Adelinde Cornelissen - A Rant!!

Sadly I have not been able to read all this thread, (just not enough time), but what I have read has been IMHO really informed and interesting.

Personally I gave up on Anky and Sjef a long time ago. Not just Rollkur which is utterley appalling but their stance on training horses in general eg. that inside leg to outside rein is rubbish and a 'competition outline', what is this?
 
I just wanted to share this remark that someone we know over here made on a photo my daughter posted of Charlotte winning. This person is a judge on the circuit in which my daughter (and hopefully sometime soon myself) participates, hence why we made no reply (though it hurt to bite my tongue!). I know it's in French, but I thik it's fairly clear.
"Désolée mais pour moi elle ne devaiit pas gagner. Parzival était beaucoup mieux. Sans doute pression des organisateurs. Pour preuve les statistiques indiquent que chaque fois les pays organisateurs remportent comme par hazard plus de médailles uniquement cette année là..."
To say I was gobsmacked and highly indignant at the slur is to put it mildly :eek:
 
cptrayes said:
Thanks BB, that's a thought provoking and interesting reply. I confess that I had assumed that the FEI had clear evidence that it was physically and/or mentally harmful before they banned it and I was surprised when I could not find their justification. I agree with you "because the public don't like the look of it" is not good enough for an international body, especially if they are then not going to enforce their ruling. They just make themselves look weak and two-faced.

As far as I can see, the difference between Patrick Kittel and Edward Gal is that Patrick did it in a place where the FEI have banned it, and Edward has not. I think this is reasonable, the practice is not illegal it's just against FEI rules. The FEI need to pull their finger out and enforce them, or withdraw the rule. But then again, they need to stop giving high marks to overbent horses, which have clearly been trained overbent, and then the practice will not win competitions and it will fade out. Pigs might fly sooner.

It is, however, good enough for me to see the horses eyes, demeanour, bulging parotid glands, excessive neck bend and occasional blue tongues. I ride a horse who is of the breeding, and hopefully possibly the calibre, of GP dressage horses. I would no sooner put him into hyperflexion, than I would poke needles in my eyes. I'm no tree hugger, I had him in draw reins this morning to curb some over-dominant behaviour on his part, but hyperflexion looks too much like abuse to me.
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Good answer
 
Booboos, trakehnersrock et al have asked all the pertinent questions and have received answers. I see the attraction of saying something is 'wrong' because it feels that way but, of course, there are many things that fall into that category. Drawing those lines involves debate and study. Everyone agrees that beating your child is wrong, not everyone agrees corporal punishment is. Most people on here are pro using horses for sport/competition but that is in no way a unanimous view.

It does seem to have been completely forgotten that originally this debate had a very political and personal framework. Don't assume that everyone leading the charge is doing so from an objective position.

This is all separate from whether or not you agree with whatever practice. It's all very well to complain about free speech but you know Mark Twain's adage, ' Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.' Much as I loathe the IOC with a white hot passion they do have the right to control attendance and images. The fact that they don't always pursue this doesn't make it any less their right.

Out of curiosity, if someone posted a photo from a hunt or competition of you causing your horse pain/discomfort/fear and then put it on the internet along with a condemnation, would you expect to have a platform for rebuttle?
 
TarrSteps said:
……………… Out of curiosity, if someone posted a photo from a hunt or competition of you causing your horse pain/discomfort/fear and then put it on the internet along with a condemnation, would you expect to have a platform for rebuttle?
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I would be mortified that I had firstly caused pain to my horse and 2ndly as a hypocrite ! A horse can feel a fly - so why hold the reins with anything more than the weight of the reins has been the standard by which I judge my skill..

This is why Rollkur is wrong… anything that uses that much force full stop..

The caveat being … if the horse chooses to go against my hand then it is putting itself there and as it put it self there then it knows how to release the pressure and can do so.. that is the bottom line… am sure we are singing from same hymn sheet

Having trained my horse from 2 years old I know this principle works..

