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I had ridden for years and read about cavalry engagements when I first climbed on a horse with a sword belted on. I thought I knew what it would be like to knock various objects off the tops of fence posts. I didn’t. I’m sure that back in the day youngsters learned from experienced elders (by watching or by direct instruction) some of the things that a few sessions with horse, sword, and fence-posts taught me. And ritual disclaimer here: I’m not an expert in this stuff.
When you’re up on a horse, you’re immediately aware that a horse is fundamentally different from a wheeled vehicle. Though mammalian body shapes are mostly bilaterally symmetrical, in practice we mammals nearly always start out with “handedness” and slightly unequal development to left and right–that includes hoofed mammals and horses are no exception. And horses, like us only more so, change shape with movement. The bulk of the body bulges more on one side than the other with every step, exaggerated in trot as the spine flexes first to one side then the other; the head, nodding up and down at walk, tenses and relaxes muscles along the spine, where the rider sits; at canter, the whole body rotates fore and aft on a moving axis.
For the mounted warrior, this presents a complex problem. Not only are you using a moving weapon (the sword or lance) to hit a probably moving target (be it human mounted or afoot, or a monster of some kind) but the platform from which you strike is both moving along the path you chose (you hope!!) and moving under you in a way characteristic of its gait–walk, trot, canter, gallop.
Horses are able to change direction, gait, and variations in stride length and speed of gait with rider-astonishing speed when it’s their idea. I had an Arab mare once who could disappear from under me and reappear six feet away in any direction, already zipping off in another direction. I never came completely off her, but it was a near thing. Once I saw her when she was loose in the pasture and something scared her. From standing attentive and interested, she pulled up all four feet at once, repositioned her legs to thrust her somewhere else, and then “bounced” from a fully-folded position when her hooves touched ground again. (And wondered in that moment how I’d ever stayed on her!)
If you watch loose horses, you’ll notice how rarely they go straight for long, in any gait (and thus why straightening a horse in its early training is important and takes time.) They are prey animals, with a very wide angle of vision; they naturally move slightly sideways, haunches offline, to keep watch for danger. Even in a herd galloping together, even in dominance disputes, only for short distances is there straight movement. Although in early training, this is a challenge, in practice it suggests possibilities that our vehicles cannot match…if you can put those possible movements under human command (and the human can stay on during them.) Horses can pivot in place, move diagonally, change speed, etc. in ways that are very useful in battle.
What you want is the most secure platform you can get, that puts you at the right distance and direction from your enemy (or prey, if you’re hunting from horseback) for the weapon you’re using. If you’re hunting buffalo with bow and arrow, that means you want to gallop (a smoother gait than canter) alongside the buffalo at approximately the same relative speed–giving you a more stationary target–at a distance that allows your bow to deliver maximum force. Pretty close, in fact, and it helps if your horse will maintain a constant distance for repeated shots. If you’re a Parthian acting as cavalry in an ancient army, about to deliver the famous “Parthian shot” over the rump of your horse while galloping away, then you want that galloping away to be smooth (allowing you to twist in the saddle and shoot) and then you want the distance to open up, so the enemy is less likely to hit you.
If you’re closing in with a weapon you’ll hold (spear or stabbing lance or sword) than how you approach will be determined partly by the weapon. Imagine yourself on the back of a horse, weapon in hand, and imagine moving that weapon around to determine your arc of effective attack. Right away, you run into the imagined horse neck in front of you. Oops. Stab or slash your own horse and you’re in big trouble.
Now a lance can be held alongside the horse’s neck (but you’re in trouble if who you want to hit is on the other side of the neck when you get there.) In tournament jousting, with the paths of horses determined by the list, it’s still possible to get it all wrong–in combat, in the open, even more so. A lightweight lance that you can handle one-handed easily was effective in the ancient world and has been used with some good effect since. It has only one point and no long edge, so the horse is at less risk than with a sword. If the lance is l0ng enough, you can reach the enemy directly ahead, as well as those diagonally on either front, and at any height from ground to mounted on a taller horse. (“Tent-pegging,” once a popular sport, derived from the military use–plucking the pegs of an enemy’s tent out of the ground with a lance while galloping past, so the tent would collapse on those inside.) The one right beside you is more difficult, as it requires you to twist your upper body to deliver a thrust, and you no longer have the strength of your back into the blow. And behind–you’re out of luck. Xenophon says the Greek cavalry carried two lances, which could be thrown or held to stab an enemy, and the lance was a common cavalry weapon into modern times.
