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May 2007 • VOLUME 21 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
Heather
wrote: East Leigh Farm, Harberton, Totnes, Devon, TQ9 7SS www.enlightenedequitation.com 25th April 2007 Dear Sir, I was extremely disappointed by the BHS's predictable 'sitting on the fence' attitude in the latest BHS News, with regard to the 'rollkur' issue. I was pleased, on the one hand, to see a lot of space devoted to it, and Patrick Print at least seemed to opine that it is a dangerous tool in inexperienced hands. But what was so very disappointing, was the mere fact that you included only riders, judges and trainers, and no veterinary comment whatsoever. Dressage, especially at the level of those quoted, is big business, with vast sums of money being paid for potential dressage horses, and even greater sums changing hands for trained ones. It would be commercial suicide for those quoted, to come out and say directly, that their opinion is that this practise is damaging to horses. All the more reason that we need to hear from vets, and experts in biomechanics, not those with vested interests.{vieownly=special} I was the only British trainer to be invited to lecture and demonstrate at Equitana 2007, in Essen Germany, and two of my fellow lecturers felt the rollkur issue sufficiently important, to relinquish their own lecture spots in order to allow anti rollkur vet, Dr Gerd Heuschmann, to speak for a longer period than was allotted to him. Had my slot been immediately before or after him that day, I would have done the same. But this attitude by the BHS is indicative of its general lassitude when it comes to really taking a stance and standing up for the horse. For instance, the standard of teaching in this country is generally appalling. I run remedial riding workshops here every month, and riders bring with them videos or DVD's of themselves riding, for assessment purposes, sometimes on riding school horses. The teaching, or rather lack of it, that is apparent, is shocking. Only last month, two riders on my workshop, went to a BHS approved school to stage 4, for a lesson, in order to bring a DVD with them for assessment, as their own horses had been out of work over the winter. In the DVD, they were told to 'kick it, kick it harder', and when the switched off, emotionally dead horses did not respond to a hefty blow, the riders were told to 'hit them, hit them really hard'. When my two students refused, they were called 'wimps'. What is worse still, that school was divided into two, and two little girls, aged around eight, were being given the same advice by a second instructor. This is far from an isolated incident- I have plenty more evidence in similar vein. I retrain riding teachers in the 'Enlightened Equitation' way, and one of the next group, is a BHSI and an examiner- if someone of this level, feels the need to retrain, surely this in itself, speaks volumes? I despair when I see riding and teaching at schools, where the instructor clearly cannot recognise that the rider is behind the movement, literally stopping a horse from moving forward, or that the rider is impeding the horse by incorrect absorption of the horse's movement, and that to kick and hit it, is punishing the horse, who is not at all to blame. I have never had a single student here on a workshop, who has been taught 'feel', which I can teach to a complete beginner, on my horse movement simulators that haven't even legs! The BHS claims to be a welfare organisation. Cruelty doesn't end with starvation and neglect. Instead, it starts, often with poor riding, whereby the horse becomes 'difficult', so the rider feels resentful at having to pay for stabling, feed, shoeing and vets bills, when the horse, in many cases, is not rideable. And so, the end result is neglect. I have seen it so many times, but the BHS bury their head and ignore the root cause. Now, with this rollkur debacle, any last remaining shreds of hope I had for the future of riding in the UK, has vanished. The BHS - and by this, I do not mean the hardworking general staff and volunteers- it appears, is managed, by a frankly lily-livered bunch, too afraid to speak out on behalf of the horse, who has no voice. The horse cannot cry out in pain like a dog, and so, he suffers in silence. The Society has had its head buried in the sand so long, that it is in danger of fossilisation. Wake up, before it is too late. Yours truly, Heather Moffett (Ms)
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Heather
Moffett is well known for her pioneering work, teaching riding with
horse movement simulators, which she co-developed with an engineer
friend. Having a Classical background, being a long term student of the
late Capt. Desire Lorent, himself a student of Maestro Nuno Oliveira,
Heather subsequently trained with Dr. Margaret Cox, although not well
known by her own choice, she is a brilliant teacher, growing up in
Westfalia, Germany, and studying Classical Equitation under various
Bereiters, ex of the Spanish Riding School. Six years ago, both
Margaret and Heather went to train several times a year with Luis
Valenca Rodrigues in Portugal, himself a relation, and student of Nuno
Oliveira. 