Shocking! And this from the guy who opposes rollkur

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Booboos

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I picked this up on the BD forum but it was so interesting I think it's worth replicating.

This is Dr Gerd H (yes, the author of modern vs traditional and great advocate anti-rollkur riding), riding a horse during one of his demos. The text (via Google translate) seems to suggest that this is his ACTUAL riding and not an attempt to demonstrate how others get it wrong with rollkur.

Words fail me:

http://www.dressur-studien.de/index.php/heuschmann-reitet-korrektur.html
 
:O
there is actually a workshop/ lectures going on by him at vale view i was going to go to as im interested in body how it works etc (want to become a eq physio) and saw the poster of a horse in a rol-kur position on the poster and i was like hmmmmm maybe hes showing how not to do it? but if you say that was him riding!
i might go just out of interest to see what he says, it really surprises me. that poor fresian those pictures of it facing the wall :(
 
Hard to judge from a set of photos- I'd say the majority are fine and just getting the horse to flex more and move away from the leg.
I don't like the pics with the horse's nose on it's chest though it may have just been for a few strides as the 3 pics are taken in rapid succession (not that I think it's acceptable to have a horse that tight even for a moment)

At least he hasnt got spurs on and it's just in a snaffle.....
 
Ditto that it is hard to tell from photos and not videos....but I see a serious of photos of a stressed, tense, uncomfortable horse being forced to do things. I personally don't like/agree with that sort of schooling :(
 
TheMule said:
At least he hasnt got spurs on and it's just in a snaffle.....
Click to expand...


My eyesight isn't very good, but to me it looks like some sort of gag.
And I must say, I did not like the amount of hand he is using, and the way he is sitting. It looks horrendous, tbh, and the horse does not look at all happy about it. :(
 
You can use Google translate and get a pretty accurate translation of what it says. OH (who is half German) just run through it with me and Google is pretty accurate.
 
According to the text, the photos were taken at a workshop during which he spend ca. 25 minutes working on a "problem" horse. The article's authors take issue with what they perceive as an attempt to accomplish in one session, using brute strength, what Dr H. himself has often acknowledged will generally take many sessions.

I would not get too wound up by this. These are moments captured during what looks like rather a large argument with the horse in question, and the choice and placement of these particular photos suggests a certain agenda on the part of the author. I do not believe that we are seeing enough of what happened to come to any particular conclusions.

I'm no fan of Rollkur, and if anything, I tend towards far too light a contact. Yet I'm sure that someone with a high-speed camera could capture moments where it looks like I'm yanking my pony's teeth out, as he tries to evade me by tucking his head somewhere it shouldn't be.

Tempest in a tea-pot, in my opinion! :)
 
This does in fairness look like his is demonstrating a horse being soft through it's neck and possibly how to acheive it.. Many trainers, polo/crosse especially, divide the horse itself into: poll, neck, shoulder, ribcage, rear essentially. To gain full control of your horse is to make them soft through these areas and you do a lot of flexing with them all. Like literally taking the horses neck for instance and flexing it and the same with a downward action through the poll and pushing their rear over just like you would to ask them to move on the ground. Sorry this sounds confusing but if you want to know more or for me to clarify anything do ask! Anyway I think what it looks like this guy is doing is showing how to get these parts of the horse soft through flexing them and not forcing them. I went through months of flexing my horses neck on the ground like ten each way everyday because he was a bolter, and once we got him truly soft through his neck it now means that we can use a one- rein stop! :)
 
Booboos said:
I picked this up on the BD forum but it was so interesting I think it's worth replicating.

This is Dr Gerd H (yes, the author of modern vs traditional and great advocate anti-rollkur riding), riding a horse during one of his demos. The text (via Google translate) seems to suggest that this is his ACTUAL riding and not an attempt to demonstrate how others get it wrong with rollkur.

Words fail me:

http://www.dressur-studien.de/index.php/heuschmann-reitet-korrektur.html
Click to expand...

Am shocked! words fail me too, I've also read the discussion on the next page about him being asked not to ride, to which he responds that he is still going to, from what is written he's not doing his reputation much good.

I would like to see more....but one thing is for sure he is not Phillipe Karl and shouldn't try to ride like him, I am to say the least hugely disappointed.
 
Not attractive pictures but definitely not Rollkuer.

Looks to me as though he was trying to get the horse to flex.
 
Looks like an argument with a horse to me - not pretty but not enough to accuse him of anything.
 
Yeah, looking again I really don't see the fuss, he is just showing it how to flex and yield. The one of him facing wall is a great way to work on lateral and can all be done on the ground with them too. Admittedly some of the angles of pics don't help but certainly no way rollkur.
 
Naturally said:
Looks like an argument with a horse to me - not pretty but not enough to accuse him of anything.
Click to expand...

Have to say when I saw the pictures, I just saw a willful, argumentative evasive baggage and a rider that made the mistake of rising to the argument. Can't say it is pretty, but nothing I haven't probably done at some time or another.
 
Nobody has said he is riding in Rollkur, just that he is not riding well and is riding with force if you read the two following articles the FEI and FN have received a lot of complaints about his strong/forceful riding and he has been seen to actually irritate the horses he is riding.

