I couldn’t disagree more. If this rider was being “firm” it was only to make up for her complete lack of effectiveness. She was not in any sense of the word training the horse. The whip and spurs can be very helpful in the right hands to reinforce an aid or to give the horse a correction. Here they took the place of the aids, as hers were so confusing to the horse. And the whip and spurs were used as a punishment, despite the fact this horse was trying his hardest and doing nothing wrong.
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I was surprised it was allowed at this show because I thought whips were forbidden in FEI tests, period, but apparently that rule doesn’t apply to an FEI test ridden in a National show in the US
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It’s just maddening.
When people ask, “how are we supposed to find a good dressage trainer so we don’t end up with a bad one,” the general list of advice is:
-check centerline scores
-look for the trainer making the progression up the levels with the horses
-look at the students’ results
-watch how trainer and students ride
-look for trainers who train with standard tack and not all kinds of extra equipment
-can the trainer sell horses (their training product) for good money and increase the value of her clients’investments as opposed to just buying high and selling low all the time?
…but GOD FORBID anyone actually try to APPLY that standard to a program.
Oh, trainer’s only gold medal scores were on a horse that was bought made? No other horses appear to be going up the levels? Trainer’s biggest client rides poorly at best and abusively at worst after a minimum 7 year relationship? They have access to importing internationally competitive GP horses from the Dutch but fnding anything to ride up the levels is apparently not possible?
There must be an explanation. Maybe the student doesn’t listen. Maybe the it’s hard to be a dressage trainer in Malibu. Some people try really hard and just cant get their mcshizzle together on a horse, it’s not the trainers fault if the student is talentless. Maybe the student is terminally ill… We can’t know for sure.
What happened to using the above metrics to assess the likely quality of a program??
This is why bad training survives and clients keep paying for it… because the second you try to apply a completely reasonable standard, people bend over backwards to make excuses for why the standard may not apply.
Y’ALL.
If your trainer hasn’t developed a single horse up the levels in the past 7 years, if everyone is buying $$$$$$$ made horses whose scores then decline, and if the client who spends the most money rides as poorly as SB,
HERE’S YOUR SIGN.
Or what other standards should people use to evaluate a dressage program they are considering paying $10k+ a year for???
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May I suggest that all this “terminally ill” stuff needs to stop?
The woman I bought my mare from WAS terminally ill. She was dead six months after I bought my mare from her.
I had no clue until I found out she had passed.
She showed the mare, and rode the mare just fine.
Again: I had no clue.
Stop using that as an excuse, please, for the sort of riding SB displayed. Please.
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I’m not sure why you are quoting me on that.
I am referring to excuses OTHER people have made for this riding and saying that, even if it were the case, it wouldn’t be an excuse.
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What else would one expect from a society that practices social promotion in its education system?
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I don’t know what you’re talking about, but even in our apparently sh*tty education system, our teachers and professors have to prove themselves and get a degree or several before they’re allowed to teach.
Parents would be in a royal uproar if someone who has not demonstrated the ability to graduate college and get a masters themselves was suddenly sheparding their precious children through Kindergarten. And they expect this FOR FREE and paid for by the state, not at a personal cost to each family of thousands a month with a six figure materials buy in.
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"Social promotion is the practice of promoting students to the next grade level even when they have not learned the material they were taught or achieved expected learning standards. Social promotion is often contrasted with retention, the practice of holding students back and making them repeat a grade when they fail to meet academic expectations, or strategies such as proficiency-based learning, which may require students to demonstrate they have achieved academic expectations before they are promoted to the next grade level." - http://edglossary.org/social-promotion/
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I wonder if the previous owner saw the video and what he thought. He must be sick to his stomach.
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I didn’t know anything about the horse or the rider before seeing the 2 tests… and I felt badly for him.
Breaks my heart.
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I get what ya’ll think about training horses up the levels to be a “good” trainer. I would suggest, however, that there is more to it than just being able to train a horse. My first real dressage trainer was a woman who has trained 8 horses to grand prix and has another at PSG now who should make it. I can say in hindsight that she did very little to make me a better rider. She was not about use of seat and aids. She was not about whether you sat crooked in the saddle. She did not have rider solutions, and she did not seem to particularly care about her students doing well at shows.
