[Kel Rekuta]

I've heard it said that warhorses were trained to knock down straw mannequins as part of their training. It is also alluded to in numerous books. However, I can't find a single footnoted reference to this practice.

Is this myth or historical fact?

[Peter Bosman]

Dom Duarte has written (1438) a true masterpiece about knightly horse riding.
He adresses the best course of action in a melee and is VERY adamant that the rider should avoid the horse becoming unbalanced or loose momentum. The best and safest tactic is to ride cleanly through and back, etcetera.

Trampling seems to ME as a rider an unwise thing to attempt and I conclude the same from Duarte as a knight. I would be risky and not at all that sure to eliminate anybody. Better ride past fast and hack away using the kinetic energy of axe, hammer, morgenstern, goedendag or whatever.
I am pretty sure deliberate trampling was not a common tactic.

I am expecting a copy of an arabic 14th century cavalry training manual and that may shine a different light.

HC

[Lafayette C Curtis]

And of course, it's better still to break the enemy's morale so that by the time you reached him he's running away from you and you can stab or hack him in the back at your leisure. In my opinion, that would have been the most common method of heavy cavalry employment.

[Shawn Shaw]

He said "knocking down" straw mannequins-nothing there about trampling. A horse's natural instincts would be to avoid bowling people over-the horse would rather go around. So, I would assume that some sort of training would have to occur to accustom a horse to charging INTO things (i.e. people) instead of trying to go around them (which would cause all kinds of havoc in a charge).

So, given that assumption, straw mannequins seem a reasonable choice for a training target.

[Gordon Frye]

Gervaise Markham in his book of 1623 on horsemanship (trying to remember the exact name of it now... something like "Instructions to the Young Horseman" or some such. I'll have to go dig it up) discusses such things, though I don't recall specifically a straw man. I'll have to look it up for you this afternoon if I can.

His method of training is quite "modern" by most standards, as he suggests a number of things to calm the animal, and to encourage him in the training with treats and praise rather than with any sort of punishments. His suggestion for getting horses used to the sound of drums (which believe me, are a LOT scarier to a horse than gunfire!) is to put peas on the drumhead and allow the horse to eat them off of it, and gradually work up to banging on the drum while giving the horse treats. Likewise with armour, a suit is put up for the horse to sniff, push over and even step (yup, step on) on to get him used to the idea. For firearms training, it is recommended to put some feed down for the horse, and then have, at some distance, someone begin shooting and gradually move closer, all the while continuing to allow the horse to feed. Not much different from US Army, or British Army training manuals of the 19th Century.

Anyway, a very enlightened book for the era. I'll check the title out, and also the specifics of training for war.

Cheers!

Gordon

[Peter Bosman]

[Peter Bosman]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Gordon Frye]

[Gordon Frye]

Kel;

I finally got a chance to go through my Markham book again, and discovered a few interesting things. First, the proper title is "Cavalarice, or The English Horseman", and it wasn't printed in 1623, just sold then. The original printing date was 1607, which is pretty cool. Secondly, I didn't find any reference to using a "Straw Man" to knock down. However, I did find this:

"...(W)hen you come to the riding place, you shall there have an image made like a man, and armed at all peeces, from heade to foote: To this image you shall trott and first making your horse smell thereto, you shall then trott about it, as ever as you pace or trott about it, you shall strike upon it with your sworde, making the armour sounde and ring in the horses eares, your self ever cherishing and encouraging your horse in all his excesses."

I'll keep digging into this though, you've gotten my interest up!

Allons!

Gordon

[Peter Bosman]

[Joep Klijs]

Some breeds of horses do not have to be trained to knock down (even fully armoured) men! I have noticed various times that the actual breed of horse used by the medieval knight is a matter of some debate. Some modern jousters have a preference for the smaller, faster and more agile breeds and argue that this has to be the breed that was used for jousting.
Contrary to my limited experience in WMA, I started riding horses at the age of 6. In the region that I come from we have an affection for the heavier breeds of horses (something akin to what Americans know as Clydesdales). In my opinion these have a number of advantages over ¨normal¨ breeds.
Apart from the obvious advantage of added mass and power they are almost fearless and enjoy working for their master. If you equip these horses with barding it is literally like riding a small tank. And a formation of just a couple of these beasts causes vibrations that resemble a miniature earthquake.
If you take several hundred of these horses and direct them at full speed towards an enemy formation, they will probable have knocked down several lines before even noticing that they hit something.

[Vincent Le Chevalier]

On this subject of horse training, I was quite impressed by a documentary I watched a few years ago about Mario Luraschi, a french horse stunt specialist.

