Your gue$$ i$ a$ good a$ mine.
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This is the report about the Helgstrand event.
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There is NO EXCUSING, NO EXPLAINING what Helgstrand does in training. It’s abuse.
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Ugh. Literally a couple sentences: “Mistakes were made, let’s move on”.
OMG GORGEOUS HORSES ALEXANDER HELGSTRAND STANDING OVATION ISABELL RIDES YASSSS QUEEN! 
Literally nobody should be surprised. Any top rider who rocks the boat too much will lose access to the money and the horses (and we can argue, the judges’ favor?) to win.
And the horses aren’t dying and aren’t breaking legs in public. How many did it take for racing to start taking the issue seriously?
If the governing bodies are doing nothing more than distributing white gloves taps on the wrist, there is literally no realistic incentive for anyone to change.
The sport will continue to be run by Helgstand’s corporate connections and Saudi money.
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It was pretty crowded….
50+ years ago, we were told behind the bit/behind the vertical, was the hardest bad habit/avoidance of contact/resistance to correct as the rider lost control, the horse’s energy from back to front lost.
That was a cardinal sin, very easy to fall into if not careful, to be avoided at all cost.
I have noticed that over the years that seems to have changed.
Who knows, maybe today are other ways to train that, similar to the crest release and hanging over the horse’s neck when jumping, seen in so many winning pictures in COTH itself, what is acceptable and why has changed over the past decades?
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Anyone see the Ceasar Parra videos on Instagram?
Eurodressage is usually very critical of the training concerning BTV. This seemed to be a report saying all was well with Werth, not necessarily Helgstrand. It is disheartening that he does not seem to be paying the price (in the US) for what was caught on camera in his country. It’s business as usual here I guess.
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Yes and makes Operation X look like church mice
From the Eurodressage article: “Andreas himself did the introduction with his eyes beaming with pride to have the two of the most famous riders in the world together at his place.”
He was probably just grateful they showed up, and the attendees too !
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From this article -
“Things can’t be judged by a picture from social media. She then gave another push of support to Andreas by saying that she has several horses in training from Helgstrand Dressage and it has been a positive experience for them.
Andreas came in with his wife and thanked Isabell profusely, gifting her a piece of jewelry from their collection.”
I can’t really see Werth’s opinion as unbiased considering her financial investments in Helgstrand.
The gift giving considering the setting and current events also seems weird to me but whatever.
I think Werth has a great deal of knowledge to impart but it seems she has no problem with the way Helgstrand operates and that is problematic for me.
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For me as well… but you have to consider she just got an Olympic hopeful from him… Wendy… after he was banned for the Olympics he gave her the mare….
She looks nice…
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Gilded calves always draw crowds.
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No. I saw the real life version a few years back when I was seeking a trainer.
Just NO.
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I have been studying horse anatomy lately. Right now I have almost 30 books and I am slowly learning the stuff (emphasis on SLOW.)
I noticed that under the nuchal ligament of the neck that there are bursae under the nuchal ligament as it passes over the spinous processes of the atlas and axis vertebrae. The modern mania in dressage of overbending the horse’s neck (behind the vertical to rollkur) has been bothering me since over 50 years ago in my first set of truly serious private lessons on my first horse my riding teacher took out the time to tell me how horrible it was to get the horse overbent/behind the vertical, and how to tell from the saddle if the horse was overbent.
Today I finally got on line to see if horses suffered from bursitis from these two bursae. Well they do.
The bursa over the spinous process of the axis (C2 vertabra) develops bursitis.
So my question is how many of the overbent-to-rollkur horses develop bursitis over the C2. I went to Yahoo’s search function and found out that YES, horses do develop bursitis over the C2, and yes, this bursitis has negative effects on how the horse uses its neck.
I searched on Yahoo. The best term to use on a search for bursitis on the C2 vertebra is "caudal nuchal bursitis.
IF you are riding behind the vertical you are causing a lot of pressure from the nuchal ligament on the C2 spinous process. This pressure can cause inflammation of this bursa. If you have ever suffered from bursitis yourself you know how painful this can be. Since horses hide any pain that can attract an attack from a predator the symptoms may be more subtle than they are with humans who are generally pretty bad about effectively hiding pain.
I am too old to go out and buy a new riding horse, but if I became insane and went out to buy a horse I would now add to the imaging of the neck, not just the C6-C7 joint but also the C2 bursa. This is a problem I would not want to try and work around though from what they say it can be corrected by an operation on that bursa.
How many neck problems are caused by bursitis on the C1 or C2 spinous processes? How many problems with contact, how many problems with movement, and how many problems for the horse’s long term soundness?
I am SO GLAD that I heard what my riding teacher long ago taught me about not letting the horse get behind the vertical. This is one problem I did not have to worry about with my horses.
But now every time I see a horse in Rollkur I wonder how much pain the horse is feeling in its upper neck. Being ridden just behind the vertical probably would not cause as many problems for the horse as Rollkur, but the continuous pressure on this bursa during a ride is probably not doing the horse any good.
I suspect that many dressage riders/trainers may brush off this worry of mine as the rider’s equivalent of bleeding heart liberalism since this type of riding now seems to be an absolute requirement to win at the higher rated dressage shows.
But, think about the horses. Are riders giving their horses a permanent neck ache from forcing these horses to go behind the vertical? My neck got really messed up from a car wreck 40 years ago and my neck bothers me every day no matter how I move.
You know the old dressage masters who were completely against riding a horse behind the vertical probably had a good reason for being against it. If you are causing a neck ache in your horse you will never see the full extent of how the horse can move, if its neck just did not hurt every second of the ride.
Flame suit on. I don’t care if all the dressage riders in the world jump on me for saying this, I just care about the horse’s comfort while being ridden.
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Puff piece for PR
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I just need to point out that abuse and welfare are two different things, but in the same neighborhood and in fact horse welfare issues may be the gateway drug to horse abuse. If a horse is in distress during a dressage test–breathing hard and audibly, tongue waiving, overly salivating (can’t swallow), etc. and that isn’t appropriately punished, its welfare is at issue. What happened to the “happy horse” campaign of the last (?) Olympics? If the judge’s won’t police this, then let’s get referees and train them what to look for. And I can’t say this enough times: there needs to be a strong policy against judges, officials, and show managers from accepting gifts or other renumeration. It should include: dinners, spa dates, vacations, etc., If competitors, owners, their families, their trainers, etc. want to reward the show officials, let USEF establish a fund where deidentified donations can be accumulated and awarded after the show year has ended.
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The bigger question is why are judges rewarding this type of performance
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Good que$tion …
(Shocker, it’s money. Big influential breeders are producing extravagant movers that sell for 7 figures on potential alone. There is pressure for those horses to be successful, so fancy gaits — which can be bought — are being weighted more and more, at the expense of correctness, which requires patience but is something much more dependent on the rider/trainer than the breeding. And it’s a good old boys’ circle at the top … nobody influential is willing to be the voice of dissent and piss off the top breeders/owners)
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