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group of 37 of France’s finest riding masters. They
train and mentor other top riders to become teachers
throughout France, and some compete in dressage at
Olympic level. What they’re best known for, however,
are their spectacular equestrian feats. Performing
around the world, their shows are packed with tricks
that are literally leaps and bounds above what most
horses and riders can do.
Anyone can book a tour of the Saumur centre, 150km
west from Nantes, and see one of the regular shows,
but what makes my experience unique is the chance
to actually ride one of these graceful creatures. For
a horse lover, this is a thrilling experience and I love
every minute of it – even though we never exceed a trot.
As I dismount and hand the reins back to Laozi
d’Orion’s rider, I soak up the atmosphere of the
school. Behind the stiff, black uniforms and frowns of
concentration, the riding masters embody decades of
accumulated discipline and expertise. They’re a living
heritage that started as a means to protect a nation
and became a symbol of its sporting prowess.
During the Napoleonic Wars, France’s main defence,
its cavalry, was decimated. To protect the country’s
future, the military had to pick itself up and get
back in the saddle, so it turned to France’s top riding
schools – Versailles, St Germain and the Tuileries – for
help. Horses and riders who had previously striven
to impress the French monarchs with their equine
showmanship were hand-picked for a new life, based
in Saumur in the Loire Valley.
The focus of these soldiers’ training would be the
haute école
(high school), honing their horses’ natural
kicking and jumping abilities into movements that
could help the cavalry outwit the enemy in battle. This
classical training includes the
courbette
, rearing up on
the hind legs; the
croupade
, in which the horse jumps
straight up with all four legs off the ground; and the
hugely impressive
capriole
, jumping off the ground
and kicking out with the back legs.
The school opened in 1828 and the Cadre Noir was
born. As a symbol of the riding masters’ responsibilities,
they were kitted out in black (noir), rather than the blue
of their pupils. For more than a century, this elite corps
was the pride of the French military. Then, after World
War II, the cavalry was fazed out, but it wasn’t over for
the Cadre Noir. The elite troop found a new arena when,
in 1972, it joined up with France’s National Horse
Riding School to tap into the growing popularity of
recreational and sports riding.
The Saumur centre is not the only riding centre in
Europe that still practises and teaches the haute école
– in fact, there are four. The Spanish Riding School
in Vienna – the name comes from the Spanish origin
of the Lipizzaner horse it breeds and trains – is also
from a military background, but it’s better known
PHOTOS © CORBIS, GETTY
The journey to become a
CadreNoir ridingmaster
is an arduous one