The Classical Seat - Felix Burkner (1883 - 1957)

From Felix Burkner (A Riders life)

Oberst Felix Bürkner 1883-1957. Born in Göttingen, Germany, Bürkner started riding at the age of twelve. He later attended the military riding academy in Hanover where he enjoyed hunting and racing. Over the next two years, he won six imperial prizes including an award for a form of eventing for German army officers.

In 1912, he competed at the Olympic Games in Stockholm, finishing seventh. He then worked as a riding instructor at the Hanover military academy.

From Burkners book - Ein Reiterleben

“In 1908, during the first year of riding school, my Göttingen friend Allah Hattendorff invited me to Vienna for a fortnight. In the meantime he had become vice stable master of the Duke of Cumberland in Gmunden and had been sent to the Spanish Riding School and the Imperial Stables in Vienna for a year for his training for this service. So I got the wonderful opportunity to see the Spanish school in its heyday under the direction of Count Kinsky with the first chief rider Meixner, this greatest riding artist of our time, in his personal work for hours every day. At six o'clock in the morning Allah's service began in the riding school, where he was trained on several horses by the various riders. During these hours I was allowed to stay in the Kogel (Kobel, anm. ) sit in a comfortable chair in front of the short side of the wonderful Fischer von Erlachs riding arena, cigarettes in front of me on the round table, and look, marvel and admire. Zrust, Pollak and Herold were still young riders at that time, but their skills were already very much recognized, even if words and corrections were never actually audible. They always talked to me amicably between their horses, and I listened when Meixner gave his calm instructions here and there after the dressage work of a single horse, and I saw him from below in the even if words and corrections were never actually audible.

After WWI, he established a stable in Berlin and the Germany Riding School in Düppel. There he worked with Richard L. Wätjen, Von Heydenbreck and Herrn Ludwig Zeiner ( Bereiter of the SRS in Vienna, pupil of J. Meixner). He was one of the most influential equestrian instructors of the twenties and thirties. In 1950 he was the first German rider to win an international competition after the Second World War on the horse" Zigeunerbaron"

This led to a revival of German equestrianism worldwide. His motto---: Life is too short to ride in walk and to smoke bad cigars.---

On the need for a correct classical seat in order to influence the horse "the honest hand...must maintain the absolutely finest, continually quiet connection to the horse's mouth' in collaboration with deep knees that lie flat, heels that are lower than the rider's toes, buttocks that always remain in the saddle, a flexible and engaged back and hips that gently follow the horse's movements with an erect head posture, elastic shoulders and wrists now combined to achieve a constant close and soft connection to the horse's mouth so that the result is the automatic yielding of its poll and the relaxation of its back".