Dressage The sorry saga of Bohemian, does money and horse welfare mix?

[shortstuff99]

Has anyone else been following the poor saga of the horse Bohemian?

A difficult but talented horse who either won medals with Cathrine Dufour, or refused to go in the ring. Was sold to a Korean rider as an Olympic hopeful and taken to compete in the Winter tour in Florida but never competed as he struggled with riding him.

The owner is now selling up all his horses to concentrate on the family business and Bohemian was sent to Patrick Kittel to be ridden and sold.

It was then announced he was going to be sold via auction but after public backlash this was withdrawn and he will be sold privately. There has now been a big spat between Kittel and the sellers that he should be able to keep the horse.

More can be read here https://eurodressage.com/2023/10/29...WixTrR4Wfh82WYLxxakJgNz_fLwrHhfn82BWqAdaZGE5w

And the end of this is a living, extremely sensitive horse. For me the mega money involved in horse sales and the buying of olympic spots destroys the image constantly put out by the industry that they are all about the love of the horse. I hope he lands on his feet.

 

[AmyMay]

At least he’s still being cared for.

I came across a case recently of a fairly decent race horse, retired, sold on and found in a desperate state.

 

[TheMule]

I feel more sorry for the horse that it has to stay with a rider well known for abusive training techniques such as rolkur

 

[ycbm]

I don't see what the issue with auction is, it's very normal on the continent for very good horses to be sold by auction, they don't have the "meat man lurking" image that UK auctions have.

ETA have now read the article and see it relates to the horses sensitivity and probable trial by multiple people.,
.

 

[shortstuff99]

I feel more sorry for the horse that it has to stay with a rider well known for abusive training techniques such as rolkur

Luckily he has been removed from him now. I don't know the current young rider he is with but would be better than PK.

I don't see what the issue with auction is, it's very normal on the continent for very good horses to be sold by auction, they don't have the "meat man lurking" image that UK auctions have.

ETA have now read the article and see it relates to the horses sensitivity and probable trial by multiple people.,
.

I think the whole hoo-hah was created by PK so that he could keep the ride.

 

[LEC]

I find PK hypocrisy outstanding and tbh of the general public! Young horses are auctioned all day long and so are sjers of various ages. It seems fine for hot young dr horses to be sold for a million euros but because PK kicked up this fuss, not for a tricky hot horse who is older? They had tried to sell the horse for a while anyway so at least with auction no more messing about.
Tonnes and tonnes of dr horses have been sold and disappeared over the years. A lot of auction £££ ones never seen again but hey we don’t talk about that…..

 

[Bernster]

EUR 1.5m. I don’t follow top horse prices so I had a nosy as they’d published his asking price.

 

[SEL]

I found it all very odd - especially as the main poster I saw on my FB feed saying how this was a welfare issue has sold on plenty of her own horses. I'm not sure how FB sales adverts, Horsequest etc is any different to an auction. Its hardly like its one of the welsh hill pony auctions where they are going to be heading to the meat man!

 

[Pippity]

I found it all very odd - especially as the main poster I saw on my FB feed saying how this was a welfare issue has sold on plenty of her own horses. I'm not sure how FB sales adverts, Horsequest etc is any different to an auction. Its hardly like its one of the welsh hill pony auctions where they are going to be heading to the meat man!

That said, I can absolutely see a certain sort of person (Muskerbezos levels of rich) being willing to spend a fortune on their Pugaloodluahua's dog food if it's made out of an Olympic dressage horse. Oh, god, I think I've just invented a horrific new niche market.

 

[photo_jo]

At least he’s still being cared for.

I came across a case recently of a fairly decent race horse, retired, sold on and found in a desperate state.

I saw the same and that horse's racing owner works so hard to find the right home for his horses after racing as in the ones who will enjoy another job- the ones that won't or can't are retired to a farm in Southern Ireland

 

[AShetlandBitMeOnce]

It's a shame any living breathing animal has to be subjected to PK, but there are worse things to be spending your time worrying about than the sale of a very well looked after dressage horse.

 

[millitiger]

Sounds like PK tried to use emotional blackmail and peer pressure to get the horse given to him for free... The owners have rightly called that out.

Hopefully the horse finds the right home, whether that leads to Paris next year or not.