He is not riding in Rollkur but he is not riding well either and when you are holding large clinics and people are paying they should be pleased with results and not issuing complaints.
 
Rouletterose said:
he has been seen to actually irritate the horses he is riding.
Click to expand...

We've probably all done that.

I don't think you can make a judgement based on a series of photos and a commentary which perhaps is biased. If I had the chance to go to a demo of his I would certainly do so, and make my mind up then.

Bear in mind that his book has done a huge amount for the welfare of dressage horses before you shoot him down.
 
Unfortunately my German is not as good as it used to be, but it says that the horse would not accept any rein or leg aid. I don't think this is rollkur and as has been mentioned before, the three photos that show overbending were taken in quick succession, so don't express a general trend of the demonstration. I am sure most of us at some time have been overbending horses for a short time during a schooling session in an attempt to either make them accept the aids or getting them to flex more. A shame we don't see the end result.
 
Agreed what I see is one big fight there! As for facing the wall, we all know horses can't see smack bang infront of them anyway and anyway, I don't think making a horse face a wall can in any way be cited as cruel or bad lol
 
Rowreach said:
We've probably all done that.

I don't think you can make a judgement based on a series of photos and a commentary which perhaps is biased. If I had the chance to go to a demo of his I would certainly do so, and make my mind up then.

Bear in mind that his book has done a huge amount for the welfare of dressage horses before you shoot him down.
Click to expand...


I agree his book has done masses for horses and against Rollkur, he and PK are firm friends and have collaberated a lot, also with Anja Beran.....and yes me too, if there was a clinic local to me I would go and watch him with huge interest, but the people in the report condemming his riding and his ability as a rider are very experienced, and I know that he has never been thought of as a 'rider'.
 
From the BD forum:

"Copied from an open group on Facebook - this is an article from a German journalist, Claudia Sanders:

'Gerd Heuschmann under criticism

The Xenophon society’s first press release was a bit cryptical, announcing that Gerd Heuschmann, veterinarian and founding member of Xenophon, had stepped down as deputy chairman at his own request because of irreconcilable divergences in substance. Shortly afterwards, he resigned from the society altogether, thereby forestalling a possible exclusion procedure. At the origin of the fierce criticism of Heuschmann is his way of riding in his clinics.

Xenophon chairman and Olympic Games winner Klaus Balkenhol is far from happy with the situation:

“These past months, complaints about Gerd Heuschmann’s way of riding have been heaping up at the society."

For some time now, the vet and book author Heuschmann has been offering clinics that include not only his lectures on the biomechanics of the horse, but also a practical riding session. Heuschmann, who also completed a training as “Bereiter FN” (assistant instructor of the German riding association), corrects the often badly ridden clinic horses himself, trying to “make them fit by riding”, in loose interpretation of the Xenophon motto “Good riding suffices”.

To achieve this, he uses elements (but not the complete systematics) of the methods of Philippe Karl (high hand) and Anja Beran (yielding of the haunches on a circle) and tries them out on the clinic horses.

“During these ‘corrective riding sessions’ it came to ugly pictures, which gave rise to the complaints to our society,” Balkenhol says.

In extensive one-on-one interviews with Gerd Heuschmann, the Xenophon chairman tried to dissuade him from riding the horses himself in his clinics – to no avail. Balkenhol went to see Heuschmann several times and had long talks with him: “Gerd achieved so much with his excellent lectures on biomechanics. It’s simply sad that he is now ruining all this with his way of riding. But unfortunately I couldn’t convince him.”

As a result of these discussions, Heuschmann resigned from his office as deputy chairman at the end of May.

Two weeks later, he is holding a clinic near Mainz. The vet climbs into the saddle of a Friesian horse which apparently is not permeable to the aids and accepts neither leg nor rein aids. Professional photographer Julia Rau documents the 25-minute ride with her camera and a large telephoto lens. Heuschmann does not let himself be bothered by her and “corrects” the Friesian. The picture series and the timestamp on the photographs show it very clearly: these are no accidental snapshots.

When asked about the photographs by the editorial staff of the German horse magazine St. Georg, Heuschmann first showed contrition: “The error I probably made was to ride this horse in the first place,” he said meekly.

But on the day of the publication of St. Georg, the vet declared via his website: “Since mid-June, I have been the focus of critical reporting. This witch-hunt has various motives, about which I don’t want to say anything here. I made no mistake and will therefore carry on my work unperturbed. For this reason, there is no need for any justification. Only the short advice that ugly situations can occur every day and under every rider when working with horses that need to be corrected.”

Without making a fuss about it, the German FN cancelled the cooperation with Heuschmann completely, so that his clinics are not recognized as official further education courses for instructors any more. In future, he will thus probably not have his say any more, neither at the FN nor the FEI level.

When asked for comment on the accusations and pictures by Dressur-Studien, he first invited us to a clinic – only to inform us just a few hours before it was due to start that taking pictures was forbidden and that he would not ride anyway.
The questions we sent him per email remain unanswered so far, but maybe he simply had no time to reply: in early August he started a three-week “USA tour” on which he is offering clinics – with practical riding sessions."


