OTMA on horses

[Rodney_G.]

Well done, Bryndis! I still can't be 100% sure they are what I saw, though I think so.Yes, that's most noticeably Tatiana, but Olga too is there in review  and alongside Tatiana at one point near the end. This is  a review of both GDs' regiments.Not great photography but very good to see.A nice little historical record.

[Bryndis]

Yeah, I didn't notice Olga at first. It's sadly hard to see.

[Kalafrana]

I will watch it.

Ann

[TimM]

Riding a horse must have been fun for them.

[JamesAPrattIII]

From what I have read on QEII reviewing the troops on horseback requires some above average riding skills and a trained horse.

I have also read that Olga and Tatania did ride very well.

Nicholas II was an excellent horseman. I have also read where he did go for rides on a fairly regular basis in the first ten years as Tsar.

[TimM]

Yeah,  I guess it would take some preparation.

[JamesAPrattIII]

Nicholas II when he reviewed the troops often did it on horseback. pre-1905 Nicholas I believe often went horseback riding with only one Cossack to guard him.

Alexandra could also ride fairly well I believe

Olga A also could ride very well

[DNAgenie]

Of course they were all taught to ride well. The modern equivalent would be learning to drive a car. They would have had lessons from early childhood, supervised by the Tsar's Master of Horse, or his Coachmaster, but the actual teacher would have probably been a groom.

[Превед]

Of course they were all taught to ride well. The modern equivalent would be learning to drive a car.

Both yes and no. It's interesting to read accounts from that time of people who didnt't know how to ride a horse. I think they were the majority, and horse-riding was primarily linked to the military and the upper classes that dominated the army. The horses most farmers kept for farmwork (and horses used for hauling goods in urban areas, barges on rivers etc.) were not trained to be ridden, so you usually only hear about small children riding them as a treat (and playing at hussars etc.) Much more common was the skill to drive a horse and cart (or a plough or other farm equipment and handle and take care of a horse), as this was alpha and omega in agriculture and in many urban transportation jobs, including cab drivers. If peasants owning a horse were going anywhere far (market, church etc.) they drove their usual farm cart. Bourgeois families had a roofed coach. To come riding would be seen as the modern equivalent of arriving in an unpractical cabriolet sports car. Something for the chosen few. I doubt common people owning a horse even owned a saddle, so they would have to ride bareback on an untrained horse. Surely a sight for the neighbours to laugh at, like driving to the grocery store on a riding mower today.

Riding was probably a more common skill among the populace before the construction of early modern roads and the Industrial Revolution, as old traditions of Easter races among farmers etc. testify to.

[TimM]

like driving to the grocery store on a riding mower today

Saw that happen in  a movie, but I can't remember the name of said movie.

[Превед]

like driving to the grocery store on a riding mower today

Saw that happen in  a movie, but I can't remember the name of said movie.

"The Straight Story" from 1999, about a guy riding through Iowa on a riding mower?

Typically a much-loved Norwegian folk song (really a lullaby for a horse) with music by Edvard Grieg about a working farm horse's existence imagines a farm horse's holiday would consist of just lazily going around the courtyard med veslegutt på nakken - with the wee lad on the neck: Fola, fola Blakken

[TimM]

"The Straight Story" from 1999, about a guy riding through Iowa on a riding mower?

Yeah, that might have been it.