Whether the moors included pre-Hellenistic Persians would be the crux of this statement, as typically that refers specifically to Islamic invaders almost a thousand years later whose architecture and culture influenced Iberian penninsula, and not to the whole African continent.
Breeding and horsemanship were also separate, as the modern school that survives today came via Grisone, Pignatelli, de Pluvinel, and eventually l'Hotte & Baucher, with not a lot of written innovation since. These are all european. However, to dresser means to be arranged and fit for a purpose, and arabian stock are used for arabian purposes. (https://youtu.be/D89RO-5oSeM?feature=shared) Personally, I prefer to ride.
True, but it's evening here so I'm done riding for the day.
What sort of riding do you do? My three main interests are (a) will the horse crowd other stock under pressure, (b) how quickly can it roll back*, and only then (c) top speed.
I am not saying moors included persians; I am saying Bennett's hypothesis was that the vaquero style of riding in california came via spain, the moors, and the arabs, from persia (and maybe they got it from Kikkuli?). Naturally anything that passed along the south of the Med would also have travelled along the north as well.
What you are calling arabian purposes in that video is called a "halter class" for any breed; you can even find halter QHs which bear the same resemblance to working cow horses that show dogs have to working dogs.
see also https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_parure_des_cavaliers_et_l%2... ; I don't read arabic so I'm much more familiar with the authors you mentioned (in particular Pluvinel, de La Guérinière, and some englishman in exile whose name I forget; Baucher I find worthless: he himself was obviously talented, but he never developed a method, as none of his students reproduced his results) than with any of the arabic literature, eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furusiyya .
Consider that if the iberian cavalry had been superior to moorish cavalry, the Reconquista would not have taken ~750 years.
If you want I'll try to dig up the reference, but one of Napoleon's cavalry generals during the Egypt campaign said something like "3 of them can take 10 of us, but 100 vs 100 is an even match, and 300 of us can take 1'000 of them", so I think he admired their individual horsemanship, while acknowledging the advantage of european unit discipline in larger formations. The french would later get outdone at this by the prussians, who took minimal trooper skill, maximal unit effectiveness to its logical conclusion in the Franco-Prussian War.
Maybe something we can agree upon is that lusitanian/iberian riding has some unique features (from wherever they arose) because of the nature of extensive, pastoral, cattle herding?
* > "By the Blue Gums of the Back Blocks," snorted the troop-horse, "do you mean to say that you aren't taught to be bridle-wise in your business? How can you do anything, unless you can spin round at once when the rein is pressed on your neck? It means life or death to your man, and of course that's life and death to you. Get round with your hind legs under you the instant you feel the rein on your neck. If you haven't room to swing round, rear up a little and come round on your hind legs. That's being bridle-wise."
the riding i do is mainly portuguese, working equitation and related classical stuff. Iberian horsemanship is formed and preserved in mounted bullfighting, which itself is ancient. The riding is the art in a ritual that dignifies the nature of the animal and the participants. Lisbon is older than Rome, they say, and this is why I'd say european horsemandship via bullfighting does not have an islamic origin. There are apparently references to fighting aurochs and the ritual of the corrida is so old the hebrew aleph symbol is apparently a reference to them, it's a deep history.
Cool, why didn't you say the mestre was redundant? Sounds like we have similar interests; if you want to chat, feel free to drop by anytime.
Mounted bullfighting as currently practised is unfortunately an asymmetric game: the bull is a rank amateur[0], but the cavaleiro tauromaquico is an experienced professional (and furthermore has remounts). I always felt a better way to preserve the art —and it is an art!— of rejoneo would be to play a symmetric game: matching mounted pairs against each other[1].
As for the bull, retiring from the match might be sad for the toristas[2], and I guess if you're going to wind up on a plate anyway it might be going out in style, but I'm pretty sure the bulls themselves might argue they have less stressful ways to spend their days.
[0] Goya may beg to differ with me on this point.
[1] If you'd like to try this, please don't surprise me: do it properly and have your second get in touch with mine :-)
[2] I am a torista myself, because we are all the toro:
- we can't win
- we can't break even
- we can't even quit the game
so the best we can hope for is keep our heads high and an obol in the pocket:
It's the white in his knuckles
The gold in his buckle
Breeding and horsemanship were also separate, as the modern school that survives today came via Grisone, Pignatelli, de Pluvinel, and eventually l'Hotte & Baucher, with not a lot of written innovation since. These are all european. However, to dresser means to be arranged and fit for a purpose, and arabian stock are used for arabian purposes. (https://youtu.be/D89RO-5oSeM?feature=shared) Personally, I prefer to ride.