Image: Stallion Kaogi with Alexander Nevzorov
When I talk about NHE (Nevzorov Haute Ecole) now, in 2025, it’s different than when I was immersed in it as a student of the School beginning in 2009. Since the International Online Forum and School dissolved between 2018-2021 and my daily interaction with the administration, student body and interested NHE social media followers faded from the fall of 2018, my thoughts about the School and my identity as an NHE Representative changed.
My active years at the School included helping with forum moderation, writing and editing for the forum, social media and the numerous NHE publications. I also presented five seminars as one of about a dozen official representatives of NHE and co-organized a symposium for international students in the United States. These were valuable experiences of personal development for me on top of the most important one- the way application of NHE principles affected my relationships with horses.
However, it has been my post-forum days that have allowed quieter and more focused study and contemplation on the principles and practices that were NHE School essentials.
Without the busyness of the administrative forum level I had inhabited, which I do not regret or resent in any way, I settled down to analyze my experience and fall into the daily living with my horses in freedom. I never did carry out the teaching of the elements to my horses. They didn’t seem interested and I came to see it as unnecessary.
I maintained a keen interest in the spiritual, literary and historical references in Alexander’s writing that went beyond the material science aspect of horse knowledge and Haute Ecole elements. NHE was no superficial endeavor and not intended for exhibition of performing horses.
At the time I entered the Forum I was a declared atheist after rejecting a Catholic upbringing. The promotion by NHE of material science as the impersonal authority of reality suited me as I had sworn off all things religious or theological as sources of Truth for decades. Motivations of the church were suspect and atheism was popular. Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion was recommended reading at NHE along with Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species among a few others.
Yet, simultaneously the Forum and School possessed an undeniable monastic quality that caught my attention. References to Taoism and Zen Buddhism and Native American perspectives are invoked as guidance to meet the horse on a higher level than for simply utilitarian objectives. The School required a monastic disposition of its students, too, and it is this disposition and point of view I take now to talk about the human-horse relationship in general, influenced by Nevzorov Haute Ecole, but also outside of it.
After expressing my interest in the spiritual impulse aroused by the School in my forum diary, one of my School mates pointed me in a direction that eventually led me to Advaita Vedanta, the Hindu tradition of nondual Self-realization. Vedanta was not mentioned by Nevzorov among spiritual traditions he did mention, yet it is the tradition that, in my view, affords the most clarity in regard to human desire and the Truth of Reality.
Often known simply as Vedanta, this elegant spiritual science of consciousness “completes” the NHE teachings for me and takes me beyond the School in a sense. Let me be outside the School, leaving it to be what it is. Most times I feel very close to it, grateful for all that it taught me, though Vedanta’s light is brighter.
As Nevzorov declared himself a loyal member of the School he also declared himself a heretic of it for not using or even condoning use of bits, halters or any forceful or painful tools to teach the haute ecole elements to horses. Such tools are part of the School’s “shameful past,” as Nevzorov put it. Of course, while Nevzorov took Haute Ecole in this direction, one can easily see that long-lived organizations like The Spanish Riding School of Vienna, among others, not to mention the equestrian industry at large, continue to utilize traditional tack and techniques.
In spite of this defect of coercion in most horsemanship methods, Nevzorov recognized in French riding Master Antoine De Pluvinel’s approach of the late 17th century “that it was the only School in the world from which comprehension of the horse’s soul began.”
It is Nevzorov’s vision of the soul of the horse, the love of the essence of her being that brings about the relationship in freedom. And it is this topic of soul and essence of being that is fully examined and enlightened by Advaita Vedanta.
The physical action of teaching the horse to execute haute ecole elements, as the specific School poses and movements of the horse are called, then takes on new meaning for the human, the one aspiring to relate to the horse in freedom.
When this is understood, one may also see that it is not even necessary to teach the elements to the horse, but the discipline for it must still be applied to the human’s body-mind management in relation to the horse and her interaction with it.
Furthermore, the psychological questions arise of the nature of emotion, thought, intellect, ego, the senses and perception and how that affects the human-horse relationship. This is one of the most difficult topics to unpack, though Vedanta does so clearly, which has helped me to reframe some of Nevzorov’s claims comparatively.
The intention of A Horse Leads Me to Water is not a reformation of NHE, and not even criticism per se, but to elaborate on the investigations and discoveries of NHE in light of Vedanta. My work should be taken as a comparative study and not an antagonistic criticism, even if I may disagree with Nevzorov’s conclusion or opinion.
As a School of the Horse, NHE is unique in its inclusion of history, social conditions and cultural attitudes as factors in treatment of use of horses compared to most horsemanship methods that simply assume utility of the horse and proceed with techniques to meet that end.
It should not be missed that NHE came out of an inquisitive and bright Russian mind that experienced the Soviet era and its downfall. What impact does his point of view have on the Western mind, culturally and thus philosophically holding a different worldview? The Eastern philosophical perspective of the Tao, Zen and Vedantic views are typically also not inherent in most Western or Russian thinking. Even when Westerners are eager for the enlightenment of the East, we must go through a sort of re-education to understand it well. Nevzorov certainly found something of value there.
It’s true that humans are humans, but the cultural atmosphere of one’s upbringing has a major impact on how one lives and what one expects of oneself and others. So it is with human-horse relationships.
From the initial online English language offering of NHE in 2005 to the year of this writing in 2025 the internet has advanced and exploded as a cultural stage. These days more and more equestrian technicians advocate online for recognition and appreciation of the intelligent and sentient attributes of the horse with concern for avoiding brutality or force in their use.
This is good, but when riding and other reciprocal use is still the agenda of the equestrian, these subjective adjustments may only be window dressing compared to the full liberation of the horse – even if it is under the care of humans. This begs the question of how to remediate the human condition by means other than with animal relationships so that human-animal relationships can be lived truly in freedom. This is where Vedanta offers explanations and solutions.
Over the last seven years I have concentrated on my Self-inquiry through Vedanta. My analysis of NHE in light of Vedanta has been ongoing and confined primarily to Nevzorov’s two books – The Horse Crucified and Risen and Tractate on a School Mount, as they contain the main questions at hand as well as specific points that lead to the broader philosophies, psychology and spirituality that affect the human-horse relationship, literally and figuratively.
Let me end with one of my favorite Nevzorov quotes, which ties in beautifully to the import of Vedanta.
“The true home of the horse is freedom.”