CDJ withdrawn from paris

[humblepie]

The more I see of top riders acting like they have recently, the less and less it makes me want to carry on riding......

Honestly wondering if there is anyone we can actually trust or look up to in the horse world nowadays

I think there are hopefully. I worked for an Olympic eventer and there was never any rough riding or gadgets. It was time and patience. And I had my horse at a showing yard. I know showing gets a lot of criticism but the horses there were well looked after, lots of turnout lots of hacking and again no gadgets. It was proper riding and proper thought. It was old school in a good way. Never any rush to get an answer and if the horse took and needed time, he got the time. I think the amount of thought that went into it and the amount of attention to detail in everything is why they could achieve the success as they achieved.

 

[PoppyAnderson]

I know an eventer based in Cheshire. Never, ever so much as raises her voice at them. Phenomenally talented and is 100% trustworthy with any horse. Always puts the horses welfare first without any hesitation.

 

[Burnttoast]

Not exactly an enjoyable watch, but instructive to watch to the end

32K views · 393 reactions | Quand Glamourdale se fâche : Championnats d’Europe de dressage, été 2025, Crozet. Suivez la progression du cheval durant les trois phases. Observez comment, le troisième jour, sa queue ne remue plus et comment ses posté

Quand Glamourdale se fâche : Championnats d’Europe de dressage, été 2025, Crozet. Suivez la progression du cheval durant les trois phases. Observez comment, le troisième jour, sa queue ne remue...

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[PurpleSpots]

Not exactly an enjoyable watch, but instructive to watch to the end

32K views · 393 reactions | Quand Glamourdale se fâche : Championnats d’Europe de dressage, été 2025, Crozet. Suivez la progression du cheval durant les trois phases. Observez comment, le troisième jour, sa queue ne remue plus et comment ses posté

Quand Glamourdale se fâche : Championnats d’Europe de dressage, été 2025, Crozet. Suivez la progression du cheval durant les trois phases. Observez comment, le troisième jour, sa queue ne remue...

www.facebook.com

The lack of tail movement towards the end of the video is incredibly interesting isn't it!

 

[nettle]

Not exactly an enjoyable watch, but instructive to watch to the end

32K views · 393 reactions | Quand Glamourdale se fâche : Championnats d’Europe de dressage, été 2025, Crozet. Suivez la progression du cheval durant les trois phases. Observez comment, le troisième jour, sa queue ne remue plus et comment ses posté

Quand Glamourdale se fâche : Championnats d’Europe de dressage, été 2025, Crozet. Suivez la progression du cheval durant les trois phases. Observez comment, le troisième jour, sa queue ne remue...

www.facebook.com

Well that was grim.

 

[Burnttoast]

Well that was grim.

Modern dressage really does need burning down

 

[Burnttoast]

The lack of tail movement towards the end of the video is incredibly interesting isn't it!

It's very odd indeed because he's still carrying it, just no longer using it to express an opinion.

 

[Burnttoast]

I'm reminded of 'you're very good at what you do, it's just that what you do is not worth doing' or something I think from the Big Bang Theory, and how well it applies to modern dressage riders.

 

[little_critter]

Wtf was that?! And how on earth did it score 79%. Most of it wasn’t in a recognisable pace.
And just look at the constant ‘chattering’ of his mouth.
Might as well invite in the Egyptian dancing horses, this seems to be on a par.

 

[tristars]

I thought that, what the hell is it

 

[Gloi]

I blame whoever trains the judges , then the judges who mark up stressed unhappy horses.

 

[Burnttoast]

I blame whoever trains the judges , then the judges who mark up stressed unhappy horses.

Why not blame everyone? No one makes the breeders breed hot hypermobile horses. No one makes anyone ride them. These people are all motivated by their ambition, egos and money, but are adults and could know and do better if they chose to.

 

[Cragrat]

That poor horse

If this is how he is ridden in public, in front of judges, what does he have to endure at home?

And I agree with Gloi. The judging needs to change, right now.

 

[little_critter]

Why not blame everyone? No one makes the breeders breed hot hypermobile horses. No one makes anyone ride them. These people are all motivated by their ambition, egos and money, but are adults and could know and do better if they chose to.

I think the responsibility lies with the judges and the national federations / FEI because they pick the winners. And people are motivated to do what makes them win.
If judges strongly penalised stressed horses, they wouldn’t win and riders would find ways to reduce stress in horses….because calm happy horses win prizes.
The breeding trickles down from there, again if neurotic horses are hard to win prizes on then breeders will breed horses that are level headed. Same with rewarding clear correct paces over hyper mobility.

Edited, I think my use of responsible is wrong.
As you say, everyone involved is responsible, but the judges have the clearest influence. If the judges didn’t reward it then the riders wouldn’t train it and the breeders wouldn’t select for it.

