Where to Start with Baucher
Who was François Baucher?
François Baucher (1796–1873), the 'genius of equitation', revolutionised riding.
A French instructor, trainer and circus rider, he was disgusted by the volume of horses wasted because of bad riding and an inability to work with the horse. He therefore developed a method that allowed any rider to work well with any horse and demonstrated his principles by bringing some very unlikely horses to the highest levels of training, including riding movements that had never been seen before, such as flying changes.
Ever the creative artist, Baucher experimented over the course of his life and the 13 editions of his method published while he was alive, but he remained faithful to the principles first published in his Dictionary of 1833 and the first edition of his method, published in 1842.
Baucher's ideas were fiercely debated in his lifetime and remain controversial today. Yet his influence is everywhere — in the work of students like Faverot de Kerbrech and General l'Hotte, students of his students who founded their own schools, like James Fillis, and all the way through to the modern era with riders like Nuno Oliveira, Philippe Karl and Manuel Jorge de Oliveira.
To study Baucher is to go to the heart of the question of what it is to ride well (and attempt to answer that question!).
Recommended Reading
1. Method of Riding Based on New Principles by François Baucher — Translated by Mangaiti Equine. Go straight to the source with this landmark text of classical dressage.
2. The Last Teachings of Baucher — Faverot de Kerbrech's account of Baucher's final methods, translated by Dressage Master Einar Schmit-Jensen.
3. Racinet Explains Baucher by Jean-Claude Racinet — The clearest modern introduction to Baucherism. Includes a translation of Baucher's second manner.
4. Another Horsemanship by Jean-Claude Racinet — A practical companion putting the principles of French lightness into everyday riding.
5. Riding in Release — A deeper understanding of lightness in practice.
6. French Equitation: A Baucherist in America by Henry de Bussigny — The science behind the method, from a French cavalry officer trained in the Baucher tradition.
Want a bit of historical context before you begin? Read on!
Baucher was born in 1793 and began his equestrian education, like his predecessors la Broue and Pluvinel, in Italy. This is the first in our series tracing the life and ideas of the most revolutionary figure in classical dressage.
In 1821, Baucher took charge of the riding school in Rouen (Normandy) which Franconi had founded — and found himself with only heavy Norman draft horses and English thoroughbreds to work with. It was here that he developed the method that would change equitation forever.
What prompted Baucher to write his Rational Dictionary of Equitation? Disappointed by the equestrian literature of his day, Baucher broke with all who preceded him and reinvented equitation — seeking a fundamental law from which all else would follow.
How did Baucher construct his theory of equitation? Starting from careful observation of the horse, Baucher developed his principle of principles: supple, place, and determine.
In 1834, Baucher returned to Paris and joined forces with Laurent Franconi to reopen the Cirque-Manège du Pecq — the beginning of an unfailing friendship between two masters of equitation.
In 1834, another important book appeared — a Treaty of Equitation, written by the Comte d'Aure. Where Baucher sought mastery through careful observation and rational method, d'Aure believed in riding by instinct. But what about the horse?