Dressage in the French Tradition

Nuno Oliveira said of the author: “ I have the honor to declare that Dom Diogo de Bragança has been one of my best students and that I consider him as one of the rare riders I know who is capable of taking on the greatest difficulties of Equestrian Art with the greatest finesse.” Dom Diogo de Bragança, an eclectic mind who studied languages, music composition and law, is one of the great equestrian figures of our time. His technique was built on a long apprenticeship with Master Nuno Oliveira (of whom he was one of the first students), which resulted in a natural horsemanship, full of tact and sensitivity. He acquired an amazing equestrian culture through the many books he studied in French and Portuguese and kept applying the theories he researched on the numerous horses he successfully trained. His vast experience and spirit of observation allowed him to present in this seminal book a complete analysis of the goals and methods of French dressage. It resulted in a unique synthesis that is destined to remain an authoritative text on this fascinating subject. Beyond revising the original 1976 text, Dom Diogo has added to this edition, a chapter on the specialized dressage for bullfighting, a form of horsemanship in which the horse, while flirting with the gravest danger, “offers us a breathtaking spectacle of beauty, precision, and brilliance.” Dressage in the French Tradition is a reference for the understanding of classical dressage in which the horse, ridden with the greatest impulsion and lightness, displays his maximum activity in response to the minimum effort of the rider. English translation by Michael L. M. Fletcher of L’Équitation de Tradition Française, 2nd edition, Belin, Paris, 2005, a re-edited, corrected and augmented version of the book that was first published inFrance in 1976 by Odège. It has had numerous editions in Portugal, the homeland of the author.