The words "up his own *&^%" and "cash cow" seem to be floating around in my brain...
 
Thanks for that Booboos, I was just going to say that Enlightened equitation are discussing this as well and Heather has the same copy of the letter above also she herself was at one of his clinics and was very disappointed.

I know he trained as a bereiter long ago but what do you think is happening here? the complaints as stated above are a lot and not just from that clinic you originally posted the photos from, I just think it's such a shame that a man held in such high regard for his veterinary/biomechanics work should suddenly do a lot of riding (I know he has ridden at clinics before) and he's obviously trying to emulate PK don't you think?
 
My opinion is that this man is out to make a quick buck.

Firstly, I don't think you can write a book explaining a scientific point to the public without having made the scientific point to the scientific community first. Dr H does not appear to have any academic articles in print (or at least none come up in Google scholar or are cited in major veterinary databases, or mentioned on Dr H's website). This just rings alarm bells, as the first task of the scientist is to have empirically verifiable research, that has been judged worthy of publication by his peers, is in the public domain and whose conclusions are open to refutation or replication. Even his books is published by a non-academic publisher, and persumably was not subjected to any kind of peer review before publication.

Secondly, I am deeply suspicious by anyone who is so passionate about their cause, they think the best way to effect change is to embark on a series of self-centred lectures. Is the money from these lectures put back into horse welfare and rider education? If it is, I take it all back. Otherwise this does seem like a case of self-promotion. This would seem to be born out by the fact that what might have started as a claim of veterinary knowledge, has now become a display of horsemanship. What reason is there to think that Dr H is a good horseman and one we should all learn from?

Bad riding is bad riding and if rollkur practitioners are guilty of bad riding to get medals, then this is as reprehensible an example of bad riding for self-promotion and profit.
 
the translation off the first website was:
We have long wondered whether we make these pictures online. Previously, we have investigated whether these pictures "individual cases" are one, an unfortunate "slip", a snapshot of the horse Horse of a correction, where it would be unfair to simply as the norm "to" publish them.

The bottom line, and the questions:
1st Gerd Heuschmann is obviously not Rollkursupporters, although the images suggest that.
2nd Gerd Heuschmann rides obviously with a lot of physical strength. with powerful forces to ride a horse correction, in our view, only justified when it comes to the safety of the rider. That was not the case here.
3rd According to the understanding of horsemanship riding requires a correction is always more than one seminar. The white and says Gerd Heuschmann. Why does he then rises at his seminars in the saddle and tried first successes within this short time to achieve with pure power?
4th Everyone makes mistakes, everyone is evolving and that must also each be granted. We hope that we can tell immediately that Gerd Heuschmann waived correction to ride and the limits on what he means the past years has done outstanding in: educate riders how important relationships are biomechanical.

The photographs shown below are from a professional photographer and journalist, during a seminar was taken by Gerd Heuschmann mid-June. The photographer moved the camera and open with large telephoto lens in the hall, Gerd Heuschmann let the pretty pictures of it. The illustrated Friese was ungentlemanly, accepted rein and leg aids barely. "The horse was rather Triebig and lazy," says photographer Julia Rau. The Reiteinheit lasts a good 25 minutes.

Link to article with more information
Link to our network of fair-to-horse ", where the subject is discussed.

Please note:
The photos are the exclusive copyright of Julia Rau, they may be privately or used for commercial purposes, unless the photographer has to declare in writing their agreement.

We have set the images in chronological order according to their time code.
At the moment (4.8./10.30 Clock), we are trying to set the images so that you hacked the site is not ") and insert the time code - so please do not be surprised about renovation work)
 
funny how people don;t mind this too much but were outraged by the rollkur pics/vids- weird eh how people have double standards.


I am not bothered about it, without knowing the full story you can't judge.


If he was beating the horse round the head with a stick I could understand the outrage, however he wasn't.

Also, if some one takes a horse to some one to correct, whether its at a clinic or not, everyone watching is expecting the rider ( rightly or wrongly) to achieve a difference, sometimes its not always about ego but the pressure of the situation.

I don't feel I am in a postion to judge as , to be honest, unless you can hand or heart, say that you have never done something with a horse that you might regret the next day (be it on the floor or when ridden), then no one can really judge. Everyone makes mistakes.

ETA- having been around the equestrian world for a number of years, I can assure you that faced with a horse with such difficulties, many a top rider would do the same thing ( albeit behind closed doors) and if people think they wouldn't then they are disillusioned- not saying I agree with it but many owners want a quick fix.
 
But this is a person who makes money by advocating training methods that do not use force and claims corrective schooling requires a long and slow approach, therefore HYPOCRITE! He is also a rider with no credits to his riding, e.g. no competitive success, no record of having been a great trainer and helping others, no record of remedial riding for difficult horses.

Loads of people are bad riders, including first and foremost yours truly, but I don't publish books showing why others are bad riders, and then go on the lecture circuit and ride worse than they do.

On second thoughts, if people would like to pay to see me yank at my horse's mouth, Booboos Lecture/Demos are now available at a very reasonable cost at a venue near you!
 
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