Last August, Max and I went on the road for a day down to El Dorado Regional Park in Long Beach for a Civil War event. It wasn't a bad event although there were plenty of gopher holes to avoid although Max had a few excitable moments out there. Once he settled down, things went pretty good.
Moving out. As usual, Max is slower than everyone else and is struggling to keep up.
At the charge...the reason some of these pictures are off-kilter (sort of artistic...) is because they were taken by a guy lying on the ground who was acting as a casualty
2 comments:
it's great you get to participate in events like this. unfortunately i don't know too much about the battles you're reenacting, but i've always had an interest in the history of mounted warfare in general. more specifically, as an anthropology/archaeology student, my main focus was nomadic tribes of the eurasian steppes in the early iron age (i know, that must sound reeeeaaaaaly boring ;-) and they were famous for their style of mounted warfare, so much so that the roman empire recruited tons of them to do their fighting for them - and there's some indication that their cavalry style, equipment and tactics gave rise to european knights and their cavalry tactics. sorry for the lame history lesson - guess i just get excited about this sort of thing. i'll have to visit more and see if i can learn a thing or two!
It's not lame, not to worry!! :-)
I'm very interested in the history/horse connection and the one thing that I find fascinating is that being a rider, certain historical facts/theories/ideas make more sense when you have some practical experience to draw on.
The one thing that's rarely, if ever considred is the herd mentality of the horses themselves. In some of the reenactment battles that I've done, it's evident that the horses are feeding off of each other and when we move forward, whether it's a full-blown charge (which can be a bit scary) or just an advance to contact where we shoot pistols, the horses will tend to want to travel as a herd and it often takes little urding.
On the flip side, sometimes the horses get so excitable that they get a bit stupid and it makes it a ral handful for the rider to keep their seat, avoid trampling someone/something and pretty much maintain some semblemce of control.
From what accounts I've read of some cavalry charges, once they got going, you were going to go in, whether or not you wanted to- the horse would keep going and there was nothing you could do to stop the horse. Often, cavalrymen just simply held one as best they could and ride it through, while avoiding enemy blows and landing a few of their own. Sometimes, you just have to grab mane and pray it all works out... :-)
As for the evelountion of mounted warfare, achaeologist have dug up bits dating back thousands of years that pretty much resemble today's snaffle and curb bits- there's only so many ways to configure thoese. :-) I've also seen examples of various bosal-like rigs.
The Romans themselves were not a hard-core equestrian culture (although they could do an adequate job) and tended to recruit from more equestrian-oriented cultures such as the Nudiians for light cavalry. For heavies, the Sarmatians had some pretty heavily armored cavalry. It's not too much of a leap to see the evolution.
Some years ago, a women named Ann Hyland in England wrote a book on her riding experiences using reproductions of Roman saddles adn tack. Apparently she's got both a history and riding background. I haven't read it but it looks interesting.
Take care! :-)
Post a Comment