There are written reports of Tom Bass’s High School performances but photographs showing many of the accomplishments of his horses do not exist, so in order to fill out for modern readers what a High School performance in Tom Bass’s time looked like, I have imported photos of more recent practitioners of this form of horsemanship.
Belle Beach could bow, perform the high rear or “stand,” trot backwards, canter backwards, canter on three legs, perform multiple flying changes of lead, piaffe, passage, terre-a-terre, Spanish walk, Spanish trot, half-and-quarter-pass, pirouette, turn on the forehand with one forelimb continuously extended, rack and perform the flying trot (see page 62). This repertory subsumes the whole of the “low airs” practiced by European masters of the “classical” era (mid-17th through 18th centuries) and more:…
