One of France's last figureheads of classical French equitation is no more. The 90-year old Michel Henriquet has passed away on Monday 8 December 2014.
Having worked as a director of the Grands Moulins de Paris (Great Mills of Paris), as a young man Henriquet felt already inspired by the famous écuyers of the School of Versailles of the 18th century. In pursuit of finding the excellence presented and immortalised in paintings of that age, he met the legendary Nuno Oliveira in Portugal in the 1960s. This encounter, which Michel Henriquet called "the event of my equestrian life," was the beginning of more than three decades of constant cooperation and intellectual exchange between both men, ending only with Oliveira's premature death in 1989. Clearly stamped by "the greatest equestrian intelligence of our times," Henriquet was always and above all in pursue of Lightness.
His horses were trained without force and meticulously prepared for aiming the highest collection, strictly following his master Oliveira's foot-steps and thereby setting his own in France and beyond. For decades Michel Henriquet, who was renowned for being a Lusitano expert and helping to make the breed more popular, focused on dressage as an art as displayed at the School of Versailles.
Only through his wife Catherine (née Durand) his journey in the world of dressage as a sport began about 25 years ago. On recommendation of Colonel Christian Carde the couple prepared the grey Lusitano stallion Orphée RBO for international competitions and Catherine promptly qualified for the 1992 Olympic Games. Orphée RBO was the first Lusitano in history competing at the Olympic and became a trailblazer for the countless others that followed.
Michel Henriquet, who was a man of the art, adapted himself to this new high performance world without losing his principles and way of working horses. When his wife became successful as an international dressage rider, it was the proof that his method also worked in the world of dressage competitions.
As talented a trainer he was, he turned out to be equally gifted as an author of numerous books, among them one on his methods for working horses and illustrating the exchange between Oliveira and himself over more than 30 years.
In 2002 he founded, together with former Olympian show-jumper Jean d'Orgeix and Col. Christian Carde, the association Allège Ideal which aims to promote lightness in equitation.
Michel Henriquet will be remembered as a complete horseman: a very good rider, an outstanding trainer of horses and riders, a passionate author. In each of his ways he defended a kind of equitation in which the horse is what it should always be: on eye-level with the human.
by Silke Rottermann
Related Links
Catherine and Michel Henriquet: Training and Competing in the Tradition of the Legerete
History of French Equitation - Part III: Tradition Does Not Exclude Love for Progress
Catherine Henriquet Wins 2013 French Dressage Championship
Catherine Henriquet on Training the Young Horse up to Grand Prix
Greatest Oldies: Orphee RBO, Iberian Trail Blazer