Re the lack of principles and enforcement of existing rules that the IOC and FEI exhibit I am sure that in principle the argument on Rollkur have been won but now enforcing them is much much harder due to what has gone before.. it is much harder to tighten up rules and enforcement than it is to loosen them. I think Cornelissen's silver was a political medal to avert a challenge to the marks and placings.

TarrSteps said:
…………………… It does seem to have been completely forgotten that originally this debate had a very political and personal framework. Don't assume that everyone leading the charge is doing so from an objective position. ……….
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I think part of the problem is that it is a moral (and therefore subjective) standpoint. Anything that involves the concept of cruelty is going to be emotive. However there is a building burden of proof that Rollkur is harmful, causes stress, pain and damage.

TarrSteps said:
………………….. This is all separate from whether or not you agree with whatever practice. It's all very well to complain about free speech but you know Mark Twain's adage, ' Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.' Much as I loathe the IOC with a white hot passion they do have the right to control attendance and images. The fact that they don't always pursue this doesn't make it any less their right. ……….
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The problem with the IOC enforcing their “rights” to all material is this was the games of “Social Meja” as Danny Boyle so brilliantly captured ;) with this and the pressures that Social media exert for greater and greater transparency means that their “legal right” becomes much harder to uphold as has been seen wikileaks and the pressures (good ones) that can be placed on previous “behind closed doors processes”. This one will be an interesting one to watch to see how the IOC and other governing bodies react to this shift of expectation of transparency and accountability that social media can exert.
 
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Zuzan said:
I think part of the problem is that it is a moral (and therefore subjective) standpoint. Anything that involves the concept of cruelty is going to be emotive. However there is a building burden of proof that Rollkur is harmful, causes stress, pain and damage.
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But is this in fact true? Is there proof? Booboos asked earlier for directions to such proof but none have been forthcoming. Don't misunderstand, I THINK it's true and my personal experience suggests that it is, but that's not the same as proof. There is a significiant body of evidence that riding and domestic management is harmful to horses. . .where do we draw the line? Is it at the point where we ask extreme things in the service of sport? Is it the point at which we cause a particular reaction in the horse?

And if the rules are going to be adjusted to stop people causing discomfort to horses. . . .well, I have to admit my own tolerance may, in fact, be much less than many. Sorry, but we do LOTS of things that hurt horses. The question is why has this practice been singled out?

I am still very curious to know how people can say this or that horse has been trained using this specific method. Even proponents don't say it's standard practice for every horse. And there are lots and lots of horses with "broken necks" and trailing hocks at every level of the sport that have not been trained with rolkur, at least not knowingly. Should those riders also be approached?

I do agree the FEI, having now signed on for this, should do their best to uphold their own rules. My own PERSONAL views are very in line with the desire for "happy athletes" but I also realise not everyone defines this the same way.


The problem with the IOC enforcing their “rights” to all material is this was the games of “Social Meja” as Danny Boyle so brilliantly captured ;) with this and the pressures that Social media exert for greater and greater transparency means that their “legal right” becomes much harder to uphold as has been seen wikileaks and the pressures (good ones) that can be placed on previous “behind closed doors processes”. This one will be an interesting one to watch to see how the IOC and other governing bodies react to this shift of expectation of transparency and accountability that social media can exert.
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True, the world is changing (and laws, by necessity, lag behind) but the point raised has been why are the IOC and FEI not pursuing people who, for instance, took photos of the venues. It's not because they could not do so, it's because they choose not to do so. As I said, the IOC is not my favourite organisation by a long haul but I don't think laws should only apply or not apply as I see fit. I would very much like to keep the option of pursuing someone who posts a photo of me I don't want to have out there, not because I am doing evil on a daily basis (although I think it's delusional to think that could not happen to anyone) but because I think there is something to be said for fair assessment in both directions. Epona has an agenda, we all know it. This does not make them wrong, by any means, but they are on a mission and I can see why people who do not agree with them feel they have to defend themselves. Surely this is similar to discussions about hunting legislation or issues with PETA in the US? It is always more complicated than it seems.
 
