July 2007 • VOLUME 23 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine

Losing The Knowledge of the Centuries
Beyond Their Own Time

One of the common themes when I talk to horseman after horseman, is the fear of what is going to happen in the next 10 to 20 years. We have seen a deterioration over the past 20 to 30 years, with the loss of the major schools. We have been lucky that we still have living amongst us Masters who have a true understanding of the incredibly rich history of our equestrian past. But these are Masters who will not be with us much longer. And when we look around they are not young and there is a real fear that there is not another generation to step in behind them.

One might want to argue, stating - well what about so and so, and others? Well yes, we are still blessed with having some very dear and special horsemen and horsewomen among us. But they are just too few. Too few to teach all of us. Leaving a huge gap.

This is the common conversation that I often find myself in, when I talk to trainers and instructors all over the world. It strikes a common fear in all of us. Perhaps that is the reason we so often see such a positive response from instructors and trainers when we contact them about contributing to the magazine. Incredibly knowledgeable people being more concerned about the world losing this knowledge forever, than they are about any return to themselves. A true humbleness of spirit - a very rare commodity. The generosity sometimes is literally overwhelming, to think of all that they are giving with no expectation of return. They are looking beyond themselves, beyond their own country, and beyond their own time.

They see past themselves into the far distant past into the generations and generations, the centuries and centuries of the accumulated and rich knowledge that so many horsemen have contributed to, and they seem to be driven to doing all they can, to see some of that continue.

There is an almost stomach-churning fear of what is going to happen in the not-so-distant future. They see that this is our last opportunity to try to grasp the knowledge that seems to be quickly flittering away as if on sky breezes. A common refrain, we need to put together resources where we can accumulate the knowledge of the Masters, past and present, to ensure that the generations that are to follow us are not robbed of what we have been so lucky to have.

How many people out there, for example, have videos and film that is stored away and only brought out to share with their own personal friends or students? Many people do not realize that whether it is played or not, those films and VHS tapes continue to deteriorate until the point where they will not be able to be seen by anybody if they are not saved now. It is important to take any material that you think you have and to make copies of it, hopefully including an alternative form such as onto CDs or DVDs or onto archival paper to ensure that the photos and films that you currently have will not be lost forevermore. But when we save this material we also need to be aware how limited some of those sources may be. DVDs have a longer shelf life than CDs. And re-writables have a shorter life span than disks that can only be written to once. How long seems to be a matter of debate, with a very wide difference between the time given.

One of the driving reasons to start the magazine was to create such a resource center. With the ability to put a magazine online, not only would that give us the opportunity to reach out to people monthly, but also to take each issue of the magazine and keep that in an archival form so that each issue in essence, filled with photos and film articles, becomes its own resource center. This issue is our 23rd edition of Horses For LIFE. We have begun to put together an incredible resource of information with the editions we have put out to date and we are just beginning.

Normally, when a magazine puts out each edition, those editions only have a certain shelf life. And readers who come to the magazine later on will end up missing the information that has already been put out in a previous edition. Actually, I think many magazines actually like this, as this gives them the ability to discuss the same thing again and again through the years, just rewording the same ideas or concepts.

Going online we can keep all past editions available, adding each new one to a growing resource center, making it available instantly to equestrians right across the globe.

Another reason we decided to start a magazine in the format that we have, is because we became aware of a very disturbing trend. One where there is a privileged few that get to see video and other material that no one else gets to see. This first came to my attention with material of Nuno Oliveira. Many would say that Nuno Oliveira was THE Master of the last century. Unfortunately, in the English-speaking world, because of politics and a few people's personalities, currently the only resource in English that was available on this amazing man is the one textbook called Reflections.

This does not mean that there are no other English texts available on this amazing man. There were several. There was even a video at one time that is no longer available to the public. It is an equestrian tragedy when we know that certain people have access to video and text while the rest don’t even know it exists. A literal equestrian's underground black market has come about where people in the know privately pass on these snippets of video tape and photocopies of the text that were at one time freely available for anyone to purchase. That is not to even begin to discuss the video that was never published.

These incredible resources are things that should be made available to not just a few but to every equestrian who hungers within their soul for whatever morsel there is out there, to learn and educate themselves to a level that somehow their soul knows can be attained. To take away the one opportunity to visually, if only for a brief moment, see a Master at work, is a tragedy.

There are some who are concerned that the snippets of video that are available, show Nuno Oliveira from homemade movies working with horses that are not perfect. Horses who are in the midst of training. Horses that have come to him with problems. Horses that are having real difficulties that he is trying to work through. And that these pictures are not the perfect half pass, correct shoulder-in, or balanced piaffe. That these pictures may not show perfection, and some may not see within this work the brilliance and mastery that was his legacy. These are the only few small embers that we have left. Should these be denied to those who can see, because of those who can’t? Just on the off chance that they then will then say that Nuno was not a Master?

And this is not just true of this Master but many others. Lessons learned that should have been passed on, but will not be. If you have the opportunity to write down, take pictures or video, do so today. Tomorrow they may be gone. If you have material from the past, take advantage of the opportunity that technology has brought to us through the internet, and make it available to all equestrians, the same way you would like others to do the same for you.

We have lost more than we know already.

Something will be missing if we all don’t do all that we can to stem the tide.

In the past two years, we here at Horses For LIFE have been incredibly blessed. Blessed and privileged with the trust that has been given to us. With some very special people sharing of some very incredible resources. We here at Horses For LIFE are committed to continue to share those resources that are being entrusted to us. To preserve them for all.

Join us in our equestrians' quest.