How to win at Dressage !!!

[TicTac]

This is a professional dressage rider and it fills me with horror to watch this beautiful horse ridden this way. It is so totally wrong and un necessary. I believe they call it Rolkur. I will probably never watch a top class dressage competition with any sort of admiration again.

The video clip listed below was taken at the world cup dressage qualifiers taken by EPONA TV in Denmark.

http://www.youtube.com/user/eponatv

The horse, a stallion is in hyperflexion for over 90 minutes - incredibly no-one says anything, the stewards said there were' worse riders' , Anky one presumes Sjeff Jansen is trainer for both riders...and sat watching on the sidelines.. The horse has a lolling tongue which has turned blue through pressure and lack of oxygen, the horse is in a state of learned helplessness - he endures, an elite athlete, a stallion and he has learnt not to fight back, he tries to relieve the pain by dropping his tongue and pulling his head in tighter.

As Gerd Heuschmann, Philippe Karl, Sylvia Loch, Dr Andrew McLean and eminent others say we must all speak out - when we know or see something to be wrong.

 

[katie_and_toto]

This has been posted quite a few times over the past few days, it's horrific

 

[TicTac]

Oh sorry, I have been offline over the last week or so!

 

[beckieswann]

This video gives me nightmares everytime I think about it. It's horrendous the poor poor horse

 

[JoJo_]

Yeah its twice on NL and in comp riders already. Interesting to see the different responses though. In NL there appears to be outrage but not so much in comp riders. I think it is a disgusting video. I dont agree with rollkur at all. I dont think professional riders know better than the rest of us so it makes it 'ok' for them to ride horses this way. In my opinion the pro riders who use this technique dont care that it is torturous to the horses and just use it as a quick way to get good marks at high level competitions.

 

[juliets]

I am so shocked at this and it makes me so angry. Unfortunately non humane practices will always be around while there is money to be made. I'd quite like to put one of those in the riders mouth until his tongue turns blue and make him run around... grrrrrrr

 

[TeamTotilas]

Not all dressage horses are trained in this manner, many are produced sweetly, I do hope it doesn't put you off top level dressage forever because there are some great trainers and riders that would never do this.

 

[Paint it Lucky]

That poor horse. Saw him at the windsor Europeans this year and really liked him, so very upset to see that he is trained this way