As far as evidence of Rollkur goes I would suggest Dr Gerd Hauschmann who is a leading (all be it German) vet from Warrendorf and has been writing (Tug of War - classical v modern dressage) and campaigning against Rollkur for many years. In his own words 'he is now public enemy No.1 with the FEI and has infact, given up lobbying them, he now says his emphasis is educating young riders.
 
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Mearas said:
As far as evidence of Rollkur goes I would suggest Dr Gerd Hauschmann who is a leading (all be it German) vet from Warrendorf and has been writing (Tug of War - classical v modern dressage) and campaigning against Rollkur for many years. In his own words 'he is now public enemy No.1 with the FEI and has infact, given up lobbying them, he now says his emphasis is educating young riders.
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Many thanks for the suggestion but his book contains 0 references to studies or otherwise published work on this matter, he has published 0 articles in peer-reviewed journals on this issue and his actual claims about the supposed harms of rollkur are a lot more limited than people claim on his behalf.

It is also interesting to google images of Dr H riding himself...make sure you are sitting down before you do so though! ;)
 
Mearas said:
As far as evidence of Rollkur goes I would suggest Dr Gerd Hauschmann who is a leading (all be it German) vet from Warrendorf and has been writing (Tug of War - classical v modern dressage) and campaigning against Rollkur for many years. In his own words 'he is now public enemy No.1 with the FEI and has infact, given up lobbying them, he now says his emphasis is educating young riders.
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Are you acquainted with him? ;)

I think he has a lot of interesting and useful things to say but he does definitely have an agenda. Even some of the people he was originally allied with in this battle (and it is one) have taken a serious step back.

This does not, of course, make him wrong but it also does not make him right. As Booboos says his findings have not been reproduced by anyone else.

Again, I am not positioning myself on any side (although I'm not even necessarily a fan of bits and nosebands in all cases so that should suggest where my sympathies lie!) but I do think if you're going to use "science" rather than "I don't like it" as a reasoning then it's not out of the realm of reason to be asked to provide objective proof. And, subsequent to that, to not then go on to study all sorts of other things we do to horses . . .
 
Re the proof I think I would emphasis it is a growing body of knowledge and evidence that will eventually be PROOF..

We know enough of equine behaviour and physiology / movement to be able to see that holding a horse over bent (as apposed to the momentary dodging behind the vertical) is not constructive and causes the horse to brace and tense .. a common reaction to discomfort and pain.

I agree that at times the anti campaign has become rather personal ... just look at the title of this thread.. tho obviously motivated by the awarding of a silver medal ..

Re the principle of reducing discomfort and harm... or emotively suffering v welfare and to what extent it is acceptable / necessary (we will quite happily accept that we can cause a baby pain during an inoculation for it's own good..) the ethics about how we decide what is justified and what is not is a minefield but worth really examining... of course different cultures have different levels of what is socially acceptable whether we are talking about humans .. other animals .. wild or domestic.. We just have to be very careful not to anthropomorphise but also not to underestimate other beings ability to feel.. even when we cannot for definite define what exactly they are feeling..

Kesho and Alf and The curious incident of a deceased giraffe

My PERSONAL stance is that my horse can stand on my foot by mistake and cause me pain .. but it is my fault USUALLY for be a clutz.. ;) similarly I can accidentally hurt her but we have learnt to accept accidental.. and there I go anthropomorphising.. but at least she doesn't seem to harbour any distrust / grudge.. which kind of implies she understands the concept of "accidental" !!!! Tho obviously this isn't scientific it is evidence that points to this mutual conceptual understanding.

It is impossible to really understand what it is exactly another species is feeling as we don't share the same language .. however we CAN approximate and there is obviously some level of cross species understanding ... this is after all how training works ... the greater the x species understanding the greater potential to domesticate..

I'm not convinced that the Rollkur debate can be equated with the PETA type standpoint on hunting as Rollkur is a method of training and isn't an end itself.. There are very good proven alternatives to Rollkur that don't cause discomfort / pain etc .. the equivalent would be to ban dressage if you were to ban hunting.. which really is quite ridiculous if you believe dressage is beneficial (as I do) .. or should be... for the horse's physical and mental being.
 
