Looking at Kaogi any fool could say that he was not well put together, badly-developed, with angular movements and dystrophied muscles of the neck, shoulders, and croup and with serious hoof damage.

His price was nearly 600 US dollars (16 000 RUR), that now could be seeing as pennies (for the black stallion of Russian roadster breed). This sum was signed in the documents and it was paid by one of the sponsors of the Russian movie “Master and Margarita” that he was purchased for. This sum seems incredible but we keep all the documents and even my note about receiving the sum for purchasing of the black stallion. All the documents from the medical inspection and thermography we have also kept. That sponsor liked accuracy in the documentation that is why everything had been recorded from the beginning.

They did not have any idea how talented the stallion was, how genial he was in performance of very difficult elements – nobody had a clue. No one could understand this in that place where the stallion was born. His owner, up until to the moment of our arrival at the stable, had been trying to sell the stallion to anybody without success for a very long time. By the way, we should not discuss this fact and pay so much attention to it as the stallion’s price clearly states the attitude of people had towards him and also indicated his condition at the time.

The condition of the stallion was awful even at first sight. To understand this one should see those people who raised the stallion. They were the usual suburban farmers – typical public for any village-stable. Stupid but very ambitious people who were mad about the most primitive equestrian sport. As everywhere, those collective farm-sportsmen were sure in their right to torture a horse. Only because it was a horse! Tortures, to tell the true, which were not always conscious.

A huge and thick woman who was responsible for Kaogi did not have any idea that a saddle could be of a different size. She had been trying to make pre-sales preparations for the stallion using a saddle that was three sizes too small! Of course, she had not wanted to make him an invalid but she was doing everything in accordance with total hippological ignorance that is common in every Russian horse-seller. The owner (it is interesting to mention that she was a veterinarian) was agreeing to all that nonsense those farmers were saying and watching all they were doing with her stallion: incorrect saddling, covering a mare, barbaric training, using a lunge at the age of three, the wrong nutrition, shoeing … So the owner was as uneducated as the other collective farmers in that stable.

As I recall, my people did not like Kaogi at all but I insisted on doing thermography and video pilots. The stallion’s inspection, of course, was made by Lydia. The thermography showed unpleasant injuries of the back caused by the wrong saddling and barbaric and rude training. Those were injuries that should be healed with a half a year’s rest and than half a year of work in hands, at liberty only. All the back muscles were in very bad shape, especially the under-saddle area. There were inflammations of pressured muscles but the spine was not traumatized. Emphatically, thermography of Kaogi also showed the common traumas of the mouth, typical for hands of a collective farmer.

So, Kaogi was an ugly duckling then. People had already passed over him, they did not pay attention to him, they did not even look at him, dozens of buyers, who did not consider him, even after taking into account his ridiculous price.

Our financier, looking through the inspection results, seeing the dystrophy of many important muscles and a number of hidden traumas, was very skeptical, but he kept silent, waiting for my decision. I had caught an eyewink of our operator who was very surprised why we were wasting our time with that strange scallywag. Lydia was pronouncedly indifferent. She can indue herself to the clothes of absolute scientific detachment, and abandon me alone with the serious decision.

At the same time it was clear for me that the stallion was incredible and that our paths should be run into one road. Moreover, it was clear for me that sooner or later he could be fallen into a trap of equestrian sportsmen, and I felt I should save him at any cost. I did not care about the problems Kaogi had. In the movie he should work at liberty, and I had enough time to heal him and to teach him.

So the last inspection was conclusive – the inspection of the neck. I was afraid of that moment, knowing that there could not be much positive news. But he deeply touched my heart. There was a moment when I tried to stop Lydia and ask her not to make the neck-inspection. I imagined a thousand excuses, some which had real foundation, as Kaogi’s future did not demand natural collection. And everything that was needed from him in the movie was not so intense. But I knew that another movie will follow then, and Kaogi will need good School education.

I did not stop the inspection. I was white as a sheet and I was smoking cigarette after cigarette while Lydia was making the inspection. I was listening to her quiet voice from the corner and I was trying to calm myself. We were lucky! We came at the right time, in the last moment. Like in a movie when something has to be blown up, we were there a second before detonation. Lydia said there was hope. And I held on to that hope defending the poor stallion.

And I was right: those problems could be solved.

My boy Kaogi was not completely destroyed by those milkmaids. During the pre-sales preparations they injured his back, his mouth, made his movements angular, dystrophied the breast part of muscles trapezium and damaged the double-head femur muscle; his next step could have been neck-breaking but fortunately Kaogi injured his hoof in the field and he was lame for a long time because of a penetrating wound. The wound was serious but it saved him. People gave him a rest and stopped pre-sales training for a while.

Kaogi was bought and I took him away. He had a rest for a half a year, walking, his muscles became better after simple exercises like crunch, sentado and so on. And only after those preparations did we began to learn the role in the movie.

He knew his role very well, but as it happened he did not play his role in the “Master and Margarita” movie … That became clear in two weeks before the shoot began when I saw the so-called “ground” in the studio … There were woodchip boards instead of filling-sand blend! Kaogi’s hooves were spoiled by shoeing, which as usual, stopped the growth of lateral cartilages and disrupted the natural function of the hooves, and of course damaged everything that shoeing does. Those problems had not been solved for the moment. It was not possible as we needed nearly a year to heal the hooves after shoeing to create the right angle of a hoof and to rectify the normal function of hoof-mechanism. Kaogi needed soft ground to do his performance but it was not possible on such solid ground of the studio.

Now, that “ugly duckling” from the collective-farm stable, whose muscles were almost atrophied, is completely trained with good muscles and free movements that can be seen in the movie “The Principles of NHE” where we show the whole process of Kaogi’s education from the beginning.

Today Kaogi works as an actor again.

From the moment I bought him, Kaogi has not known a bridle, a bit or pain. Sometimes we use a simple halter to pass cycling mares, to meet a vet … Of course this is nonsense but Kaogi is still not ready to make these procedures without a halter. I am saying “still” as all the other horses who live in my stable, my “older” horses from NHE School have already forgotten what a halter is.

Kaogi has been taught absolutely all the School elements at liberty. Surprisingly he showed brilliant passage, Spanish walk, very slight and high piaffe, good balance, cadran, pirouette and caracole. Natural and amazing with its beauty and deepness, collection at liberty that Kaogi has learned very well.

I still remember that “selection” of Kaogi with shame … It would better if all the science goes to hell, all that Haute Ecole, than choose my friend with the help of medical inspection. But I can not let myself choose horses any other way.

My pupils, my followers, I am sure, will be better; will be more talented and experienced than myself. And such situations they will solve in another ways.

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