16 moments that changed our world

From Xenophon to Charlotte Dujardin, the Byerley Turk to artificial insemination, Pippa Cuckson charts equestrianism’s watershed moments

- 

CIRCA 431-354BC, XENOPHON

THE Ancient Greeks — who had already developed shoeing — realized they would do better in battle by developing trust with their horses.

Turning on a drachma or galloping from a standing start were taught by patience, repetition, and reward. They also understood the benefits of balance and light rein contact. Xenophon, a student of Socrates, recorded the system in his seminal tome On Horsemanship.

Enlightened riding — besides many other things — sunk without trace in the Dark Ages. Xenophon’s philosophy, if not necessarily all his techniques, was revived in the Renaissance, most famously at the Spanish Riding School of Vienna, founded in 1565.

1598, CARLO RUINI’S ANATOMIA DEL CAVALLO (ANATOMY OF A HORSE) PUBLISHED IN BOLOGNA

DESPITE Ruini’s absence of formal training, his Anatomia del Cavallo was a milestone for veterinary knowledge. Its woodcut images were plagiarised for decades.

A century and a half later, British portrait artist George Stubbs commenced his own program of equine dissection, a practice far from generally accepted in his lifetime. Over 18 months he peeled away layers, sketching the animals at every angle and every stage.

Stubbs’ The Anatomy of the Horse, published in 1766, was another groundbreaking contribution to equine science. This systematic study is based on his dissections.

C1680, FOALING OF THE BYERLEY TURK

HIS birth was quickly followed by those of the Darley Arabian (c1700) and the Godolphin Barb (or Arabian) (c1724), the trio becoming the thoroughbred breed’s founding sires.