Zuzan said:
I'm not convinced that the Rollkur debate can be equated with the PETA type standpoint on hunting as Rollkur is a method of training and isn't an end itself.. There are very good proven alternatives to Rollkur that don't cause discomfort / pain etc .. the equivalent would be to ban dressage if you were to ban hunting.. which really is quite ridiculous if you believe dressage is beneficial (as I do) .. or should be... for the horse's physical and mental being.
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I do actually more or less agree with you but, of course, there are many people who really DO believe dressage should be banned. Yes, it may benefit horses from a riding perspective but their argument would be we should not be riding them in the first place.

People who defend rolkur (and related work - I cringe a bit every time I see the defence of LDR or whatever we're calling it and the whisper fine lines involved) do so on the basis that it is an effective system to gymnastisize some horses in the same way that gymnasts practice extreme stretches. Rightly or wrongly, the do believe it has benefits if used judiciously and correctly. (I presume we cannot defend or deny anything on the basis that some people my do it wrong!)

Not to the rolkur debate per se but I did see a "candid" from the eventing warm up with about half a dozen horses working in the background - every single one well behind the vertical with necks at varying heights. Not a peep from anyone.

I am just chewing the fat with you on the subject. ;) I am well aware that two wrongs don't make a right but I get a little tired of people jumping on this bandwagon, saying they NEVER do their horses harm (not you Zuzan, you've explained your position) and they NEVER let their ego rule their empathy and they NEVER do something potentially damaging to their horses just because they want to do what they want to do. Yes, fine, point a finger at Anky, the Bartles, Gal, Kittel etc. But I think the real power in these debates is to make people question their assumed positions. Personally, I'm in favour of riding horses, I think that's what they're for. But I don't assume everyone who disagrees with me is an granola knitting bunny hugger, nor would I let them think I'm an unfeeling monster.
 
trakehnersrock! said:
I just wanted to share this remark that someone we know over here made on a photo my daughter posted of Charlotte winning. This person is a judge on the circuit in which my daughter (and hopefully sometime soon myself) participates, hence why we made no reply (though it hurt to bite my tongue!). I know it's in French, but I thik it's fairly clear.
"Désolée mais pour moi elle ne devaiit pas gagner. Parzival était beaucoup mieux. Sans doute pression des organisateurs. Pour preuve les statistiques indiquent que chaque fois les pays organisateurs remportent comme par hazard plus de médailles uniquement cette année là..."
To say I was gobsmacked and highly indignant at the slur is to put it mildly :eek:
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The same words as they used on German TV.
 
Thank you Booboos and Tarrsteps. No, I don't know Gerd Hauschmann personally although I have attended a clinic and I also accept that he has not published any papers. I do also feel that Gerd Hauschmann has undermined his own arguments by not using a classical trainer to do the training elements of his clinics.For all this I do not think his arguments are invalid.

I recently showed rollkur pictures from London 2012, to someone who is totally unhorsey and that person was totally shocked and did not want to look at the pictures suggesting that they were horrible. When I investigated further I was told that it looks totally unnatural and althought they new nothing about horses they could see the discomfort and unhappiness in the horse. For many years mothers said their new born babies smiled at them and this was dismissed, it is however, accepted now that babies do smile at their mothers Smoking is another example, doctors suggesting that maybe it was linked to lung cancer but it took a long time for the prove this and a long battle against the companies with interests. Meanwhile many people died. We can wait for the prove by which time many horses will have suffered. Why? surely, it is better to take the approach not to use this method until it is proved not to cause harm?

As I am sure you are aware rollkur is not new it was used in the 1700's but dismissed much as today. If it really had been a worthy training method surely we would have kept it as we have other training methods such as 'shoulder in'.

For myself, a rider needs control of the shoulders which is impossible to achieve through rollkur. Now many riders are happy to accept control of the neck which IMHO will never achieve lightness and true engagement.
 
Zuzan: I am sorry I don't think I have explained myself very well so I will repeat my argument (I am a bit confused over what I have said in this thread and others!).
I am NOT saying:
- that animals don't feel pain. The similarity of their neurological system to ours permits the inference that they do.
- that one cannot cause some pain in order to avoid greater harms as in the case of vaccinations for babies.
- that purposeful pain is as morally culpable as accidental pain. Intentions do matter morally speaking, and non-culpable accidents are morally excused.

