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JUNE 2006 • VOLUME 10 • ©HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
The best of intentions the saying goes.. can pave your way all the way to hell.
Once upon a time we decided to write down some rules to make sure that what we are doing would be the best thing for the horse. And of course everyone knew the best thing to do was to let the horse's head be ahead of the vertical. Every horseman knew that a horse behind the bit was incredibly awful and just about impossible to retrain.
But times change and new horses are bred, and new riders come along. It is a time of invention. Of cars and computers. We get so used to inventing that we think we can reinvent everything - including the horse.
Let's return to a gentler time, or, maybe even better, let us together create a new time, a special time in history, where maybe for the first time, we truly do look for harmony, joy and kindness as being far more important than the exact moment the horse transitions at "C" from passage to piaffe, from walk to trot.
Each of us must make the choice. Each one of us has a voice. Let's use it.
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Amateur dressage rider
Written by kharakterc on 2006-06-02 15:33:14
It is a shame that the upper level riders are making this "acceptable". I do feel it is my responsibility not to ride my horse in this way. Certainly not to compliment or encourage others. It is not surprising that the FEI didn't just come right out and say that the practice of Rollkur is reprehensible.
This reminds me of a journey in my own life...Midwifery VS Obstetrics /Homebirth VS Institutional Birth. Same arguments used.
1. They are uneducated and don't understand what we do.
2. We can guarantee safety (winning?)
3. The hospitals protect the OB's they bring the $$$ (judges standing by...they are invited by the show/riders)
So many parallels and so disturbing.
Will continue to do what I view as right. Even if the Popular/successful crowd chooses rollkur.
If something is not done. The beauty of dressage will be destroyed. The "purist" will not be able to compete successfully..............It is a shame that this beautiful sport and the beautiful animals are being ruined. | I thought we were supposed to be a civil
Written by looby on 2006-06-03 11:27:57
It is with mixed horror and admiration that I read the June issue of Horses For LIfe. Horror at the images and articles contained within, but admiration for the editing team and their contributors. It takes great courage to stand up and disagree with convention and I for one am overjoyed and proud that there are still people in the equestrian world with that courage and strength to say out loud when something is wrong. And oh is this wrong! The practice of Rollkur is so far removed from the principles of dressage and horse training, and yet it had become the accepted norm among winning riders and trainers. To dismiss the classicists as out of date and irrelevant is short sighted and arrogant. While resorting to heavy handed domination of their horses displays a lack of character and an inhumane disregard for their honest and willing equine parnters in the sport. We should all be speaking out, loudly and repeatedly, against this barbaric training method to get it regarded with the same disgust and damnation as other forms of animal cruelty. It ranks for me with bear baiting, cock fighting, dog fighting, the list goes on. It is a sick and selfish world that sees the pain and suffering of an animal as an acceptable means to winning prizes. If this is dressage, I shall confine myself to just hacking out forever more. Congratulations on your wonderful magazine, and thank you for your courage, Lucinda Evans | Anne Quaye
Written by manxie on 2006-06-10 10:21:25
I have been arguing for years over the use of double bridles ect for dressage. I argued surely the whole point of dressage is showing how well schooled and balanced you and your horse are as a team. I have ridden my horse a standard bred who likes nothing more than to go faster in a english hackamore for years. To prove a point I also rode in a head collar and bareback. Then I said why can't we compete like this? Why do we have to have bits at all if our horse is happier bitless? Why not add a bitless class or a minimal tack class and let the evidense prove it self? | "Classical" Dressage?
Written by indymom on 2006-06-12 16:03:52
I am an armature dressage rider, having started dressage instruction as a novice rider in the late 1970s. Then, "Classical Dressage" WAS dressage - there was no such thing as "NON-Classical Dressage" - what an oxymoron. Then, showing was considered just a way to check your training under expert eyes.
Though only a low level rider, I rode in clinics with some of the dressage elite. Names like England's Molly Sivewright may not be familiar now - she was retired from active competition even then - but at the time she was a world class rider/instructor.
For those still interested in the Classical methods, her many books, among them, Thinking Riding are highly recommended. Unfortunately, it appears that not much "thinking" - as she defined it - is going on in too many dressage arenas these days.
I've since moved away from my former instructor who would NEVER have taught anything but Classical Dressage with what she used to call "Equestrian Tact."
What in the WORLD has happened! Far from being a means to an end, showing, and WINNING, has become an end in itself, and all thought of correct development of the horse is lost in the win-at-any-cost atmosphere. Any thought of the horse AT ALL has been lost.
It all just makes me sick and sad and mad. I could NEVER treat my beloved horse this way. I would give up dressage completely before I would even think of such a thing.
If we allow these people to intimidate us just because they are winning, we have failed the horses just as badly as they have.
Suzanne Moore |
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June 2006 • Volume 10
HORSES FOR LIFE™
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