10 mins PK Video

[Teddybully]

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All I can say is that the life of a top dressage horse must be fairly miserable if this is the daily treatment at home.

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Very true. I had my horse on livery at a top dressage yard and saw these poor beautiful animals developing stable vices through sheer boredom and distress. They were schooled for 30 minutes a day (in draw reins invariably) OR go on the horse walker for 30 minutes, the rest of the time stabled and ignored. No hacking. A horrible environment with horses with very sad eyes

I had to move after 2 weeks I was so depressed and my horse didn't greet me when I arrived he just stared at the wall.

 

[Seahorse]

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There was a joke going round a few years ago, that went more or less like this: Salinero really is the happiest athlete of the dressage scene, because when he's in the arena he knows Sjef can't get to him

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crikey, if someone ever said such a thing of me i would hang my head in shame for the rest of my days.
i wish horses would not just endure, i wish they would whimper when they are in pain, as dogs will. imagine the soundtrack to the dressage warm-up then. there would be a public outcry.
i wish these horse-hating trainers would go and get an office job and never step near a horse again, too.

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ditto

Can I just add that not all top dressage riders are like this!

 

[Charmaine18]

Ugh, I couldn't watch the video all the way through. It literally makes me feel sick imagining the pain people (professionals!) put their animals through day after day out of nothing more than greed and callousness. It really puts me off dressage (or even any high-level competition) when I see things like this, although I know not all top riders are like it. My RI is a dressage rider and has competed to impressive levels, and I'm glad to know that the horse she competed on is a happy, healthy boy who is still enjoying his work (although much more sedately) now he's in his 20's.

 

[Fantasy_World]

I am a bit late to this debate as only just caught up with it but having watched the video I am very, very angry. Working a horse like that, with so much hyperflexion is extremely cruel. No horse would ever propel itself in a forward motion like that with so much hyperflexion in its neck for any length of time, or in circles.
In my honest opinion it is torture and I am livid!
I could say much stronger words as I am really angry right now.
Poor horse and that applies to any horse that has to endure that level of torture day in day out just so the riders can make their horse's look 'smart' in the judging rings!
Total jackasses the lot of them to make horses suffer like that! To make the horse's tongue turn blue is even worse. For heaven's sake do these people -or the people responsible for promoting the training of horses in this way- have any care or consideration of the welfare of horses?
After seeing a video like that, I think not.
What total double standards a few of us in the horsey world have.
We will condemn travellers and such for whipping their horses and ponies as they trot up at events like Appleby but yet we turn a blind eye to horse cruelty like the one portrayed in the video.
Is it a class thing I wonder?
Do we stay silent because in the main riders training the horses in this way at the higher level have had the 'upper crust' training to improve their riding abilities and school their horses. While other folk are deemed cruel because they have not been taught how to school and work their horses by some elitist group but instead have been taught skills passed down through generations? ( I am not condoning over racing or over whipping horses either btw)
I think many of us are quick to condemn actions that we see at horse fairs and sales and also when a horse's welfare and nutritional needs are neglected, but at the same time are not so quick to condemn other people who use horses for pleasure.
Makes my blood boil !