'Dressage is unnatural and cruel' letter to local paper

I would recommend that the writer of that letter sit on my horse when a herd of young cows comes charging up to the fence. Then she would experience a very natural passage, piaffe, canter half-pass, and canter pirouette.
 
That is actually funny in it's total ignorance!

My baby cob piaffed the other day! he wanted to chase a sheep and I wouldn't let him and he did lovely trot on the spot! I did chuckle to myself, there's a future grand prix dressage horse hiding under all that mud and hair ;)
 
I can sort of see what the writer means to a certain extent. I have no problem with dressage whatsoever including the piaffe and passage but what I absolutely hate watching is the pirouette - it looks so laboured!
 
I know nothing about dressage but she just sounds like a tard!, funny horses in fields un attended well durh who is going to sit in the field for 9hours a day to watch their horses turned out lol did make me laugh.
 
I can see where the writer is coming from, and I actually respect her for taking the time to express her view, considering she has the horses best interest at heart.
 
If she would like to see them jumping a fence naturally the she is welcome to put the big cob into the bark pen and watch him high tail it over the 4 bar post and rail fence into the field next to it ;) :D
 
FreddiesGal said:
I can see where the writer is coming from, and I actually respect her for taking the time to express her view, considering she has the horses best interest at heart.
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I agree with this, especially in light of the whole rolkur issue which is causing such discussion at the moment.

Also, just because somebody does not have knowledge about a subject, does not mean that they can not have an opinion. At least the writer of the letter is willing to be proved wrong!
 
I would recommend that the writer of that letter sit on my horse when a herd of young cows comes charging up to the fence. Then she would experience a very natural passage, piaffe, canter half-pass, and canter pirouette.
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This is my boy all over!! He can perform any advanced dressage (or stunt!) movement when having a strop! :D
 
Bright_Spark said:
I agree with this, especially in light of the whole rolkur issue which is causing such discussion at the moment.

Also, just because somebody does not have knowledge about a subject, does not mean that they can not have an opinion. At least the writer of the letter is willing to be proved wrong!
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Yes but for an opinion to be taken with any level of seriousness, as surely this is the endeavour of the author, then even a small amount of research on the subject is required! And the subject in question is ‘dressage is unnatural and cruel’. The author has no knowledge of the subject but seems happy to make such bold statements as; ‘But to make a horse perform the kind of movements associated with dressage must require severe restraints being placed on their hooves or even made to suffer pain to make them lift their legs high or perform unnatural steps.’

Ignorance is the lazy persons excuse for not researching the subject!
 
A view from a fairly uninformed onlooker. The thing is what constitutes dressage?

At its simplest I should think it about the riding of a horse 'on the bit' in a relaxed manner at all paces. This could range from a simple schooling lesson at the 3/4/ basic paces to advanced Olympic level tests. I've not done any dressage (but have spent best part of the last 40 years riding and working with horses of some description), but I thought that the idea of riding 'on the bit' was to have the horses head so that his nose was near vertical - at least when I've ridden that is when the horse feels responsive. I've read about this rolkur term that you all seem to be discussing, and yes, I can see a problem, but I don't think modern dressage should/does actually take the horses nose beyond vertical does it? - surely if you do the bit can't function properly? As for it functioning as an aid to training I'd have my doubts for the same reason.

I guess, the raising of interest is due to the Olympic coverage, but I think if that is viewed most of the hoses are only 'on the bit' and not over-bent (which is what I would term Rolkur), perhaps one is getting confused by the other by folks who know even less that I do?

I don't think advanced dressage ridden 'on the bit' is a problem for a well schooled and correctly muscled horse who would make many of the actions naturally anyway - take fighting wild stallions for instance.
 
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As funny goes, I think it's far more hilarious that everyone keeps referring to the author of this letter as "she"... How many of you got to the end?! :p

I think there is a valid point in there, especially with the whole "rollkur thing" and how many horrid practises still go on in this day and age to "train" horses. However, I doubt the average rider, or Charlotte or Carl even, can be said to be guilty of cruelty to horse. Most of us would be horrified to hear that someone thought we were. Then there are people who practise rollkur, or put tight and heavy chains around a walking horse's abraised fetlocks, and those sorts of things...
 
what are these 'severe restraints that must be placed on a horse's hooves' for it to perform dressage that the author so horrifyingly refers to?!

lazy, lazy journalism without the slightest research being done before embarking on penning such a ridiculous load of codswallop
 
So she has witnessed rodeo riders 'break' a horse but not spent an hour watching a rider school a horse?
Would someone like to point her in the direction of a local dressage rider where she could get a little enlightenment before we are all tarred with this idiotic brush.
 
Oh for crying out loud would you all listen to yourselves?

First of all the writer is a HE. And he is not a journalist, he is writing a letter to his local paper. And he is not stating facts, he is stating his experiences, his thoughts on the subject, and asking for the person who wrote the article to which he is responding to enlighten him about it.

