About the heels down, have a look at this:
I’ve been riding island horses for 5 years… but I always got the one who trotted. I did ride some others, too. But their walks weren’t really clear, some combination of trott and Tölt. It probably didn’t work as it should have due to my incompetence. '^^
His horses aren’t bucking they are galloping on the same spot. When you slow down and get to gallop on the spot, but can still see that one foot moves before the other. Like it does in a normal galopp it’s called “Terra-a-Terre”. When the horse gets to the point where the feet move synchronous it is called “Mezair”. (The fronthooves rise and sink at the same time, with no delay, same goes for the backhooves)
And when your horse gets to do “Mezair” but does not rise so high anymore it it’s called a “Courbette”. When your horse can do the courbette it can move backwards, to right, left, forward and turn on the same spot. In most depictions of the 15 century you will see the horse rising while the front- and backhooves are parallel. Like the one above. Or this one.
The left horse does the so called “Ansprengen” (sorry, don’t know the english translation), where the horse does a levade and charges into a full gallop. While the right horse seems to do a canterpirouette to the left. All this only works with a collected horse.
Another time the “Ansprengen” can be seen. Or his horse is rising during a mezair. Also look at the feet of the guy in the far back. This comes from using those warsaddles. Dom Duarte I. of Portugal wrote in his book of 1438 about the two dominant riding styles in europe. “A la Gineta” and “a la brida”, while gineta is the style the spanish vaqueros stil use today, the brida style went extinct in the 16th and 17th century. The gineta style became dominant in europe. Which turned into our modern riding styles. Characteristic for the gineta style are the short stirrups, while the brida style used long stirrups where it is hard to get your heels down. Also your feet are more to the front of the horse as in the gineta style. This can clearly be seen on depictions of earlier time. (Note this was caused by the construction of the saddle, you need such a saddle, otherwise these techniques won’t work.)
Gineta was used primary south of the alps, the style evolved under influence of the north african riding culture. Brida was used north the alps, especially in modern france and germany. This also is an error in KC:D, as the stirrups are to short in the game '^^ Maybe they’ll change it one day.
The newest translation of Dom Duartes Book is called “The Art of Riding on every Saddle”, Dom Duarte King of Portugal, circa 1434, Medieval Horsemanship: Equitation, Hunting and Knightly Combat with Lance and Sword. It 's a good book, but many questions are still unanswered like, how did they educate their horses?
Btw. if you like the tournament above, check these out:
Stichting HEI from the netherlands
Destrier from the UK
And another big tournament which was held in germany in 2012. And I wasn’t there :’(
Tournament of St. Wendel, Documentation
Btw. yes those are real lances and no there is !no choreography! those guys want to win!
Same goes for the riding skills, there’s a long way to go. Oh and if you are interested in seeing those guys in action and be able to chat with them, go to “Bexbach 1474 - Call to Arms”, in September 2016. You find some pictures easily on google picture search, from the last two events in 2012 and 2013. (Only the burgundian camp had cavalry)