The equestrian community lost two of the greats recently: Bettina Drummond and Charles De Kunffy. They were the type of classical dressage masters who spoke out against the direction modern dressage is going, with sport, entertainment, and financial aspects pushing horses further and faster in their training.
I heard their critiques and felt the metaphor flood out across all aspects of society. We want everything bigger, tastier, quicker, easier, and most of all cheaper.
To Drummond and De Kunffy, dressage is an art form. One that merits not only hours of education in the saddle, but an academic understanding of the horse and the discipline.
It made me think of the Karate Kid. He was a punk teenager frustrated with the mundane and repetitive “wax-on wax-off" tasks the master expected of him, until suddenly it all came together, and he was experiencing the movements of martial arts.
In our society of click bait, slap chop, uber eats, and quick fixes, I fear we are losing our capacity for deep, focused, and meaningful mastery of the arts.
I recently sat with Nicholas Werstiuk, mayor of Glendon, and listened to him speak about the importance of their new historical society building and about how sitting with elders and collecting their stories is urgent, as we may not have them for much longer.
Within a month, two of my favorite dressage masters passed away before I got the chance to meet them.
As we lose more masters, opportunities to receive their teachings become even more difficult than they already are. I thank the stars that many recordings and books have preserved their teachings, as static as they are, and I commend the disciples for picking up the torch.
The amount of inspiring trainers and coaches across all disciplines who are teaching and embodying classical philosophies and continuing to explore, finesse, and experiment in the pursuit of empathetic mastery make me hopeful for more than just the equestrian community.
What I loved most about Drummond and De Kunffy was that they were ambassadors for the horse. The beautiful way they spoke about horses will never leave me. They changed the way I look at horses, and helped opened my eyes to another more harmonious way of training – that is mine to keep. That is a diamond heirloom.
