British Dressage discrimination.

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KirstiJ

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Just trying to raise awareness regarding disabled riders and the discriminatory behaviour I received from British Dressage today.

I first want to tell you about Shannon, a rider I am working with as we are both under the same trainer. Shannon is a Canadian rider, currently undertaking a Masters degree at a UK university, and has been totally blind since she was around 10 years old. Shannon never fails to amaze me! Shannon can do better centre lines than I can, leg yield, canter diagonal rein changes, jump .... the list goes on.

Shannon has recently got quite in to competing in dressage competitions and performing dressage tests. I have bought a full set of British Dressage test sheets, and thought that it would be an amazing Christmas present to get these converted to braille for Shannon to take home to Canada with her at the end of this year. I went in to the local Resource for the Blind organisation, and they were absolutely amazing and said they would help me achieve this. However, when they contacted BD for the electronic copy of the tests required, they were refused. I then contacted them today, were told that they did not provide the braille tests themselves, and could not send me an electronic copy to organise this at my expense. They're poor excuse was that there was not enough demand for the tests in braille, and they were understaffed. From an organisation who claimed to support the Paralympics and lists one of their values as "Promoting equality of opportunity and access for all people irrespective of background and ability", I think this is sickening. Surely, all the equality legislation that is in place should prevent things like this? It should be the responsibility of BD to get those tests converted to braille and sent to us, even if it is only for one person.

Thank you for reading.
 
No way! Wow. I am shocked that they refused. Equality indeed, even when you said it would be at your expense. Sad to read this. Have you thought about writing a letter to BHS and seeing if you can get support from them?
 
Poor. I can understand not giving away tests. But if someone has bought them and a genuine company converting them, surely an agreement to not sell on is enough.
Hope you just got one idiot the other end and someone else there sees sense. BHS definitely worth asking for support as thhh says.
 
We are on it! Our instructor, who is also chairman and chief instructor of our RDA group, is contacting FEI, BD, and the royal who is patron of the RDA.
 
KirstiJ said:
No, unfortunately not. It's the electronic copy I need, and it can't be in PDF either.
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could you copy the text from a pdf to a word document and work from there? would mean them sending it in pdf and with their reaction I would think even thats going to be difficult :(
 
Wow that is shocking! I would have thought they would be legally obliged to at least help you out if not provide the tests in a variety of formats themselves. Perhaps there is a disability rights organisation that could advise you on how best to complain about this?

Have you posted on the BD forum? Might be worth raising awareness on there as well.
 
Thank you so much for your support everyone. We are on it, contacting our local council regarding the legalities of the situation, and also contacting BD, FEI, BHS, and Princess Anne, who is the royal patron of RDA. Really just wanted to raise awareness and show that this isn't on.

The most disgusting part was when BD told us she should be doing Para competitions, and that they provide callers for tests.
a) We live in North Wales, and Para competitions are limited unless we travel significant distances. Being students, resources can be limited! There are, however, local unaffiliated dressage competitions most weekends, whose organisers, judges and supporters have been fair, encouraging and supportive.
b) It's great that they provide callers, but that is not what Shannon wants. They show no regard for Shannon wanting to learn the tests and increase her independence. All her riding is totally independent other than callers at A,C,E and B so she knows where she is.
 
They're apparently working on providing a braille format, but couldn't give us any firm details or a time scale. They haven't contacted RDA or the Blind Society for any in put.
 
I know this doesn't help with the braile issue, which I find disgusting from BE, but would it be possible for someone to read the tests, at the appropriate speed, on to an MP3 player or similar to allow the rider to learn the tests in a similar manner to learning them by reading? I would have thought that BE would have welcomed a disabled rider competing on equal terms and am saddened at their level of discrimination.
 
OP, as per the other poster... Get onto the BD forum and ask for a public response from BD - they will respond.
You can register to the forum without being a member these days.
 
A mention on twitter, facebook & all forums you can would be a start..then the Daily Fail...even they have their uses! I do hope you are treated with more respect asap so that Shannon can get her very well deserved Christmas present..and an apology, this is trully disgraceful. Please keep us posted ...wonder if H&H would like to cover it too?
 
I haven't had any contact with BD but from such an organisation I find this kind of attitude shocking :(

OP, would it help if someone manually copy typed the tests into an electronic format (Word)? so that you could get started with coverting them into braile?

I would be more than happy to do a bit of typing if it would help.
 
Sending a letter to H&H regarding this issue :) Tried speaking to them yesterday, even got our trainer (who is also chairman of our RDA group and previously worked in benefit fraud) to speak to them.

While having it in a word document would be fantastic, it's really gone beyond that now. Even with the tests in a word document it would cost me nearly £100 to get them converted, and my point is that it should be BD who are busting their gut to sort this, no one else.

The local Resource for the Blind organisation has amazingly offered me free use of their recording studio to record all of the tests for Shannon. They are truly fantastic. I think in terms of her Christmas present, this is the route I am going to take. However, myself and Sara are going to push this issue as far as we can!!!! This has to be in violation of the discrimination legislation.

Once again, thank you all for the support and advice :)
 
OFG said:
I haven't had any contact with BD but from such an organisation I find this kind of attitude shocking :(

OP, would it help if someone manually copy typed the tests into an electronic format (Word)? so that you could get started with coverting them into braile?

I would be more than happy to do a bit of typing if it would help.
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I totally agree with the sentiment behind this but I know that BD have the copyright to the tests so typing them out could be seen as a breach of the copyright and could get you into trouble which I would think is why KirstiJ needs BD to send them to her. BD really do need to get their act together and engage their collective brains on things like this :(
 
Sad as it is, I don't think you could legally argue discrimination, since BD don't provide electronic copies to 'able-bodied' riders, so what they're doing is in line with their usual policy, stupid as it may be in this situation.

Hope you get it sorted, Kirsti. It beggars belief the lack of common sense of some people!
 
If it helps, & with permission from BD, I could produce you an electronic copy of the dressage diagrams on AutoCAD. Your company could then substitute the text with braille? Would be happy to help out if they need a hand.
 
KirstiJ said:
I then contacted them today, were told that they did not provide the braille tests themselves, and could not send me an electronic copy to organise this at my expense. They're poor excuse was that there was not enough demand for the tests in braille, and they were understaffed.
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I am not one for righteous indignation, but :eek: this is unbelievably ****e! How long does it take to email a few .pdfs? I do it my lunch break. Can see why you are p1ssed off.
 
Fransurrey said:
Sad as it is, I don't think you could legally argue discrimination, since BD don't provide electronic copies to 'able-bodied' riders, so what they're doing is in line with their usual policy, stupid as it may be in this situation.

Hope you get it sorted, Kirsti. It beggars belief the lack of common sense of some people!
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But BD aren't providing electronic or hard copies (in the format requested) - so it's not in line with the usual.

Very disappointing response thus far from BD for all the reasons so far outlined. It's not rocket science for anyone to understand that it will take a bit more time and effort than usual to fulfil this particular request, but that's part and parcel of finding the solution they should be providing rather than attempting to fob someone off with bizarre reasons for not doing it.
 
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KirstiJ said:
The local Resource for the Blind organisation has amazingly offered me free use of their recording studio to record all of the tests for Shannon. They are truly fantastic. I think in terms of her Christmas present, this is the route I am going to take.
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They are already available on CD from British Dressage though you may feel after the way they have behave you don't want to put any more business their way.

Found them here on special offer

http://www.equestrianvisionshop.co.uk/acatalog/Audio_CDs.html
 
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