Not sure why you think this type of riding is not flashy…? The main thing about it is that the horses are not swishing their tails and panick but they are relaxed and they trust their riders…. Is a relaxed extension not flashy??
And I am not sure about the eventing dressage… some of the horses are so tight in their backs that it hurts to watch… none of them was like the Jensen/Klimke Pas de Deux for sure…
Although there were some nice tests!!!
Well, I very much doubt that she brought her own whip. She was complaining that the whip available to her wasn’t causing the horse enough pain for her satisfaction.
Yup, that’s the original post. I thought @Casey09 was asking where I had seen it posted among my FB friends (but maybe I misunderstood) and messaged them that it had been removed so the damning comments are also gone.
The reason the horse’s face is not behind vertical is that his mouth is open as far as it can go, dictated by the tightness of the noseband, in a vain attempt to relieve the pain of its squished tongue. Also there is this consideration, how heavily is the rider spurring the horse in order to overcome the HALT NOW signal from the rider’s hands?
If the horse’s mouth was closed at this moment his face would be behind the vertical.
Blue tongues do NOT happen in just a moment of time. It takes at least a part of a minute for the blue color to develop from the lack of fresh blood.
This abuse may not be as dire as the poor TWH Big Lick show horses or some of the practices used to train and ride show Saddle Seat horses to get “better” higher action, but it is abuse and it causes the horse pain.
I ride with a double bridle. I fear that some day I may be deprived of the supreme communication tool between a trained riding horse and a good rider just because there are people, who want to win that blue ribbon, who torture their horses with their double bridles.
I’d say your path and your way is a most beautiful one. Way too many times in my life did I NOT do the right thing, wasn’t around people doing the right thing, and have walked away from seeing something that was wrong. We need more of you. And thank you for sharing. I swear the next time I see something wrong I will think of you and take action.
I mean flashy as in extravagant floaty front at the expense of a less-correct hind, flingy legs, etc. I guess a gorgeous correct extension is “flashy” but not the flashy I’m thinking of.
And I said the TOP eventing dressage. Some of those tests are truly relaxed and lovely to watch.
I recently learned that Jeff Bezos still reads comments/emails to Amazon and responds (obviously not to all of them). Any claims that celebs/C-suite folks do or don’t do X and that and only that is the truth/facts are just self-important blustering. And a super weird flex. 
I compete in another animal-centered sport that, as a culture, does not allow recording. I don’t know a single clinician that permits it. I haven’t even been able to record just audio, with my phone in my pocket. It’s a huge loss to students. But the community does not want videos misconstrued by the public, especially by PETA people.
The freeze frame of Werth’s horse being debated here, by knowledgeable and sympathetic subject matter experts, is exactly what that community would point to for justification of why they don’t allow recording. Anyone can take a freeze frame of the worst moment in a session and post it on social media without context. Then anyone else can grab it, add an inflammatory caption, and tag whoever and post wherever they like.
Again, I’m not saying it’s a solution. I wish the solution was the opposite: full transparency, open-door policy, live-stream cameras in arenas to which supports can subscribe to watch on Patreon or the like.
Mark my words: clinicians are going to stop allowing recording because of this event. And the sport will shrink further. 
You cannot take a picture of a blue tongue at any moment if the horse does not have a blue tongue. While I can see the application of your POV to other ‘freeze frames’, not welts, blood, or blue tongues. That’s not a ‘freeze frame’ out of context, that’s simply capturing what was there to capture at the moment. No horse should have a blue tongue for even a ‘worst moment’ of a ride. Period.
it’s a stupid post too because LT while I also think is great had a run out in Kentucky but it’s not shown on her FEI record for some reason. Then her horse didn’t present the next day. So we don’t know what happened there.
Just negative BS to tear down our riders who are doing their best to make Canada proud.
I absolutely agree! That photo isn’t a perfect example, but people are debating it here in this thread so I used it. I’m not defending the video or photo. I’m not saying recording is the problem. I’m saying an unfortunate consequence will be banning recording and circling the wagons, rather than increasing transparency.
What?
I have a roller on a mullen mouth snaffle. It’s for the horse to play with. Horses enjoy playing with the cricket on a spade because it acts kind of like a fidget spinner and keeps the mouth wet with light saliva. I’m not sure what you mean by “working the tongue”, but you generally use a roller on a sensitive or nervous horse, not as punishment or to increase pressure on their tongue, but to help reassure them. Sometimes, on a horse with sharp bars, it will help give the horse more surface on the tongue so that they can lift the bit away from the tongue.