What I am saying is that this argument is a poor one:
"I do not like/get upset by/feel is awful X activity"
"Therefore others should be banned from practicing X"

To show the unacceptable conclusions of this argument I made the analogy with the whole of riding which some people find as upseting as rollkur. If one can be banned solely on feelings, then so can the other one, as can millions of other activities. Feeling may well be fine for regulating individual behaviour but they are a very unsatisfactory basis for limiting the behaviour of others.

I would be grateful for the studies that show that rollkur causes pain, as pain is, to a sufficiently useful, extent messurable through its physiological manifestations.

Mearas: the point is exactly that we were not able to publicly warn against smoking and ban it indoors until there was evidence that it caused harm. The harm caused by smoking before the evidence came to light is the price we pay for liberty because without the evidence how do we decide what to ban?

My biggest gripe with Dr H (Philippe Karl as well but he has the excuse of not being a scientist) is that he chose to make his case through a book for the public with no scientific backing. Scientific claims are first defended in the academic sphere, i.e. through publications in peer reviewed journals that make known the results, and most importantly, how they were arrived at so that they can be re-created and checked by others in the public domain. This process goes some way towards ensuring that the results are reliable. Books for the general public are a great idea, but they should only be about things that are already proven, not personal speculations, and they should include the references so that non-specialists can also look them up. For example:
1. I am currently writing an entry on virtue ethics and education for an encyclopaedia which will have about 30 references (small number due to word limit).
2. I am reading a book on the psychology of lying written for lay people that has about 200 references.
3. I read a book on how to get a baby to sleep which had about 400 references.

Dr H's book = 0 references.

If anyone is interested, in an older thread I summarized Dr H's arguments from his book. They are surprisingly vacuous (as well as unsupported).
 
Booboos, surely there's no scientifically valid evidence that a lot of things cause any harm and yet they are banned because we know that they are wrong? Surely it is possible to see with your own eyes and make a judgement that some things just aren't right?
 
cptrayes said:
Booboos, surely there's no scientifically valid evidence that a lot of things cause any harm and yet they are banned because we know that they are wrong? Surely it is possible to see with your own eyes and make a judgement that some things just aren't right?
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But surely the people who use it as a training method don't believe it to be wrong. There are many injuries that we cause our horses to have by training them for competition by whatever method of training is used. We do not want to hurt our horses but by the very nature of training our horses to compete at the highest level we can injure them.

Most competition horses will suffer some form of injury in their lives be that tendon, ligament or muscle damage. Alot of that is directly attributable to what we are doing with them. If rollkur can cause some physical damage is this any worse than any other damage?
I am to certain extent playing devils advocate here and I don't like forceful training of any method but it is the fact of extreme flexion or the force thats bad.
A horse can be trained over time to use the full range of flexion in its neck without force.
 
I'm not sure that is the case where laws/rules are concerned cptrayes, at least in modern times. There are studies on all sorts of things!

And, tbh, I think most of us would be in some sort of trouble if we started measuring pain response in horses. . .

This, of course, does not make it right. But it does not make it wrong, either, at least not on the strength of a few photos. The photos from Dr H's clinic were pretty emotive but seem to have just been swept away, despite very public condemnation by a few well known trainers. Also, if I showed you snap shots of horses in pain from a local unaffiliated show (not all unintentional, I'd bet) what would be the result? What about bad footing? I'd like to ban people from working their horses in poor footing as it almost certainly causes long term pain.

I'm not saying this is a reason to throw our hands in the air and do nothing. Doing something is better than doing nothing. But I can't help thinking all this stink about rolkur is a) somewhat political b) bandwagon-esque and c) something of a red herring that allows people to point fingers and pat themselves on the back for not being like THOSE people.

