, but the reason for the long period of development was that advanced horsemanship required changes in mankind’s thinking. As humanity grew sufficient empathy to discover advanced horsemanship, the modern world also began a rapid transformation into the modern age.