Bent Branderup - master of Academic Equitation

Salve,
for some time I have been watching and reading about Bent Branderup, who has been trying to bring back from oblivion  the Academic Equitation, as this art was practiced in Europe before the French Revolution.

Here there is his new video, along with other training videos, on horse breeding and art of riding - I find it quite on point, thus I am sharing it with you on this blog.

This is Bent's website. Perhaps I will take some time to participate in one of his clinics in the coming year or so.
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Here a painting by Jozef Brant showing Stefan Czarniecki on his spotted horse..

By the way I have had this thought that Danish spotted horses originated with the visit of Polish allied forces in 1657 when the Stefan Czarniecki's division came to Denmark then under the assault by the Swedish armies. Jan Chrysostom Pasek, companion cavalryman in Czarniecki's Division, described with great detail his Denmark experience in his Memories
By the way, famous  Marechal Raimondo Montecuccoli, commander of Imperial forces in the northern theater of war, was also there, as he campaigned with Polish forces in Poland and later in Denmark, and he learned a bit about Polish lancers, especially the winged hussars,as there were 3 winged hussar banner there. After bulk of the division left about a 1000 cavalrymen (10 plus banners) stayed in Denmark under the command of rotmistrz Kazimierz Piaseczyński, who  died bravely leading the victorious cavalry charge at the battle of Nyborg.

There must have been at least 15,000 to 30,000 Polish horses that came to Denmark in the Lord's year of 1659. Our ancestors favored spotted horses as well as  unusual colors in horses, plus they had large percentage of Turkish, Tatar and Hungarian horses. Since Polish soldiers rode mostly stallions and geldings (but baggage train had also mares and colts and fillies), thus these Polish horses must have bred with Danish mares on large scale and quite freely, especially since. Foaling seasons of 1660 and 1661 must have brought many interesting horses in the Danish horse herds.

  Here there is a famous painting be Jozef Brandt describing the swim of Polish horses across the sea (some 500 meters) onto the island of Als in December of  1658.  And below Juliusz Kossak's vision of that freezing swim

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