Now, if they want to control it on the basis that it LOOKS bad - which was pretty much the original argument, btw - then have at it. But at least be honest. And perhaps at least consider casting a wider net. . .
 
cptrayes said:
Booboos, surely there's no scientifically valid evidence that a lot of things cause any harm and yet they are banned because we know that they are wrong? Surely it is possible to see with your own eyes and make a judgement that some things just aren't right?
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This is correct but mainly in societies where there is no distinction between state and church, so for example many societies find the very sight of women's flesh to be wrong and offensive and therefore women have to wear a burka.

In democratic, liberal societies the general principle is that the state does not get involved in the private life of individuals unless what they are doing causes harm to others (for which one needs evidence). This kind of thinking has been used to de-criminalise homosexuality and prostitution in England for example.

Having said that, the law is not 100% consistent, for example it is illegal to have sex with an animal in England (although hardly anyone is every prosecuted for it). If you think about the pain caused to animals in the breeding, rearing, transporting and slaughtering for food industry, having sex with an animal is hardly the most harful thing we do to them!

I do agree with TarrSteps that the motivation behind the outrage with rollkur is very suspect, especially as it originated with German journalists who were facing the first ever challenge to their country's equestrian supremacy from the Dutch.

Ironically even Dr H's book accepts that working a horse hollow is much worse than rollkur, but no one is trying to stop millions of amateur riders from riding because of it.
 
There you go, five seconds later and another thread makes my point for me:

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=557791&page=2

There was another poster the other day on a thread saying how awful the whole of riding looked to her (which I don't dispute, I am sure it did, just saying that this is merely grounds for her not to ride, not for her to ban riding for everyone else).
 
Booboos said:
There you go, five seconds later and another thread makes my point for me:

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=557791&page=2

There was another poster the other day on a thread saying how awful the whole of riding looked to her (which I don't dispute, I am sure it did, just saying that this is merely grounds for her not to ride, not for her to ban riding for everyone else).
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Whilst I agree with the basic point you make, is there more of a moral imperative when those who voice concerns about a practice possibly being harmful do actually know something, or possibly much, about the subject, even if there's no 'proof'? In terms of a discussion of ethics, would that hold more weight?

It seems to me that in many spheres, not least science, we extrapolate from what we do know, to give informed opinion. Indeed such 'expert witness' is used in court to help decide guilt. I think this has many pitfalls, and people have been found wrongly guilty of doing all sorts with the help of such unproven expert witness, but it is used in this way.

That sets some sort of precedent doesn't it?
 
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BeesKnees said:
Whilst I agree with the basic point you make, is there more of a moral imperative when those who voice concerns about a practice possibly being harmful do actually know something, or possibly much, about the subject, even if there's no 'proof'? In terms of a discussion of ethics, would that hold more weight?

It seems to me that in many spheres, not least science, we extrapolate from what we do know, to give informed opinion. Indeed such 'expert witness' is used in court to help decide guilt. I think this has many pitfalls, and people have been found wrongly guilty of doing all sorts with the help of such unproven expert witness, but it is used in this way.

That sets some sort of precedent doesn't it?
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What is the content of this knowledge and why can't it be shared with others? What is it that they know about this practice? Who are these people who know stuff, and why aren't they telling the rest of us?

Expert don't make things up out of thin air, nor do they rely on feeling or intuition when they arrive at a conclusion (they may rely on intuition in following a particular line of thought but if they don't find any evidence to back up their initial intuition they can't claim to be justified). Imagine a forensic anthropologist who is giving evidence in court claiming the accused is guilty of murder. The first question she will be aske is 'Why?', if her answer is 'He feels guilty to me' and the fact that she is an expert doesn't justify her answer. We wouldn't convict this person because she feels he is guilty. Experts are good witnesses because of their knowledge; we don't expect every minutiae of their knowledge to be understandable by us but they should be able to give an account based on facts not feelings.
 
Well my argument is and always has been that making the parotid glands bulge out at the side of the neck in a way that it would be extremely rare for a horse to do itself cannot be a correct or acceptable way of training.

And that there should be a greater duty of care on riders who compete on the world stage deliberately using a training technique than your average Riding Club rider who gets things wrong by mistake or ignorance.

