What is Doma Clássica?

Doma Clássica is the classical riding tradition of Portugal.

It belongs to the European classical tradition alongside schools such as the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, the Cadre Noir in Saumur and the Royal Andalusian School in Jerez.

I · A Classical School That Stayed in the Field¶

The Portuguese classical school remained closely connected to the cattle estates of the Ribatejo and the Alentejo, and to the mounted bullfight.

A horse that had to spin, halt and reposition around a live bull could not be heavy in the hand or slow to answer. The Portuguese school therefore prized a horse ridden from the seat, gathered onto its hindquarters and quick to answer.

The classical schooling therefore developed alongside the practical demands of working cattle and the mounted bullfight.

II · The Names and the School¶

The name of the Marquês de Marialva, Master of the Horse to the Portuguese court in the eighteenth century, still stands for the Portuguese manner of schooling. In the twentieth century Nuno Oliveira carried its emphasis on lightness to riders across the world.

It is held today by the Escola Portuguesa de Arte Equestre, the Portuguese School of Equestrian Art, which rides the Alter Real horses of the Coudelaria de Alter, the royal stud founded to serve the crown and its academy.

The school preserves the full classical repertoire: the collected and extended paces, the lateral work, and the ares altos, the airs above the ground.

III · What Working Equitation Took, and What It Did Not¶

The piaffe, passage and airs above the ground belong to the classical school and are not required in Working Equitation.

Working Equitation draws on the schooling beneath them: the lightness, the self-carriage, the horse ridden from the seat, and the training that makes a horse able to be ridden, in the end, with the reins in one hand.

IV · The Horse, the Saddle and the Dress¶

The Portuguese rider sits the sela portuguesa, the deep saddle with its high baroque cantle, on the Lusitano, and wears the traje à portuguesa.

The Lusitano and the Andalusian share an ancient Iberian heritage and the same aptitude for collection. Their studbooks were separated only in the twentieth century, when Portugal recorded its horse under the name Lusitano. The Portuguese line was kept especially close to the mounted work with cattle and the bull, and leans towards the quickness and close bravery that work demanded.

V · Doma Clássica in Working Equitation¶

You see that influence most clearly in Working Dressage, where the schooling of the horse is shown on the flat through a defined sequence of movements.

Ease of Handling then takes that schooling into the practical questions of the working field.

Doma Clássica is still practised in the classical schools and estates of Portugal, shown by the Escola Portuguesa de Arte Equestre, and kept alive in the ring of the traditional mounted bullfight, where the cavaleiro rides the Lusitano from the seat.

Read next Doma Vaquera, the working riding of Spain

VI · Knowing the Standard Is Only the Beginning¶

Doma Clássica helps explain where part of Working Equitation's standard came from. The Portuguese school prized balance, lightness, self-carriage and a horse that could remain available to the rider while the rein stayed quiet.

For College Members, understanding that inheritance is only the first pass.

The next question is what those qualities actually look like in the work. Two riders can complete the same movement correctly and still produce very different quality. The line can be there, the movement can be there and every required part can be completed, while the mark still sits at a 6 or 6.5. What changes as the work moves towards the 7s and 8s is what the horse and rider are able to carry through the movement.

This is one of the ways the College begins to make that difference visible. The figure keeps the movement the same and shows what changes as more quality is carried through it.

And it also shows where the study goes next.

Branch One gives Members the reference: the traditions, the horse, the Principles and the reasons the sport asks for what it does. Branch Two comes back to the same work from inside the riding and training, where horse and rider are developed together. Branch Three returns again with the competition in front of them.

Doma Clássica is therefore more than a piece of history to recognise. It gives the Member part of the standard first. The curriculum then comes back to that standard and starts asking how to produce it.