I would say what misses the point in all the discussions is no one is asking what CD was trying to achieve and WHY?
My bet is that the answer would bring us back to what dressage is currently rewarding and the “needs more jump” in current judging of the canter.
To be clear, I think it was abuse.
But I am curious as to the context because I think there’s a lesson in there for all of us.
While we may not have been put in a situation where that much pressure seems like the “right” solution, what kind of pressure are our clinicians, trainers, and competition riders under? It’s one thing to go very slowly with a horse when you have all the time in the world, it’s another when you have an expectant client with a big pocketbook, who holds your family’s ability to pay the bills in their hand with their feelings about your work. And still another when you have a position to maintain, as our top riders do. That starts to open the door to ethically murky things, real quick. It does not make it RIGHT, but it’s a problem we have in our industry.
Having spent some time in another discipline where owners buy nice horses and send them to a trainer to train and show - I saw the pressure trainers were under to produce results. Owners would buy horses that were less talented than perhaps desired, or less sound, or whatever, and the trainers would be pressured to turn it into something, lest the Owner yank the whole string. The dynamic of the trainer having all the power shifts. I suspect it’s very much that way in top-level dressage-land too, since so few of the owners are the same as those riding the horses.
So I’ve wondered if it was a setup in a way. I don’t mean in a nefarious intentional way - I just mean that was it a sitaution where Charlotte as a clinician, is presented with a horse who doesn’t do x. Charlotte tries a few things to start to solve the problem, but discovers another problem - a horse who perhaps will not move through the bit. She can’t take the horse and rider the whole way back to the beginning (becuase she is a clinician and she is pressured to produce results) and so the whole situation gets out of hand. Perhaps the rider won’t let go enough in front to do a good gallop and let the horse move out. I don’t know, I’m only picturing things because I have zero true context, she’s already got the whip in her hand when the clip starts and it appears that there has already been some work done and the horse is not responding (he is behind the leg, that much is quite clear).
It still DOES NOT EXCUSE the behavior, and it WAS abuse. I know that this is a lot of nuance for people sometimes, but it does make me think about the pressure that trainers and clinicians are under and I have sympathy for that feeling of pressure - not for the fact that there are consequences for choosing poorly, I just have to continue to make that clear.
If you have a horse with a trainer, have you made it clear that you are not on a specific timeline? When you approach a clinician with a problem, have you made it clear you’re not expecting a quick fix? I’m not sure I’ve always been as clear as I should be when I’ve worked with trainers.
I just wonder what positive lessons we can take away from the situation.
I agree that a horse should stand still when asked, but looking at it from the horse’s point of view, it seems that it is a big ask of a horse that has just come straight out of a warm-up arena where it was likely drilled on doing everything bigger, better, more brilliant, etc. And that is especially true when the horse is a highly sensitive, reactive type, and/or a fairly green horse (maybe first time ever in a big arena full of people?), and/or when the horse has a very demanding rider who tolerates no ifs-ands-or buts from the horse, and the horse knows it is going to get punished in some way for not being forward enough, not “up” enough, not engaged enough, not brilliant enough. It seems unfair to drill a horse into brilliance in the warm-up and then be surprised/disappointed/angry when it won’t stand still for a few seconds - and esp. when you have again asked for brilliance in that trip around the outside of the arena.
So again, as others have so aptly said - the emphasize on gaits is at the heart of the problem. Dressage as a sport has encouraged its own version of “big lick” - and as in the TWH world, the horses are paying the price.
But isn’t that the case in all horse sports/competition?
So long as money is involved and trainers have to make a living, I think there are incentives to make poor choices. I think our horror at dressage doing it is that for so long it was held up as the pinnacle of non-abusive training and I’m not sure that has ever truly been true.
If you reward relaxation, you get LTD and drugging. If you reward big gaits and animation you get soring and training methods designed to amp them up.
This is not an “all disciplines do it” sort of defense, so much as it is a - it seems to be a problem inherent in using horses for sport and competition and while we can plug holes and make things better it is work that will never be “done”. I don’t think there is a silver bullet so much as a continued effort.
If this is truly about horse welfare then I think that every adult connected to this situation has to be held accountable in some way. . I am all for sanctioning CDJ but I am a little disappointed that it took 2-4 years for this to come to light . You had multiple adults who were watching this lesson who said nothing . The whistle blower was disturbed enough by the video that she showed it to multiple people, but then chose to do nothing till now. Riders and trainers really need to embrace the idea of see something saying something and this means saying something in a timely manner.
LOL - It was a PM and I sent it through a good friend of hers with whom I’m acquainted. So, yeah seriously.