Dressage is supposed to be about taking movements that horses perform naturally when loose in a field and perfecting the demonstration of those movements on demand in a test situation.

Putting them in a physical contortion that they never, in my experience, choose to adopt for themselves, is, in my opinion, not acceptable.

Nor is it acceptable for the FEI, having banned it, to fail to enforce it. Either ban it or not but this half-way house we have now is not acceptable and is bringing the FEI into disrepute.
 
Booboos said:
In democratic, liberal societies the general principle is that the state does not get involved in the private life of individuals unless what they are doing causes harm to others (for which one needs evidence).
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We have masses of laws for which there is no evidence whatsoever that it causes actual harm to the participants or anyone else. Either because the evidence cannot be measured or because it would be unethical to do so. They are there because we "feel" these things to be wrong, in some cases with far less evidence than blind-in-front-of-them horses with bulging parotid glands.

For examples:

- sex between consenting 12 year olds, between a brother and sister even if they are sterile, with a horse

- bigamy, polygamy, polyandry

- 14 and 15 year olds working full time

- walking around in public naked

- taking your kids out of school for 2 weeks without the permission of the headteacher.

I'm sure I could find hundreds more.

Do you use rollkur/hyperflexion as a training technique Booboos, or is this just a theoretical discussion for you?
 
cptrayes said:
Well my argument is and always has been that making the parotid glands bulge out at the side of the neck in a way that it would be extremely rare for a horse to do itself cannot be a correct or acceptable way of training.

And that there should be a greater duty of care on riders who compete on the world stage deliberately using a training technique than your average Riding Club rider who gets things wrong by mistake or ignorance.

Dressage is supposed to be about taking movements that horses perform naturally when loose in a field and perfecting the demonstration of those movements on demand in a test situation.

Putting them in a physical contortion that they never, in my experience, choose to adopt for themselves, is, in my opinion, not acceptable.

Nor is it acceptable for the FEI, having banned it, to fail to enforce it. Either ban it or not but this half-way house we have now is not acceptable and is bringing the FEI into disrepute.
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^^^This, with no ands, ifs, or buts!!!
 
cptrayes said:
Nor is it acceptable for the FEI, having banned it, to fail to enforce it. Either ban it or not but this half-way house we have now is not acceptable and is bringing the FEI into disrepute.
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The problem is that by accepting LDR, the FEI gave everyone an 'out'. Sjef Janssen (sp) was on the FEI group that looked at the evidence and decided Rollkur was flexion through aggressive methods and not acceptable. Seems ridiculous but if he claims he does LDR not Rollkur - no problem :rolleyes:
 
cptrayes said:
We have masses of laws for which there is no evidence whatsoever that it causes actual harm to the participants or anyone else. Either because the evidence cannot be measured or because it would be unethical to do so. They are there because we "feel" these things to be wrong, in some cases with far less evidence than blind-in-front-of-them horses with bulging parotid glands.

For examples:

- sex between consenting 12 year olds, between a brother and sister even if they are sterile, with a horse

- bigamy, polygamy, polyandry

- 14 and 15 year olds working full time

- walking around in public naked

- taking your kids out of school for 2 weeks without the permission of the headteacher.

I'm sure I could find hundreds more.

Do you use rollkur/hyperflexion as a training technique Booboos, or is this just a theoretical discussion for you?
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A couple of those are rooted in religion, a point Booboos already addressed, to be fair. The one pertaining to 12 year olds has to do with the age at which children are recognised as being able LEGALLY consent. We don't let 12 year olds buy houses, either. ;)

Ditto children working full time and staying in school - there is quite a body of evidence that children in our current society benefit from a basic education. It doesn't guarantee anything, I'll admit, but the wholesale lack of it certainly would! So lines do get drawn, of course. Just like we say people can wear spurs in dressage (actually MUST wear spurs, but that's another conversation) but cannot draw blood with them.

The naked thing is also religious in origin and not necessarily the case in all modern countries now. It is actually legal for women to go topless in many countries, although in predominantly WASP culture there is still a social taboo. As far as stores etc having rules regarding dress etc, that's their private business.