In the Californio tradition they are used as signal bits, and of course you would never see a blue tongue in a spade. I’m not sure where you’re going with this, but the use of the spade mouthpiece is to sit on the tongue and when the shank is touched at all, it lifts off of the tongue, giving the horse the signal to yield to the bit. You are never ever ever supposed to let it contact the palate, if you have, you should be beaten with your own romal reins (as per my old cowboy mentor). In fact, you don’t even put a horse into a spade until they are riding 99.999% off of your body and light as a feather in the bosal/bosalito. Many horses don’t ever earn their spade bit and instead move into a regular curb or half-breed. Do some people misuse them? I’m sure, because sometimes people get confused or hurtful, but that is not how you are trained to use them in the tradition.
But maybe that’s not what you’re talking about and I’m just completely confused. No idea why the spade was brought into the conversation about Werth’s blue-tongued horse.
I actually think most of the blue tongues that we see come from snaffle pressure combined with the extreme head position - some of these horses don’t have necks that look like there’s a lot of space in there for vertical flexion. That would make it easier to create the conditions under which a blue tongue might emerge. But it IS wrong no matter how you slice it.
Of course some of these GP horses are difficult and sensitive creatures. To my eye now, knowing what I know now, many of them look stressed/distressed. I’ve seen a lot of photos that are held up as “model photos” and I think to myself “yikes, that horse is extremely unhappy for whatever reason”. But the idea of dressage is supposed to be systematic training that promotes harmony and obedience, not “flash in order to impress the judges”. That DOES point to a judging problem and that has created conditions under which we are stressing the horses excessively for competition wins.
Let’s not deny that.
I don’t think it’s cause to cancel all competition dressage, and I don’t think it’s cause to crucify specific riders, but I think it’s something we should all be cognizant of and trying to improve. Pointing at other disciplines and saying “see they are worse” probably isn’t productive. All disciplines have their good and bad points, gentle trainers and bad trainers. All disciplines that have competition involved move toward the extremes and there’s a need to create rules to ensure that doesn’t happen. That happens no matter the sport - with or without animals involved. It’s a human thing.
Post ride interview comments (apologies the link is ad heavy)
Yes, sorry, I understood you weren’t defending the photo. What I meant was that the retort to people wailing ‘no recording b/c…out of context…worst moment’ is - you cannot record certain things (blue tongues, welts, blood) they are not present.
I get that there are malicious people like the Dressage Hub woman who would, for example, take a pic of a horse going to shoo a fly off her chest with her nose and claim rollkur. But as long as there is more evidence (the whole recording, not the freeze frame) that could be effectively shut down. Plus, people who do that kind of thing seem to rather quickly become persona non grata b/c they simply aren’t decent people as judged by any metric, not just by what they film.
Clinicians should also record sessions themselves so they can provide context if the person releasing a clip or frame will not.
Another option might be to have a videographer at clinics and everyone gets a copy. Sure, there’s not someone trained on a particular rider the whole time like a parent/friend/groom would do, but it would provide follow up for the riders and peace of mind for the clinician.
Anyone who immediately jumps to ‘no filming’ is suss. There are ways around the potential downsides.
I believe what she was stating was that curbs with rollers are not allowed in dressage, not that they don’t exist.
Perhaps.
I think I’m still confused as to why the roller was brought up at all. It doesn’t hurt the tongue or have any increase in pressure unlike a ball or bar. But again - I was confused as to why the spade was brought up too 
There are people debating the abusiveness on COTH! In another thread that branched off from this one in Off Topic, something like What Does Horse Abuse Mean to You, I got stuck in an exchange with a poster who said essentially that they are “baffled” how anyone could interpret this video as abuse and it’s just a lunge whip with a shoelace-thick lash that’s doing nothing more than annoying the horse.
I really don’t even know how to respond.
Edited: went back and looked at this thread again, and there were now more comments so I must in all fairness clarify that it appears this commenter had not actually seen the entire video before making those comments.
Another video has surfaced taken by a ring steward that has CDJ getting frustrated with a mare, calling her a “b**ch” and jerking her head down at a show The poor mare is popping up in the front due to the jerking reins 
Surprise!
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