He was speaking about training the horses for stunts such as jumping through a stained-glass window, etc. I remember him saying that not all horses were able to do that, but that "a good war-horse will do whatever I tell it to. If I rush forward in an obstacle, it doesn't know whether it is glass, or paper, or concrete. A good war-horse will kill itself crashing into a wall if I say so. It trusts me completely." (it may not be the exact words, but I think it was the idea).

To achieve this, he was specifically training horses to jump through sheets of paper with a small opening, getting smaller and smaller with each try. Then through a sheet of paper without any opening, and finally through glass and stained glass.

In this light, I can see the use of training a horse to knock straw dummies. There were certainly cases where horses were used to break open a relatively thin line of opponents, and this could require a training because it's not something the horses do naturally (as far as I know, which is not much...). This requires that the horse obeys the rider without hesitation.

I still remember this documentary because I was amazed to see what he could get his horses to do without any violence or constraints. It was really enlightening to see sequences of training as well...

Of course, he is not a warrior so the goals are different, but I do think he is extremely knowledgeable in horses, and since this sequence was related to the discussion I thought I'd mention it.

Regards

[Lafayette C Curtis]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

That's certainly an interesting post, Vincent. As a matter of fact, it reminds me that I've seen a glimpse of a manual describing how to train horses to charge a line of men by having it charge through the space between two wooden dummies and then reducing the space until the gap is just barely large enough to let the horse through. This comes from a 19th-century manual, however, so I'm not sure about how applicable it would be to earlier periods. And nowhere did it advise the horseman to drive the horse into the straw dummy.

As for battle accounts, Winston Churchill's account of the battle of Omdurman is worth mentioning. There, he described two squadrons of British lancers charging clearly through a loose line of Mahdist riflemen about three or four ranks deep. Neither side was broken, and the Lancers ended up dismounting on the far side of the Mahdist formation and tearing it apart with point-blank fire from their carbines. However, at one end of the line another squadron met a much deeper line of infantry (eight, ten, or twenty deep--I don't remember precisely) and was practically annihilated.

Other possible instances of cavalry breaking into infantry lines were the 16th-century battles of Ceresole and Dreux, where French gendarmes broke into the corner of pike squares and cut their way through to the other side, though they did little real damage along the way and at Ceresole they suffered horrible casualties in doing so. But then, these gendarmes were the most heavily-armored cavalry ever if we take account of both men and horses, so there might have been several unique factors in action.

[Peter Bosman]

[Randall Moffett]

There is in artworl often images of horses kicking and biting people too. I know people who have been kicked, I imagine in the middle of a battle that could be quite useful.
I had a cousin who worled as a horse trainer and think it would be more than probably that some of these animals could be quite formidable. I imagine they are paying literally a good chunk of their income on war horses because they are NOT normal horses just from riding around on the field or off. What a normal horse now adays is capable of is totally besides the point but still some are quite violent to start with, although from what I have seen the smaller breeds are more agressive typically, the larger tend to be nicer but make no mistake they can be trained to run at solid objects, I assume a straw man would be possible (thought I have never trained one too). It take months to train horses for the joust as they do not like to run toward the barrier,other horse or rider but it can be done. I think Andrew Ayton has something on thisin one of his books,

RPM

[Gordon Frye]

I do believe that most of the posters have touched on this, but it hasn'te quite jelled yet: that is that some horses have a natural affinity for doing certain things, and others other things. One finds the proper animals (usually from the same line, though during the era under discussion they didn't have actual "breeds" as we know them) and goes from there.

Randall mentioned that it takes time to train a good joust horse. Well, usually, this is true. But I lucked into a wonderful horse: big, sweet tempered and yet fearless, who took to it like a duck to water. I started him out by getting him used to the quintain, and having my wife ride my old warhorse and smack it while I stood with the new boy to the side. He was so unimpressed with the noise that he just dropped his head and looked for some grass to munch on. And so on through his training. He's now the horse that ANYONE can use for jousting, though I tend to be jealous of him, and keep him for myself. (They can go buy their own! )

On the other hand, my pard has a gorgeous Percheron who we're still working with after a year of practice. He can do it, but he sure doesn't care much for it, and gets pretty spun up, too. Funny thing, this one doesn't mind gunfire at all, whereas my horse isn't really pleased by it at all. Oh well, different strokes and all...

Anyway, most of the treatises I've read definitely suggest starting with a horse that, obviously, has good confirmation, but also rather enjoys contact (rather like a good polo pony), is fearless (or at least can have his fears overcome) and can learn to trust you. At that point, you've got a warhorse in the making.

Peter: are you reading Dom Duarte in the original, or in a translation? And if so, then to which language? I understand that the latest English translation still leaves something to be desired.

Cheers!

Gordon

[Peter Bosman]

[Gordon Frye]