I do agree with your earlier point, that having decided on this course of action, the FEI should stick to its guns. Similar cases have cropped up in other disciplines - "peanut rolling" QHs, "soring", overly tight overchecks on driving horses etc - with varying levels of successful policing.

One of the problems in the subjective cases is degree. If you are policing the low head set of WP QHs then do you also punish a horse that occasionally dips below? For how long? How much does the horse's demeanour affect a decision? Who makes the decision, given that only one official is usually going to see any single incident?

And for the purpose of discussion, where is the proof that dressage is taking what horses do naturally and putting it in a ring? Horses don't do MOST of what we want naturally, from live in boxes to jump higher than their heads. Dressage is a martial art and more recently entertainment. The idea that it's "good" for horses is relatively recent - not too many people cared what was "good" for horses until pretty recently, although they did care what made them more able to do their jobs. And that is the defence of rolkur - that for SOME horses they need to be trained in extreme ways in order to do extreme tasks. Maybe the defence is it makes those horses unsuitable for the job, in the same way that if you have to sore your horse to make it jump clean it's not an Olympic sj'er, but we've not actually had that discussion. I'd agree the answers have to come from judging but again, there is no PROOF you can tell which horses are trained which way just by looking. As I said before, look how many short necked, trailing hocked horses are inhabiting local shows, likely not the product of rolkur.

Booboos is completely able to defend herself, but I think the issue is one of principle. Why do we allow this and not that? Is it okay to ban things just because some people find it offensive? If that's the case, who gets the final vote? Can we ban things we don't fully understand? (Has anyone read any of the pro-rolkur instruction? It does exist, it's not just people being mean to horses for the sake of it.) Are photos enough? What about the people who object to other uses for horses?

Again, I'm not saying we should do nothing about suffering, I'm just saying that perhaps, if we're going to do that, it's not unfair to ask for debate.

The people who levelled the first charges, btw, were not vets and were not, in the main even experienced trainers. There is no proof because, well, there is no proof. I very much see your point that photos can be added into evidence but I suspect if we looked we could find quite a few photos of unhappy horses NOT in rolkur. What would that mean?
 
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cptrayes said:
We have masses of laws for which there is no evidence whatsoever that it causes actual harm to the participants or anyone else. Either because the evidence cannot be measured or because it would be unethical to do so. They are there because we "feel" these things to be wrong, in some cases with far less evidence than blind-in-front-of-them horses with bulging parotid glands.

For examples:

- sex between consenting 12 year olds, between a brother and sister even if they are sterile, with a horse

- bigamy, polygamy, polyandry

- 14 and 15 year olds working full time

- walking around in public naked

- taking your kids out of school for 2 weeks without the permission of the headteacher.

I'm sure I could find hundreds more.

Do you use rollkur/hyperflexion as a training technique Booboos, or is this just a theoretical discussion for you?
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I didn't say there are no laws that did not conform to the No Harm Principle, but since the French renaissance and the influence of J.S. Mill's liberal ideas, culminating with the Hart/Devlin debate on the Wolfenden report, English law has very much followed the liberal line. Bestiality is the one prominent exception, the other as you mention is incest between consenting adults. Of the others you mention anything with children isn't relevant as they are not consenting adults and liberals are happy to be paternalistic about children (so children are protected both from having to work and from having their right to education disrupted by their parents). Polygamy's prohibition is multifold, partly due to the deception involved (of the state and of the spouce) and partly due to the potential burden to the state from the various children) (all fairly dubious claims imo but that's a longer discussion). The 'walking around naked' is a breach of the peace which does allow for a fairly subjective interpretation of when public peace and order is disturbed, but as a result sentences are generally very lenient (exactly because of the very small amount of harm caused by the offence).

No I don't train in rollkur myself because I am a crappy, amateur rider and my main problems are my seat and failing to have my horses in front of the leg. I think these particular faults would be horribly exaccerbated by any training method that had a lot to do with hands (not just rollkur but Baucherite flexions for example), and I am probably better off going wrong by having my horses run off than fail to have any impulsion. However, I am also not a supporter of rollkur, merely a defender of it!
 
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