Many of us in the horse world have heard the name "Caprilli", especially associated with jumping or saddles, but do you know what this man behind the name actually did for modern day riding?

Federico Caprilli was born in 1868 and was a keen young cadet in the Italian Cavalry. During this time, the first machine guns where introduced and utilized in warfare, meaning the prior cavalry charge of armed men on horseback was no longer very successful when a couple of machine guns could now quickly end the mounted attack.
This meant a new use for the cavalry had to be found, and the idea was to create specially trained horse and rider combat units who could traverse difficult terrain that the enemy wouldn't consider possible (such as vertical banks and huge ditches), thus giving the cavalry the advantage of a surprise attack, as well as being useful for long distance information carrying.

At this time horses were jumped and ridden over obstacles in an extremely restricted, collected manner. It was believed that the flexible shape of the hind quarters and hocks were able to better support the horse on landing after a jump than the straightened front legs, so riders were taught to pull and lean back over the jump to make sure the horse's hindquarters would land first, or at least land on all fours to minimize impact and protect the "fragile forehand"!!!

Pre-Caprilli jumping style - attempting to protect the horses "fragile" front legs by making them land on their hind legs didn't exactly make for a harmonious scene!

Thankfully, Caprilli had been watching horses jumping freely, even including the use of newly advanced photographic skills to document the horses movement in flight while free jumping. Here he noticed that ALL the horses observed ALWAYS naturally landed on their forehand, and with no complications! He started developing the idea that the rider should simply become a passenger and make as little interference as possible on the horse as it negotiated a jump, and never pull on the reins. He believed that the horses could be taught to be independent and think for themselves, meaning you should be able to just show the horse his task and then allow it to carry it out without any interference.

This famous photo of Caprilli jumping his horse over a chair was still in the early days of development of his forward seat style (the saddles also weren't yet constructed to easily allow this position!) and demonstrated his training methods in making the horses co-operative and confident to jump anything they were faced with.

Caprilli's new ideas and apparent rebellion for the existing accepted teachings saw him removed from his duties as Lieutenant in charge of training the cavalry units, and he was transferred to Southern Italy as punishment.
It was not until several years later when an Italian Military Chief noticed and tried out Caprilli's methods himself that the new ideas were at last recognized and put into proper use. Caprilli was returned to the cavalry schools in Northern Italy and, after a year of his training, the progress and results where deemed to be simply incredible! In fact, the horses where so capable and willing, riders where able to complete the whole cavalry training course without reins.

Following this breakthrough, Caprilli was at last made Chief Riding Instructor of the Italian Cavalry. Soldiers from around the world were sent to his schools to learn his training system, based on teaching the horses independence, and the riders non-interference over jumps and natural obstacles by using the forward seat he had developed. This riding style quickly spread around the world, and could be seen in the Olympics from the early 1900's - Caprilli himself actually demonstrated his new jumping technique at the 1906 Olympic Games with huge success. People began to have fun on their horses and show jumping started to become a popular sport as well as a military exercise.

The Italians began to have fun jumping "Caprilli style" because, once they adopted the new forward seat and stopped interfering, the horses were of course a lot more co-operative, so the riders only had to point them at an obstacle and they would jump it!

Federico Caprilli was accidently killed in 1907 when his horse slipped and fell on icy cobblestones - a seemingly simply and unfortunate death considering some of his previous cavalry training obstacles tackled. However, his revolutionary riding position of the time can still be seen today and has no doubt made for some MUCH happier and co-operative jumping horses throughout the world!