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Xenophon->the most amazing dude in history (and yes I said dude...)

Hey Everyone!
A member recommended that I write a little about Xenophon. I was wondering if anyone else knew about him?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophon
Above ^ is a link to wikipedia that gives a little briefing about him and some of his works. Xenophon is considered to be the first dressage person. Even though he lived in 431-355 B.C. his training methods are extremely similar to todays. Many horsemen have looked at Xenophon's texts such as his book The Art of Horsemanship and based their training methods off of him.

Below is an exert from his text The Art of Horsemanship
[13] The one best rule and practice in dealing with a horse is never to approach him in anger; for anger is a reckless thing, so that it often makes a man do what he must regret.4 [14] Moreover, when the horse is shy of anything and will not come near it, you should teach him that there is nothing to be afraid of, either with the help of a plucky horse--which is the surest way--or else by touching the object that looks alarming yourself, and gently leading the horse up to it. [15] To force him with blows only increases his terror; for when horses feel pain in such a predicament, they think that this too is caused by the thing at which they shy.

AND

[9] Washing down of the legs we disapprove of; it does no good, and the hoofs are injured by being wetted every day. Excessive cleaning under the belly also should be diminished; for this worries the horse very much, and the cleaner these parts are, the more they collect under the belly things offensive to it;4 [10] and notwithstanding all the pains that may be taken with these parts, the horse is no sooner led out than he looks much the same as an unwashed animal. So these operations should be omitted; and as for the rubbing of the legs, it is enough to do it with the bare hands.
Xenophon. Xenophon in Seven Volumes, 7. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; William Heinemann, Ltd., London. 1984

So as you can see by reading the first exert it is quite similar to what we do today. The second one contradicts what we do but you can kind of see the reasoning he had for it. For example, he mentions grooming under the horse's belly bothers them. I have also found that quite a few horses do not like being groomed under their belly, so by studying their body language that is most likely how he came to that conclusion. And everyone knows that one of the most important thing with communicating with your horse is studying their body language and getting to know how they say different things using their body. I got this from the citing in bold. If you ever get a chance I recommend reading The Art of Horsemanship. There are a few things that are different, like I said, but since he did not know everything we learnt today from science and such you can see where his ideas were coming from once you analyze it a bit.

Enjoy!=)

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Barbara Fogler Permalink Reply by Barbara Fogler on March 20, 2008 at 8:13pm
Thank you so much for posting this. I guess the truth is timeless - We certainly have no right to ever deal with our horses in anger.

Interestingly, as far as the second paragraph, my horse hates it when I clean under his belly so I rarely do so (only in the girth area).

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slc2 Permalink Reply by slc2 on July 3, 2008 at 5:20pm
It definitely shows one thing - horsemen have carried around those arbitrary opinions for a very long time!

The horse's belly needs to be cleaned and checked just like any other area of skin. of course horses need to be trained and accustomed to having a groom do that.

Many old fashioned British riders will say the same, and in a humid climate washing the hooves and legs may result in them staying eternally damp and encouraging fungal infections. In other climates it is not a problem, it's also not a problem if one dries the legs off. Towels were perhaps in short supply while Xenophon was around.

There has also long been a group that was deeply convinced that washing the legs caused scratches (dermatitis). It does not. In fact, it is more likely to be encouraged by not washing the legs.

Xenophon's books are often held up as the foundation of dressage, and despite having some similar sounding training comments I think that is a huge stretch. There's something in us that so dearly wants our pursuits to be made more noble by making them more ancient ;)

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Barbara Fogler Permalink Reply by Barbara Fogler on July 3, 2008 at 5:32pm
That's interesting about the legs. One summer I was with a trainer who clipped the hind legs and washed them after every ride. That year my horse had terrible scurf. After that I never clipped the legs in summer again and although I do wash them (my horse has a bath after every ride, as he is sweaty), he has never had scurf again. I also leave a bit of feathering to protect his heels and some short whiskers even though he is a show horse.

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