And fwiw he is not entirely wrong.
 
I must admit, I just don't "get" dressage at all and I certainly don't think it should be an olympic event. Just my opinion, but if the winner can't be determined by "First past the post" or "Quickest" then it's open to subjective judging. Just my opinion.
 
I quite like it when the uninformed state their interpretation of something, and then ask for explanation. Rather that then someone with a little knowledge shouting their mouths off and refusing to accept other opinions, or advice/insights from people who know more about the subject.

I'd love to meet this man and have the opportunity to explain what dressage is all about.

Someone mentioned pirouette looking horrible and laboured. Agree that a lot of pirouette does, but that is because a lot of people ride it badly. A good pirouette is a thing of great beauty. This video is quite something - one time changes for nearly a full circuit of the school, and a pirouette that doesn't look like its ever going to end. The horse is so clearly enjoying his work, and his rider. I could watch it for hours!
 
Ned did an amazing half pass today, all by himself! He didn't want to face into the rain. He also jumps over anything by himself.
I do see where he's coming from though, some horsey practices look (and sometimes are) very very cruel.
 
I don't do dressage but as others have said ride my mare past a herd of cows and you soon see her hidden untapped talents! Saying that I was very dissapointed during the olympics when the British girl had a bronze and was beaten by the dutch who's horse looked recentful all the way through with his mouth open and tail swishing in temper! All the british horses and most of the others I saw looked so relaxed in comparrison and seemed to enjoying their moment of fame. Is that just me as I am completely ignorant to this discipline. Not even sure how the marking system works for this sort of thing but is the relaxed state of the horse and the rider taken into account?
 
Maybe this man has heard of the treatment of Tennessee Walking Horses. they suffer weights, chains & all sorts of horrors to make them step. It could be easy for a non-horsey person to link the two.
Sounds a bit like someone where my parents used to live who complained about riders not bagging horse poo. In his case it was a class swipe.
 
Rowreach said:
Oh for crying out loud would you all listen to yourselves?

First of all the writer is a HE. And he is not a journalist, he is writing a letter to his local paper. And he is not stating facts, he is stating his experiences, his thoughts on the subject, and asking for the person who wrote the article to which he is responding to enlighten him about it.

And fwiw he is not entirely wrong.
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^That^

And in all fairness, dressage is quite unnatural...
 
Rowreach said:
Oh for crying out loud would you all listen to yourselves?

First of all the writer is a HE. And he is not a journalist, he is writing a letter to his local paper. And he is not stating facts, he is stating his experiences, his thoughts on the subject, and asking for the person who wrote the article to which he is responding to enlighten him about it.

And fwiw he is not entirely wrong.
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Agree with this.

As for all of you saying that a horse performs high dressage movements naturally, there is one thing most of your comments share - your horse does high dressage movements when it is stressed, either wanting to run away/shy at something or not being allowed to run when it wants. So you could say you're training the horse to be stressed at that level..

I am a total fan of harmony and balance in lower levels of dressage, however when you get to Grand Prix I don't find dressage nice to watch as it does look tense and forced with 90% of riders, especially in piaffe and pirouette. I find it a bit difficult to watch, even at Olympic level. I much prefer eventing dressage as the horse still looks like a horse that thinks for itself and has some natural instinct. I'm probably not explaining myself properly. At the end of the day its just my opinion. I found watching the Spanish Riding School perform their higher moves uncomfortable too.
 
It interesting to read what someone who is not horsey has to say about their 'take' on what they see.
Let's face it everyone is entitled to pass comment even if they don't really know what they are looking at.
Even more interesting is some of the posts which follow.
Quite a few missed the author of the letter was a He, in their haste to ridicule, not that it matters much.
There are no moves in dressage which horse's don't do naturally, how could there be? However, the controversy comes when horses are forced to do the moves, or hold the position for unnatural lengths of time.
This is of course where the disgusting practice of Rollkur comes in.
I'm not convinced that when horse's do some of the moves spontaneously they are necessarily under stress.
I've seen moves like this when horses are 'playing' or displaying to one another.
Obviously, a horse frightened of something mundane like cattle who behaves like this is under stress.
The question for me is, if you have a horse scared of the mundane, and under stress, why wouldn't you deal with it and sort it.
 
My mare isn't stressed when she sees cattle she is excited, she behaves this way in the field when her and my cob are 'playing' so definately not a stress thing.
 
I don't think it's fair to say that horses only natrally perform these movements under moments of stress.

How many time have you seen horses galloping around playing and performing flying changes, pirouettes ect? Asbo does his best interpretation of extended trot when it's dinner time and he's in the far corner of the field. I was watching one of the forest stallions a few months back and he displayed some beautiful passage to woo the ladies.
 
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