Sweden has made nosebands optional and young horses must have a 14 days break between competitions. Article here:
Imagine if the USA focused on stuff like this vs the weird crown piece rule thing they came out with.
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It’s not clear to me what constitutes a “break” for the young horses. Is it just 14 days between competitions?
“The Swedish equestrian federation is also mandating a minimum two-week break between competitions in all disciplines for four-year-old horses and ponies.“
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Yep.
“A change that applies in all disciplines affects four-year-old horses and ponies, who must have a minimum break of 14 days between one competition and the next.”
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Yeah, I read that. My question is regarding the definition of a “break.” Downtime, turnout, just not going to competitions?
If it is intended to be the latter, it would be clearer if it said something like “participation in competitions must be at least two weeks apart.” I suspect something may have been lost in translation or the original text was not that specific.
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Saying a minimum break of 14 days between one competition and the next does mean that participation in competitions must be at least two weeks apart. I found it to be quite clear and I like that they said the exact number of days.
I’m not sure they they’ll get into the definition of a break beyond not going to competition or that they’d be able to enforce it if they did.
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I am really lenient on workload for young horses and even I don’t think they need a 2 week break for all work, ha. 2-3 days is more than enough.
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I think this is a wonderful change in the right direction. Maybe US will follow suit.
I thought the 2 week rule was clear it was referring to competition breaks. I think that’s more than fair for a 4 y/o. No need to do back-to-back shows as a 4 or even 5 y/o, IMO.
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Sorry if this was answered in the article but I’ve already read 5 H&H articles this month…
About the counting of 14 days. If you go to a show (Friday to Sunday) - than can you go to a show (Fri/Sat-Sun) 2 weeks later - which would technically be only 12 or 13 days so only 1 weekend break in between or is the 14 days a hard count, meaning that, for me anyway, this would be a 2 weekend break in between.
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Horse & Hound says “a minimum break of 14 days between competitions” for 4 year old horses and ponies. Don’t forget that Sweden, like most of Europe, doesn’t run multi-week shows. I think it is an excellent new rule and hopefully will stop people travelling their horses to endless shows when chasing qualification for prestige finals.
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They has best provide a specific definition as what is considered to be a “competition” as anything where a horse is compared to another is a competition.
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Most European law works on simple language as commonly used in the everyday: far fewer lawyers per head of human population, less arcane polysyllabic Latin jargon deliberately used to obfuscate and far, far fewer angels busily dancing on pin heads. A “competition” in everyday language would involve travelling your baby horse to a show facility so as to parade around an arena in company with other horses under the eyes of a judge, whether in hand or under saddle. And, as this was voted in by members, the majority of Swedish horse people will comply without question. There is a consensus about improving horse welfare. I could be wrong but…
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Agreed. For example, I competed recently at a show that was Saturday and Sunday, but technically run as two different shows (different judge each day). Surely that wouldn’t be disallowed, but just an example of how rules need to be extremely clear to prevent uncertainty.
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I would say that the type of show you are referring to would need to change their format to make it clear they are one show over two days because otherwise you would not be able to show both days. Seems clear to me.
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A hypothetical “The World Championship Show of the South West” being held at the same location the very next day as “The South West World Championship Show” doesn’t happen in Europe. People don’t travel such huge distances to compete and different shows happen every weekend all over the country - and across the border in neighboring ones, too. A major show might last for three or four days but they are not the majority.
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Thank you Sweden for the nod toward the cosmetic approach to nosebands. I know some dressage riding does depend on a noseband keeping a jaw closed. But honestly most of us aren’t having an issue with open jawed horses – unless we are talking very bad rider hands.
I grew up where & when nosebands weren’t just optional, when not at a show, nosebands were sometimes appearing on less than half of the tacked-up horse population, even among “English” riders.
A lot of western bridles don’t have a noseband, and it was mostly western riding where I grew up. Even with a shank curb bit. So a lot of English riders didn’t see the point of a noseband and didn’t use one on their English bridles.
There was a long unfortunate period in the U.S. of “cranked” overly-tight nosebands. Riders believing that without it, they couldn’t ride effectively. But that’s very not true.
I’ve gone back to the old way of treating the noseband as decoration. It is not tight, not visibly showing a gap, but barely contacting the horse’s lower jaw. In my experience a noseband makes no difference to a properly schooled horse that is not doing higher-leve dressage.
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