With the sword–a sword you can handle one-handed–you’ll find that you can’t, without sitting on the horse’s neck (for frontal attacks) or rump (for those behind) reach an enemy directly in front or behind, and in front you’ve got that horse-neck. Cavalry swords are usually edged weapons more than stabbing weapons, for the very practical reason that delivering a cut is much easier from the back of a moving horse. And thus, many through history have been curved–allowing the delivery of a long and deep cut with a relatively short (in straight-length) blade that’s quicker to move from side to side over the horse’s neck. (Shorter lever arm means less force required to move it. )
But still–attacking someone directly in front of you with a sword, while mounted on a horse, means that your enemy can hit the horse before you hit the enemy. Your greatest reach beyond the horse is to the side–farther on your sword-arm side, less on your other side. Without bending low in the saddle (something your armor, if you wear it, can make difficult to perilous), you can’t reach low to the ground.
You want to arrive at a mounted enemy at the side–with the rider at a point where the swing of your sword will do the rider the most harm, or with the rider’s horse at a point where your sword will damage the horse and make it uncontrollable.
And now we get back to that overly detailed paragraph I edited the other day. A very skilled rider can feel, through the body’s contact with the horse, exactly which hoof or hooves are on the ground, and knows the sequence of hoof-falls for each gait. And paired with a well-trained horse, this very skilled rider can “place” the horse so that the each hoof falls where the rider wants it to, by signalling the horse at the right phase of each gait sequence. Top dressage riders make transitions and halts exactly on the marks set in the test.
Consider the cantering horse. A canter begins with a strike-off–one hind leg comes forward under the horse’s body, providing a powerful upward and forward force; the horse bends the other three legs, lifting the diagonal foreleg higher and for a moment the horse is resting all weight on that one leg. The front end is up; the hindquarters relatively down. The body then levels, and the opposite diagonal pair of legs straighten and those two hooves strike the ground simultaneously–the horse is now supported on three legs with the back level, a solid foundation for anything the rider needs to do. Then the strike-off hind leg loses contact with the ground, the horse’s weight shifts more forward, the foreleg diagonal to that strike-off leg comes to the ground as the previous diagnonal pair comes up. Now the back slants a little downward. That last leg comes off the ground: the moment of suspension, all four legs up and bent, and then the strike-off hind leg reaches forward again.
A “flying change” is when the horse changes “leads” without breaking the canter (without dropping to trot or walk). (Previously available link to horse performing flying change removed because it now links to sex site, not equestrian site.)
Each phase of the gait presents opportunities and limitations. The horse can change leads or prepare to pivot only when all four legs are in the air, and the impetus for that must come before all the legs are up (there not being time for the horse to get the signal if you wait too long.) Your well-trained battle mount will figure some of this out for itself, but even so you need to know when to anticipate such a move. The back is level at only two moments during the stride, and in one the horse is well-supported; in the other, it’s hanging in the air.
The horse’s instinctive reaction to off-balance weight on its back (you leaning to the side to deliver a stroke, for instance) will be different in each phase and will also depend on which “lead” it’s on. (Though the strike-off hind leg starts the canter sequence, leads are named for the last leg–the foreleg that lands last, because it always looks “in front of” the other.) If you lean out to the side when the horse doesn’t have a leg already there to support you, its attempt to correct its own balance can dump you on your head. Horses react to changes in the joint center of gravity of horse and rider. Training can partially overcome this, but not completely. After all, when a predator jumps onto a horse’s back, the ability shed it means life or death.
