Falling for Fallacies

Name: Falling for Fallacies
Price: 104.72 AUD
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ISBN: 9798869214553

Critical Reflections on Modern Dressage

Jean-Claude Racinet

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Hardback

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English

Xenophon Press LLC
31 March 2026

Horses & ponies; Riding, showjumping & horsemanship

FALLING FOR FALLACIES: Critical Reflections on Modern Dressage-and the Myths We Inherit

There are books that explain riding-and there are books that compel us to rethink it from the ground up. This is one of the latter.

In Falling for Fallacies, widely accepted principles of dressage are taken apart with uncommon precision. Ideas repeated across generations-engagement of the hind legs, collection, contact, impulsion, ""connection""-are not dismissed, but examined. What do they actually mean? Where do they come from? And why do they so often fail in practice?

At the heart of the problem is what the author calls the ""wooden tongue"" of dressage: a language of familiar phrases that sound convincing, yet frequently conceal vague, contradictory, or incomplete thinking. Riders are told that contact becomes both stronger and lighter, that opposing aids produce harmony, that a horse becomes light by being driven forward into restraint-assertions that, when tested, often produce exactly the opposite result.

This book does not offer a new system. It does something more valuable: it restores clarity.

Drawing on a deep knowledge of classical sources-and written in the spirit of Jean-Claude Racinet's uncompromising intellectual honesty-each chapter isolates a commonly accepted belief and subjects it to careful scrutiny. The result is cumulative and often unsettling. Assumptions begin to fall away. Contradictions become visible. And what remains is a more coherent understanding of the horse, the rider, and the work itself.

For the serious rider, trainer, or student of classical horsemanship, this is not casual reading. It is a book to be studied, tested, and returned to.

By: Jean-Claude Racinet
Imprint: Xenophon Press LLC
Dimensions: Height: 279mm, Width: 216mm, Spine: 14mm
Weight: 812g
ISBN: 9798869214553
Pages: 166
Publication Date: 31 March 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Born in Paris in 1929, Jean-Claude Racinet is a graduate of St. Cyr, the French West Point, Class of 1950. He was a member of the French contingent in Korea (1950-53), where he was wounded twice. As an officer of the French army, he spent seven years in Tunisia and Algeria (1954-61) and four more years in Europe. While he spent most of his army career during the time when the military was getting rid of their horses, he managed, between and during his sojourns overseas, to successfully attend the Superior Equitation Course in the Cavalry School of Saumur (1953-54), winning the title of Champion of Tunisia in open jumping (1956), and to become a member of the Jumping Team of the Military School in Paris (1953).Riding teacher and trainer as a civilian after 1965, he was more particularly known by his retraining of difficult horses and later as an equestrian journalist by his always witty and sometimes scathing articles in the French equestrian monthly L'Information Hippique.In the United States since 1983, Jean-Claude Racinet became a successful teacher, trainer, lecturer, clinician, and author. Xenophon Press published in 1994 his highly popular book Another Horsemanship, now in its second printing.Jean-Claude Racinet has devoted his life to the vindication of ""L'equitation de Legerete"" (riding in lightness), which fosters balance by relaxing the horse - more so his mouth - excluding force in the wielding of the aids. In fact, the very essence of riding in the French Classical tradition.