ECOLE DE CAVALERIE CONTENANT LA CONNOISSANCE, L'INSTRUCTION ET LA CONSERVATION DU CHEVALFrançois Robichon de La Guérinière, 1733 DE LA GUÉRINIÈRE, Francois Robichon (1688-1751). Ecole de cavalerie contenant la connoissance, l'instruction et la conservation du cheval. Paris: Jacques Collombat, 1733. First folio edition of one of the most beautiful French equestrian books. The splendid engraved additional title by Cars after Parrocel depicts the education of Achilles by the centaur Chiron. De La Guérinière was the Equerry to Louis XIV and a major influence on horse training, riding practice, and dressage. Illustrations include plans and diagrams, anatomical and medical images, and portraits of the author's most distinguished students, and a skeleton horse $2,000-4,000
PUBLISHER'S PROFILE: François Robichon de La Guérinière (1688–1751) was a towering figure in the history of equestrian art, born in Essay, Normandy, France, whose extraordinary gifts as a horseman, teacher, and scholar would reshape the entire discipline of classical riding for centuries to come. Trained in the finest traditions of French horsemanship, he rose to become one of the most celebrated riding masters of his era, ultimately earning the prestigious appointment of director of the Royal Académie des Tuileries in Paris — the most distinguished equestrian academy in France — where he served under royal patronage as *Écuyer du Roy*, or Squire to the King. Throughout his career, de La Guérinière was driven by a deeply held philosophical conviction that true horsemanship must be founded upon harmony, lightness, and a profound respect for the horse's natural movement and intelligence, standing in deliberate contrast to the more forceful methods practiced by some of his contemporaries. His genius lay not only in his masterful practical skill in the saddle, but in his remarkable ability to observe, analyze, and articulate the principles of horse training with scientific precision and elegant clarity, culminating in the publication of his landmark 1733 treatise *École de Cavalerie*, a work so comprehensive and insightful that it immediately became — and has remained — the definitive text of classical dressage. Among his most enduring contributions to equitation was the codification of the *shoulder-in*, a lateral movement he identified as the foundational exercise for developing suppleness, balance, and collection in the horse, a principle universally accepted to this day. His profound legacy lives on most visibly at the **Spanish Riding School of Vienna**, where his methods have been practiced without interruption for nearly three centuries, ensuring that François Robichon de La Guérinière is justly remembered as the father of modern dressage and one of the greatest equestrian minds the world has ever known.
