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Tonight, he came as usual for night check and our fifth and last feeding of the day, but he stayed with me. We were both watching the moon and his thoughts was on Edgar Mitchell. He was Apollo 14 astronaut and died today. “A man on the moon watching the earth must have a totally different perception of life. I like what Edgar Mitchell wrote. At a lower scale, this is what happens to us when we became older. The values of our youth are ephemeral, crippling a horse for our frenzy to win is a pathetic failure. We step on peoples toes and horses’ toes driven by our success and never really know the peoples we use and the horses we use. We believe in these pathetic values because the system cultivates our dumbness. Magazine feed us with articles for 6th grade and our brain does not develop beyond such level. Then we start to judge at this level. We judge because we are not educated enough to think. We judge your reactions in respect of our stereotypes because we do not have enough knowledge to understand your reactions. We judge and punish because our ego overwhelms our intelligence and instead of facing the guilt of our ignorance, we accuse you, horses, for not being capable to guess what we are incapable to explain.

I am happy to still have the physical capacity to ride you at seventy years old. I would have been able to ride you physically when I was younger but I would not have been intelligent enough to understand your intelligence. I would have expected you to submit, surrender, join, obey and all these moronic psychologies that are sell in and out the round pens. Even if I had survived your explosive defensive reactions, I would have miss understanding your intelligence and the extraordinary heart that you cover with your highly creative moves. You are a genetic explosion. One super star after the other is in your genealogic tree and you took the best and the worse of all of them. You are too much, too intelligent, to tall, too strong, too spirited, too powerful, too explosive, too intense and yet marvelous. You force me to stay on the cutting edge of science and psychology and riding technique. But above all, you make me realize that you are what every other horses are. You just push everything at the extreme. You could not have survived with traditional training approaches, whatever they are named natural horsemanship or classical. In fact, riders limited to these training techniques and psychologies would not have survived either.  And yet, you are what every other horses are. They surrender, they submit, they give up, the turn off their brain and even their spirit because they have to survive. The difference with you is that you do not surrender, or submit, or give up. You fight back and since you know that you have the power to do it, you fight to win. You don’t test the rider or handler; you get rid of him.

As humans we are slaves of a few very rich peoples. We should have been able to create a feeding system that would not need killing every other species. We have the technology for electric car, solar panels, that would free us form the dependency of oil but the few that benefit from oil keep the world in the slavery of dirty energy, which in turn sponsor terrorism. The same dirty aspect of human nature directs our relation with you. We are the dictators and you are the slaves and we miss your marvelous intelligence, sensitivity, willingness. We miss true love, true friendship, true partnership. We miss a refinement of our senses that you horses, dogs, and many animals are ready to teach us if we are intelligent enough to listen.

It is an absolute pleasure riding you because we communicate at the level of energy. There are no aids, in fact sitting on your back, the concepts of “proper aids” appears as far that the earth appeared to Edgard Mitchell when he was on the moon. Of course we communicate through body language but instead of gestures it is a control of energy that is leading your brain toward the coordination of your physique optimally orchestrated for the gait or the performance. In fact when your mental processing lead you to the right coordination, you execute the move and I don’t have to add anything. You know what I am asking and you tell me that your body is not ready. We start then a conversation about progressive coordination of your physique. Instinctively you protect your body, you have also to deal with the damages that abuses on the racetrack created on your back. Together we go through that and it is so powerful, so rich and yet so subtle and so intelligent.

Every horses deserve this equitation and most riders are capable to evolve at this level, but the system, exactly like the politics, has interest to keep the equestrian education at a dumb level. The ignorance of many gives power to a few. Most horses survive, because they submit, they surrender allowing riders and trainers to believe that they know all. With you, I don’t have the luxury to make much errors and what you teach greatly enhance the education of others. You are the best teacher I ever had. A little hard sometime, highly creative other times but it is an absolute delight to ride you as well as being with you. I know that we have reciprocal affection. You have a large field all for you and you stay here next to me listening to my thoughts.” I was speechless.

Chazot & Jean Luc Cornille