So…the horse doing half-pass faces 12 o’clock but travels diagonally. In both trot and canter, horses trained to do this learn to zig-zag. In canter, they change leads (do a flying change) at each change of direction. This allows the rider to come at an enemy and (with very good judgment of the enemy’s movement–they don’t stand still with a “Hit Me” sign on them like the fence posts I used) place the horse in the best possible spot for an attack. Moreover, you can appear to be aiming to ride by out of reach, and then–with a judicious shift of weight and use of leg–dance over a couple of strides and zzzzzipppp!
Video of canter half-pass with one change of direction.
Here’s a video of half-pass zigzags in canter, with flying changes of lead.
You can probably imagine how handy that could be. But note that these riders have both hands on the reins, and are able to signal the horse with either (or both) legs and either (or both) hands, as well as with intentional shifts of weight (weighting a seat-bone, bracing the back, etc.) They aren’t having to concentrate on using a weapon in the heat of battle. For that, it takes a horse that does not need all the signals. The mounted warrior has at most one hand for the reins and (if shooting arrows) none. What then?
Just for fun, and do not try this at home unless you’re really, really, REALLY good: a wonderful video showing what’s possible with a non-dressage horse, without saddle or bridle. If it reminds you of the Parthenon horses, it should (though they were bridled, the ancient Greek cavalry rode without saddles.) See if you can spot the signals Westfall is giving her horse. Which would be useful in battle? Could she use a lance or sword?
Comment by Robert Conley — November 16, 2010 @ 7:27 am
Interesting details thanks for sharing this. My 13 year old autistic son (aspergers) has been taking horse riding lessons since he was 7. Occasionally will see the more advanced riders practicing and nice to read about some of the details of what they do.
Comment by elizabeth — November 16, 2010 @ 9:12 am
There are many styles of riding (and much dissension in the ranks of horse people about which is “right.”) Outside the show ring, all the original styles had their origin in the use of the horse for transport or war, and thus had a reason for being that way. (Show ring rationale is a whole other topic: Paksworld has no horse shows.)
If your son is taking riding lessons at a place where dressage riders train, you and he will see some of the movements I mentioned. Here’s something you won’t see: Reiner Klimke’s celebration of his gold medal in the ’84 Olympics, with his horse Alerich doing a flying change every stride down the entire length and breadth of the huge Olympic stadium, then coming down to passage, piaffe, back to passage, then to a huge extended trot.
Comment by Eir de Scania — November 16, 2010 @ 10:29 am
One of the reasons I like Paksworld is that it has real horses, not the common Fantasyland ones.
Oh, and real, heavy weapons and mail, not the Fantasyworld lightweight versions. 😉
Comment by Margaret — November 16, 2010 @ 10:31 am
After reading your post, and watching the video of Klimke’s Olympic celebration several times (I recommend using the mute button after the first viewing), I realize how vast my ignorance is on this topic and how much more I could enjoy watching dressage competitions if I increased my knowledge. Your description of all that a horse is capable of doing leaves me in awe. I don’t know how much of this you can include in your text, but I would love to read it!
I saw the movie of Secretariat last week and I imagine some of the skills of both horse and rider you describe must apply to racing as well. They talk about speed and endurance in the movie, but the intelligence of the horse and the jockey must be just as important, assuming that any horse entered into a Triple Crown race must have an extraordinary level of speed, endurance or some combination of the two.
I’d love to hear an analysis of Secretariat’s Belmont run at this level of detail, tho’ perhaps the archived video(s) would not be good enough to allow for it.
Comment by Kip Colegrove — November 16, 2010 @ 11:30 am
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, my father was a skilled rider and swordsman. I suppose the National Guard Cavalry in the 1930s used the M1913 cavalry saber, which has a straight blade that is sharp partway up the back. The troopers were taught cut-and-thrust, but for some attacks (such as the target behind a horizontal log as the horse jumps it) only the point would do. My dad and others would happily have learned the use of the lance, but that was not taught in U.S. service.
I understand why you have to leave out much of the detail of mounted combat (and many other things) in writing a story; I’d make the same sort of streamlining decisions if I were the writer. But speaking very personally, as a reader, the technicalities do not slow my imagination down (always assuming clear writing); they expand it. It must be because of all those impressionable years listening to a skilled raconteur who also relished technical detail.