He’s an equine veterinarian. He used examples that he’s personally witnessed. He alluded to other forms of abuse. That you can’t connect the dots is on you. I don’t think anyone is minimizing or hand waving. I said that I don’t believe someone’s entire career and essentially, life, should be ruined because of something like this. I still don’t. YMMV
Yes, absolutely. My personal opinion is that contemporary competitive dressage lost its way some time ago and became yet another discipline that rewards forced extreme movement, just like all the other subjective rail/ flat classes like Western Pleasure and Saddleseat. Once you are committed to pushing horses to do things that are biomechanically wrong for them (overbent, unbalanced trot, leg flinging) then you pretty much have to work against the horse rather than with the horse, which means a certain degree of force. Ugly training at best, outright abuse at worst.
I’ve been saying this for a long time, but started feeling like a broken record on COTH and got tired of “if you don’t ride CDI4* you aren’t qualified to comment on rolkur” responses so just dropped out of those discussions.
I’m not sure what “needs more jump” in canter means in current practice, but it’s obvious to anyone with eyes in their head that riding overbent on the forehand to get the trendy flingy knees has a negative impact on true collection, visible in piaffe, passage, and canter pirouettes.
Well, maybe in part because good basic Dressage is boring.
It’s like watching paint dry, isn’t that what many say?
To those who don’t understand the challenge of the basics, it certainly could look boring.
And to attract more to the discipline it can’t be boring, it can’t be too difficult to see the fun of it, it can’t be “too hard” to “progress”.
Which leads us to the bigger, more exagerrated gaits, etc
Yet some time back (last year?), I saw a pretty critical post somewhere about that display of one-tempis around the arena. Apparently the poster thought it was unfair of Klimke to make his horse do that long series of one-tempis in the awards presentation, esp. since the horse had just given his all in the competition ring. IOW, instead of rewarding Ahlerich for his effort, Klimke elected to push him to do more in what the poster perceived to be an act of self-aggrandizement.
(Sorry Pluvinel, I meant to reply to Ghazzu’s post - not yours!)
The horse did not look unhappy to me.
Ahlerich was on fire. The 75 tempis were to keep him from exploding. And the stadium was deafening.
I get that - I was just reporting something I had read. SOMEONE felt it was an excessive display of grandioso. I wish I could remember where I read it, and when!
Maybe? Many horses have a favourite movement that they’d be happy to do regardless of whether they had just given their all or not. My current one is biggest trot possible, but I’ve also worked with one that would have been happy to do a half mile of twos given half the chance and it would not matter whether they were a bit tired, sweaty, in front of an audience or at home alone. Those things are their happy movements that seem to give them some sort of joy.
I got that. It’s too amusing that someone would think this was horse torture!
That makes a lot more sense than a random direct message which is how your post came across.
Many police depts are phasing out their mounted patrols or no longer using them for crowd control at protests, etc., because there have been too many incidents of the horses getting targeted by the marchers, protesters, rioters (call them what you will). And there have been incidences where the PD was sued because one its horses had injured someone at an event - usually because the horse felt threatened and reacted in some way. Even something as innocuous as trying to turn away from a threat could result in injury to someone in close proximity.
I had forgotten about that passage in Podhajsky’s book and it brought a tear to my eye re-reading it here.
My God - who the h*** thought a freakin’ HELICOPTER was a good idea at an occasion like this?
In the past people knew enough about horses to respect or feel threatened by them in crowd control situations. I suspect that many of today’s protestors would do dumb ass things not expecting horses to react at all. But I also agree that in a bsc riot, whether political or violent looting or drunks after a hockey game, the risk for horses goes up exponentially and they may not be the best choice in places where people are losing their minds.
Why would that be your first impression? I have been in parade situations like that with horses who were not drugged but good at their job and even seemed to enjoy the noise and activity.
Not even Quietex or something similar on board…
While we are all focussed on dressage (rightly so), other practices will just merrily continue in other disciplines - out of the Olympic spotlight, unseen. I am reminded of the episodes about a certain WP trainer a few years ago with clients finding their horses’ bellies raked with bleeding spur marks… I expect he is still training and showing…
Agreed - instead of realizing it was a joyous moment and Ahlerich was not wringing his tail or fussing or overbent or unhappy or stressed.
We had an upper level Belgian Warmblood schoolmaster donated to the therapeutic riding program many years ago… he had had a suspensory injury, was healed and sound but no longer able to compete at that level.
He helped teach many riders how to canter and do lateral movements. He seemed to love taking part in demos and enjoyed any chance to show off his skills. One young rider was enjoying a lovely, round canter on him - her joy and delighted laughter filled the arena. That horse softly went into two tempi changes all down the long side - his reaction to that happiness and laughter that he celebrated in his own way. That rider was not cuing him in any way - he offered the tempis and once in that rhythm, just kept going until he was told otherwise. He was very pleased with himself - and that reminded me of the Ahlerich celebratory tempi changes…
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