 

[Foxford]

I'm sure there's some complex stuff going on with the judging. I bet someone else can describe it better than me, but I'll have a go! I've heard if they do mark down "the names" they get harassed and are often not invited back by the organisers. I'm sure some of them are bound up in the questionable breeding and training; they have drunk the Kool Aid. And the ones that don't are potentially ostracized.

I went to a lecture demo thing with a UK List 1 judge last week, who was meticulous about regularity of paces and seemed pretty classical in their own training approach. I suppose in summary I think good judges are out there, but perhaps not able to bring about change?

 

[Cragrat]

If I rode at Prelim level with that amount of tension, broken gaits and irregularity, I would be lucky if I wasn't told to leave the arena, let alone score more than 40%.

I think Little-Critter is right in that the judges have the influence, and everyone else ( well, those to whom winning is the most important thing at all costs) does whatever is necessary to get the marks, on as young a horse as possible (i.e. as quickly as possible).

But if Foxford is correct about the bullying and/or corruption of judges, then who actually has the influence, and how can that be stopped? I can't imagine Carl Hester wanting or needing to harras a judge, but certain other European and American riders spring to mind as prime suspects Especially if they are attached to huge breeding operations with multiple riders .

 

[tristars]

The riders body position is stopping the horse in the piaffe, so she uses the spurs

The horse completely confused re it's brain to body communication

You can never get what you need using spurs as driving aids the horse will not be focused on the movement just the pain of the digging metal in its ribs
A lot of these riders have no clue, they are ingrained in a sick system, or too young and inexperienced and trained by people who do not understand how to get a horse to the point of performing with ease, relaxation

The whole point is to get the horse to a physical peak while achieving almost relaxation of mind and body so they work in synchronisation and make it look easy almost, which is the opposite of that video

In fact a long string of 4 letter words would not even begin to describe how I feel watching that poor horse

As cagrat says if you did that at the lower levels you would need to be embarrassed, it was my first thought!

 

[Burnttoast]

I think the responsibility lies with the judges and the national federations / FEI because they pick the winners. And people are motivated to do what makes them win.
If judges strongly penalised stressed horses, they wouldn’t win and riders would find ways to reduce stress in horses….because calm happy horses win prizes.
The breeding trickles down from there, again if neurotic horses are hard to win prizes on then breeders will breed horses that are level headed. Same with rewarding clear correct paces over hyper mobility.

Edited, I think my use of responsible is wrong.
As you say, everyone involved is responsible, but the judges have the clearest influence. If the judges didn’t reward it then the riders wouldn’t train it and the breeders wouldn’t select for it.

It's such a complex and incestuous system. At the bottom, most people expect the judges to know more than them and although they may dislike or disagree with a set of marks I don't think it's that common for riders to avoid certain judges, though I'm sure it does go on to a certain degree... but that hurts the riders more than the judges, I suspect. But at the top the riders are the public facing stars (let's face it, casual spectators don't know many names of judges) and they're often being judged by people who haven't ridden at that level or had as much success competitively. Collectif pour les Chevaux documented recently that while being harrassed by a steward at a warmup for filming, IW rode past, laughed, told the steward to ignore them and said 'she has issues'. In that situation clearly the top riders at least are basically at the top of the show hierarchy and are rarely gainsaid by the officials. And judges will be sidelined if they upset certain people, I'm fairly sure of that. Not to mention the connections they themselves have within the industry, and the fact that they may actually like what they see.

It would probably take some kind of officials general strike for the sport to change direction, but if most of these people are enjoying their status and see little wrong with what's in front of them, there seems no reason for them to call for change. The same goes for the viewing public. To a degree, shows must sell tickets if they aren't to be reduced to status of the average riding club. If the public en masse said 'we don't like this' - and said it loudly to sponsors - then shows would come to a grinding halt. But much of the ticket-buying public clearly still likes what they see, or they wouldn't be turning up.

I hope eventually there will be legislation that deals with animals in sport. Otherwise, there'll always be a sufficient number of ambition-driven people and people who want to be in their orbit for horse sport to continue in its current form - ie, putting enormous amounts of unnecessary stress on animals that can never consent to it.

 

[SEL]

I had a clinic with a judge early last year who said amongst their peers (list 3/4 in her case) there's a lot of eye rolling & head banging about the scoring at the top level. She'd just joked with me that at prelim she'd be scoring me down for tension (leading to an impressive piaffe) so hang on until GP when I can have my 9. Obviously tongue in cheek but very frustrating for those who want to see dressage marked correctly.

 

[Burnttoast]

In the meantime, I'm all for embarrassing riders at a personal level. CplC are mostly very keen to stress that it's the system, which is true, and crops riders' heads etc quite often, or doesn't name them at least. Which is very admirable. I'd be perfectly happy to see gruesome photos of dug-in spurs and blue tongues with the rider's, owner's and sponsors' names splashed all over, on placards at events, on the internet, etc. People can make their own choices and if they can be embarrassed into leaving the sport so much the better. I'm feeling slightly vindictive today, clearly

 

[tristars]

Government reforms of animal welfare currently going through would do well to look into horse sport!