I should note something I’ve always held to my father’s credit. Like a true horseman, he talked not only about riding and fighting but also about tack and other equipment and how to care for the horse. I wish now that there had been more demonstration–at least in diagrammatic form–but he did teach me hands-on the rudiments of swordsmanship.
Comment by Adam Baker — November 16, 2010 @ 12:26 pm
Another very informative article, that definitely expanded on the information provided in the previous article.
I watched the clips you linked, and seeing the level of control is just mind blowing for someone like me w/ no horse experience. I saw a lot of the minute adjustments, and weight shifts and such in the clip of the lady riding bareback, and can only imagine what it takes beyond what was visible to someone such as myself.
I can also see though, how information such as this, would end up on the editing floor, versus making it into the book. Being such a novice when it comes to equestrian knowledge, I think providing info like this could slow the flow of the story down, b/c it takes some time for the reader to be able to absorb the information, and try to piece together what exactly it means. The vast majority of the terms you’ve mentioned both in this article, and the previous are completely foreign to me, which is something else that could cause the reader issues.
Comment by Adam Baker — November 16, 2010 @ 12:28 pm
Btw, thank you very much for providing this information like this. I can definitely see knowing this sort of thing expands the overall lifelike feel of Paksworld, and makes it easier to understand how and why a lot of the decisions by the characters are made.
Comment by elizabeth — November 16, 2010 @ 12:40 pm
Kip, that’s fascinating. I wish I’d known someone like your grandfather when I was growing up. The amount of curve (from little to lots) in cavalry weapons and the preference for point v. cut varied with different services using them in different circumstances (and from different traditions.) Most if not all cavalries arising from European traditions used some elements of classical (i.e., Greek and Roman) horsemanship; those coming from different traditions did not. As far as I know, all cavalries taught stable management and care of the horse and tack as well as how to ride.
As you undoubtedly know (but some may not) the equestrian sports in the modern Olympics were originally limited to military participants: dressage representing the basic training of the military mount, eventing the full development of the ideal cavalry mount, and jumping as a popular sport. As time went on and cavalries disappeared (expensive to maintain and not that useful, it was thought) civilians were allowed to enter these competitions, and the competitions quickly evolved beyond what had ever been required of active cavalries in the 19th century. Women were first allowed to ride in the 1950s (dressage first, then jumping) and it was in the 1960s that the first woman was allowed to ride in an Olympic Three-Day Event.
Comment by elizabeth — November 16, 2010 @ 12:53 pm
I remember watching that Belmont on my mother-in-law’s television (we didn’t have one at the time.) It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen, and it brought me to tears because of its sheer beauty. Here was a horse who loved to run…who was on that day healthy and sound…with a clear track in front of him and no one holding him back. That very large heart helped, of course, but so did the details of his conformation–that long, powerful hindquarter, and the flexibility in the pelvis that allowed him to have more separation between the back legs and continue to get push longer from each one than most racehorses have. That means efficiency of stride…and there he was, running down the track with obvious ease and enjoyment, increasing his lead every stride just because he could…because it was fun, because a horse like that, in perfect health at that moment, runs out of instinct as much as training. He had won the race long before; he wasn’t competing with anything–he was just out there having a blast.
It was beautiful in part because it was so obviously easy, the way Nureyev or Barishnikov make jumps look easy. Turcotte had the sense to just sit quickly and lightly and let him go, not interfering with his balance or his stride in any way. I imagine he remembered that ride to the end of his life.
Horses are natural runners…as prey animals, with running as their main way of surviving, they’re nearly always happy to run. And many horses, loose in a field, not carrying weight, run with that grace, that ease…probably not as fast, and not as far (though some do–my Arab mare once ran around two acres for 45 minutes, never stopping, and clearly just for fun. Nothing had spooked her, but she’d been confined for a few hours before that. So zzooommm! she went.) But to see Secretariat that afternoon, under a rider, on a track, go from his power run early into that smooth, apparently effortless one…faster and faster, with no sign of tiring….it was a gift to any horse-lover who saw it.
