The French Cavalry Manual-Free Download
A small group of classic works written at the beginning of the 29th century had a huge influence on riding as we see it today. Certainly the Cavalry School’s 3 volume “Horsemanship and Horsemastership”, the works of Harry Chamberlin, and those of Piero Santini belong in this small group. “The Manual of Equitation of the French Army for 1912” should be included in this group. It was published by the U.S War Department for use in the Mounted Service School. This French Cavalry Manual laid the foundation for the system we use today.
Although you’ll not find the forward seat in the Manual of Equitation of the French Army for 1912, neither will you find extreme collection and carriage or the teaching of “high school” riding. Instead you’ll find guidance for instructors, instruction on co-ordi- nation of the aids, gymnastics and position of the rider, and a system for breaking and training horses.
An original copy of The Manual of Equitation of the French Army for 1912 is a rare find. In fact my old and brittle copy is stamped with the U.S. Military History Institute and has penciled on the inside “Keep all copies – scarce”. Fortunately for us, someone didn’t heed those words and now I’m able to offer this down loadable version to you.
Unlike many updated versions of old works, I’ve not changed any of the information in this manual. I’ve not changed sentence structure or order of information, nor have I added any information of my own, except for a modern forward. I’ve reformatted it, given it a little color, a new typeface and done my best to re-number the table of contents. I hope this will make the Manual of Equitation of the French Army for 1912 an easier read and a convenient download.
My goal in reproducing The Manual of Equitation of the French Army for 1912 is to make it easily available to students of horsemanship. I hope that as you study it, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of the military seat and tradition that was passed to us through the U.S. Cavalry at Fort Riley.
So how do you get a copy of this free download? All you have to do is put your name and email address in the subscription form on this blog. Then you will receive a free download of the Manual of Equitation of the French Army for 1912. You’ll also receive notices when new articles are posted to http://ushorsemanship.com/.
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Dear Barbara,
I’m a member of the Society of Military Horse and would like to have the free download. Thank you very much in advance.
Tom Muller
Hi Tom,
Have you received your down load? I hope you will put your name and email in the box in the center column because I’ll have more interesting articles to send that will not be posted in full on the blog. I just sent out 2 articles form the Rasp. Please let me know if you’ve received the French Manual
Thanks for looking at U.S. Horsemanship
Barbara
thank you so much for putting this together! i received my copy after registering on the site and plan to spend some time going through it tomorrow. but i couldn’t resist skipping ahead to the section on rein aids. i did a series of posts
http://glenshee.blogspot.com/2009/06/rein-aids-series.html
on what i believe are the 5 universal rein aids (based on the french system) and it was interesting for me to find them described more or less as i understood them. never before have i encountered the 5 all in one place – it seems today’s top riders/trainers and the authors of modern riding manuals are either unaware of them or don’t seem to think they’re important!
can’t wait to see what other great info might be hiding in there
i really appreciate you making this available.
You are really welcome;. It’s been great to be able to share the French Manual.