Current trainer has not been in the grand prix ring for many years. BUT he is a teacher and has improved my riding and my knowledge immeasurably in the last 3 years. He is enthusiastic, he reviews in detail both my ride (pre-score) and the test results whenever I show.
This is not meant to be a defense of this trainer or her situation. Just a belief that you cant judge someone entirely by one criteria.
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I also thought of this when I saw previous rider’s FB where they called this horse ‘Frost’ or Frosty- barn name.
Poor Frosty…,
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Is this an example of why it’s called “trainer” and not “instructor” in dressage? I could never figure that out…
No, imo, it’s a stupid affectation picked up because someone somewhere used it in this way and others thought it was the thing to do.
I prefer teacher or coach for the human part of the equation and trainer for the one who is most influential on the horse. So maybe one’s teacher or coach is teaching the student to train the horse. The student, if working with the horse full time under the coach’s guidance would be the horse’s trainer.
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I have always heard it in my neck of the woods in the WP area. To me instructor is correct, or at least that is what I used to call myself. not a trainer.
“Trainer” came into vogue because it sounded more sporting and competitively oriented.
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Just wanted to update that I have received an email from the USEF.
My email was sent for review. They stated they can investigate and determine if disciplinary action is appropriate.
For everyone’s information, if you want to make a protest/charge to the USEF based on what you see at a show, here are the rules that I located:
https://www.usef.org/forms-pubs/s9Se…-general-rules
page 71
GR603 Protests
- Any rider, driver, handler, vaulter, longeur, exhibitor, owner, agent, trainer or the parent of a junior exhibitor, or any Life, Senior, or Junior member present at the competition may file a protest with the Show Committee or Competition Management of a Licensed Competition or The Federation Hearing Committee alleging violation of any Federation rule(s). The protest must contain all information as specified in GR602.1 and must be:
a. in writing,
b. signed by the protester,
c. addressed to the Show Committee or Competition Management of the competition at which the alleged violation occurred, or to the Hearing Committee,
d. accompanied by a deposit of $200 if made by a Federation member or the parent of a junior exhibitor member 72 or $300 if made by a non-member (if check, payable to the competition or to the Federation); said deposit will be refunded in the event the protest is upheld, and
e. received by the steward, technical delegate, a member of the Show Committee or Competition Management, the competition manager or the competition secretary within 48 hours of the alleged violation. If made directly to the Hearing Committee, the protest must be received at the Federation office by the tenth business day following the last recognized day of the competition, or by the tenth business day following the date on which the alleged violation occurred if it occurred other than at a Licensed Competition.
GR604 Charges
- Any official of a USEF Licensed Competition, any Steward or Technical Delegate assigned to a USEF licensed competition, any National Officer of the Federation or the CEO of the Federation or his designee may file a charge with the Show Committee, Competition Management, or the USEF Hearing Committee alleging a violation of any Federation rule(s).
- A charge must be:
a. in writing,
b. signed by the person making the charge,
c. addressed to the secretary of the competition at which the alleged violation occurred, or to the Hearing Committee and
d. if made to a Show Committee or Competition Management it must be received by the steward, technical delegate or a member of the Show Committee within 48 hours of the alleged violation. If made to the Hearing Committee it must be received by the Federation within a reasonable time.
So my understanding is that a competitor can complain to someone official at a show and that show committee person can file the charges with the USEF. Eliminating the need to submit $200 to the USEF.
I hope that this SB situation educates more people on the rules and options that they have to report incidents that occur at a horse show in a more timely manner.
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Or in Canada
ARTICLE E 4.8 WHIPS 1. A whip may be carried in all levels at Bronze, Silver and Gold competitions. 2. Whips may not be carried in championship classes at championships competition or national team selection trial arenas.
I’m not sure about the FEI rulebook - so it would be dependant on which organization’s rules are applicable to a specific show.