Comment by elizabeth — November 16, 2010 @ 12:54 pm
I’m glad you notice & appreciate that.
Comment by Lindsay — November 16, 2010 @ 6:31 pm
My last riding instructor, Uli, had a style that really used the seat and legs. The only reason we were allowed to touch the reins seemed to have more to do with underlining the signals for the horse so the horse would eventually not need the reins at all. Uli was born around 1930 and taught to ride by his father, who trained cavalry for Germany in WWI
Comment by elizabeth — November 16, 2010 @ 6:38 pm
It’s very handy to have a horse that doesn’t need constant rein signals. Some horses are naturally more sensitive to the rider than others and are easy to train to “seat aids” and leg aids. Due to injury, I have less feeling on one side of my pelvis than the other, so it is hard for me to feel when my seat bones are equally weighted (when they are, it feels wrong), but horses can feel that. In fact, the problem was diagnosed by a horse (and intelligent instructor)–because while it looked like I was sitting square, the horse (upper-level dressage horse) moved in response to unequal seat aid, thus revealing it.
Comment by Margaret — November 16, 2010 @ 10:48 pm
Thank you for that lovely description of Secretariat’s Belmont run. Today I went on a youtube walkabout and found all sorts of Secretariat video, including one of him running around just as you describe your Arab mare. He was a beautiful creature.
I’ve been remembering the passage in Oath about Kieri testing the horses that had been gifted to him. And you included just a bit about the riding master testing each one and then testing the messenger recruits in order to determine the right “fit” of horse and rider. More of that would be great in the next books!
Comment by elizabeth — November 16, 2010 @ 11:37 pm
Part of riding is to learn to ride different horses well…every horse is an individual, with a unique way of moving, and the human, not the horse, needs to make the adjustment. Really good riders–the best riders–can get on a strange horse and make it look better, move better, than it was moving before. (I was privileged to see this happen at the Royal Windsor Horse Show: the judge rides every horse in a class, and one of the horses–that had looked clumsy, awkward, and disobedient–suddenly looked smooth, supple, and almost brilliant under the judge…a former member of the silver medalist in the Olympics for the Brits.)
But specific points of horse and human anatomy combine to make moving in harmony easier for some pairs than others. In general, people with longer legs (especially longer femurs) will find horses with longer femurs more naturally comfortable, and vice versa. To adjust to a horse whose natural stride is very different from one’s own rhythm takes effort, and the tendency is for humans to try to adapt the horse–shorten or lengthen its stride to something the human finds more comfortable. Given that horses come in so many sizes and shapes, it’s ideal to pair horse and human that suit perfectly in motion to start with.
Comment by Vikki W — November 17, 2010 @ 9:55 am
I am really enjoying this discussion. The video clips are great, and I have learned lots from the posts. I did notice that most of the zig zags in both trot & canter seemed to be really slow motion. Does it done faster in “real life” situations?
Comment by Vikki W — November 17, 2010 @ 10:07 am
That was “Is it done faster”
Comment by elizabeth — November 17, 2010 @ 10:28 am
Vikki, traveling in half-pass is necessarily slower than “straight forward”–the tradeoff is for more balance and control. The exact speed depends on both horse and rider (riders can demand extreme collection, or less extreme, and some horses can move faster in that frame than others.) A horse can move faster “ahead” but then can’t really “zig-zag”–will make a serpentine instead.
Comment by Sheila — November 17, 2010 @ 12:41 pm
I have thoroughly enjoyed this post (text, videos and comments). You have a way of writing about horsemanship that really brings it to life. It’s a running joke in our household that with the Familias Regnant novels you created a whole new niche genre: equestrian military sci-fi.
Comment by Kristen B. — November 17, 2010 @ 1:27 pm
If you have spare time (Ha! what’s that)… here’s the link to this year’s Dressage at Devon. The page has a long video from the Freestyle competition.
http://dressageatdevon.org/cms/
My mom lives not far from Devon, so we’ve had the privilege to go and watch the horses dance.
