Anuario Raza Polo Argentino Anuario2018 | Page 224

The Latest Thing,
the Classical Method
By Dr. Mariano F. Grondona
Many kinds of courses, videos, clinics, articles on
different types of break-in put forward by great
masters on these subjects have appeared on the
scene lately fostered very often by this Associa-
tion. There are Western-type methods; Brazillian;
Indian; rational; criollo; join-up; Australian and
variations and sub-variations of each one, all roa-
ming around Argentina.
Mariano F. Grondona. In the photo beside Spanish Riding
School Instructor
222
This diversity of schools most likely brings with it
richness for breeders and tamers but it may also
contribute a certain amount of confusion to a task
that boasted a traditional criollo method which is
currently being replaced. The traditional method
of tethering to a post and gagging lower jaw and
chops used by Don Segundo Sombra and which
we were all familiar with in Argentina, is becoming
obsolete, and for the moment no other dominant
method has prevailed to replace it.
That is why, within this uncertain scenario, I think
it useful to resort to classical break-in, which ori-
ginated in Xenophon and which then had its re-
naissance in Italy and different parts of Europe
during the XVIth. Century, as we are told by Alois
Podhajsky in his magnificent book “The Complete
Training of Horse and Rider”. This author was for
many years Director of the Spanish Riding School
in Vienna, an institution that has maintained the
principles of classical break-in unaltered for over
four centuries, and which today is the best exam-
ple, as we may see in presentations that week af-
ter week are performed by its white stallions, with
the magnificent Vienna background.
The principles of classical break-in may be found
in the above mentioned book by Podhajsky, as well
as in so many other works by authors who throug-
hout the centuries have upheld these methods. It
is, therefore, a concept which we may easily find