Kristen
Comment by Kristen B. — November 17, 2010 @ 1:29 pm
BTW: I sent the clip of Klimpke to my sister (who rides eventing) and she says:
Reiner Klimke is one of the best riders of all time, as far as I’mconcerned! He’s a beautiful rider and can get a horse to do anything while
looking like he’s not asking for a thing. Wonderful! 🙂
Thanks for making both our days with beautiful horses!
Comment by Robert Conley — November 18, 2010 @ 11:13 pm
>If your son is taking riding lessons at a place where dressage riders train,
Yes the place where his riding lesson is at as a lot of dressage riders. In the last couple of years he was part of a horse show put on at our local county fair. His role is small but he enjoys it.
Thanks for sharing the video that is something I had not seen before and quite impressive.
Comment by Gustovcarl — November 19, 2010 @ 3:59 pm
I love this post! It opens up a whole world that I know nothing about. Thank you!
Slightly off topic: I’ve been trying to find a post you wrote on your LJ site about a favorite horse that became the model for Pak’s paladin mount. Is that something that’s easily accessible?
Comment by elizabeth — November 19, 2010 @ 4:47 pm
Um…I don’t know. I don’t remember that post at all. I used to have a photo of Ky up on my website, but I see it’s not there anymore. He was a 16 hand Arab/Saddlebred cross, an amazing jumper, and one of the two smartest horses I’ve ever owned (both geldings, by the way. And both with a sense of humor.) A red chestnut with star, one white sock in front and two stockings behind.
Comment by Gustovcarl — November 19, 2010 @ 6:07 pm
Ahhh… too bad. Oh, well.
That’s how I remember you describing him.
Smart, sense of humor, etc.
It was worth a try.
Comment by elizabeth — November 19, 2010 @ 6:11 pm
When I have time (not right now) I’ll try to find the old photo album and scan a picture of him again. I think I remember that the digital image was lost when my webmistress changed from one computer to another…we weren’t using it at the moment, so it got dumped somehow. I’ll ask her again.
Comment by Maureen — November 27, 2010 @ 9:52 pm
Re: no horse shows in the olden days, don’t be so sure. Pretty much every culture seems to want horses that can dance, pet horses that do pretty tricks, pretty horses that aren’t particularly spirited and attract attention to the rich and famous, strong draft horses, and so forth. It’s just that in our culture, the idea of a horse that’s mostly for show is on the low side of luxury and decadence, instead of the high side.
Comment by Karen — April 15, 2011 @ 12:58 am
As a girl, I was as horse crazy as a city girl can be — reading every book by Walter Farley and glad for any chance to ride the kinds of horses that are available to people who hardly know one end of a horse from the other.
At camp, several years in a row, I connived to spend two weeks a summer riding on rough mountain trails. As part of the experience, we were responsible for mucking out stalls at dawn and dusk, grooming and feeding the horses, and switching mounts daily so that we could gain some experience of their different temperments. One of the most frightening experiences I’ve ever had was turning back towards the corral on the back of the pokiest horse in the stable. I’d gotten so used to prodding him ahead with my heels to force every step forward that I made the mistaken assumption that he was just lazy. But he knew that trail, and as soon as we turned the bend that sent him back towards home, a single kick was all it took to suddenly turn him into a racehorse!
Needless to say, I didn’t have time to attain much in the way of skill, but your descriptions of Paks’ experiences with Socks made the little girl in me yearn for the feeling of horseflesh under my tailbone again. That’s one of the reasons I love the whole Paksworld universe; as I read, I can feel the mud under a soldier’s boots, the sword and shield in my hand, even though I’ve never felt their heft. So, when Socks exploded under Paks in the stable yard, my legs tensed with the same fear I’d experienced as a girl when all my expectations about my mount were overturned so suddenly, and I was left hanging on for dear life.
This blog entry gave me the same thrill — and I hope you’ll be allowed to write in similar detail in the next three books so that city girls like me can believe we, too, smell a whiff of the lather on our (imaginary) horse’s neck.