What's Happening in he Dressage World?

February 2010 - Part 1

One of our favourite columnists, Canadian Karen Robinson, once again put a shocking spotlight on the inexplicable and puzzling fact that USEF decided to grant HorseTV.com the 2009 Media Excellence Award. Robinson wrote the following comment: "I have only one comment about this award. Donkeys. The USEF must be focusing on donkeys and mules this year. Seriously. HorseTV.com has apparently won this distinction based entirely on a single combined driving event that they no doubt covered with great panache - but come on people. Media Excellence? If you go to the press page on HorseTV’s website, the latest press release is dated July 14th of last year. The dressage channel on their site still says ’side pass to piaffe’ in spite of my jab about it last year on this very blog. There are no recent competitive FEI events on the site at all - unless you think of the 2007 World Cup Final as ‘recent’. Even the mule training videos haven’t been updated past lesson 3, though perhaps that’s as far as most people’s patience lasts before the mule mysteriously disappears from the field, never to be seen again. It must be the infomercials that clinched the prestigious prize for Bernie and his crack team. They have plenty of those on HorseTV. Ok I exaggerate. They don’t. I don’t know why they won. I really don’t."

Swedish Waldhof stable sold its 12-year old licensed stallion Rubinrot (by Rubinstein x Insider) to the Danish Per and Lotte Skjærbæk of Priess Stutteri. Under Stefan Jansson, Rubinrot represented Sweden at the World Young Horse Championships in Verden. He made his debut at Grand Prix level in 2009 under Jennie Hemmingsen.

British amateur dressage rider Toni Terry got the ride on Irish Grand Prix rider Judy Reynolds' small tour horse Rathbawn Valet. The bay gelding is a 16-year old Russian Trakehner.

The 5-year old chestnut licensed stallion Blue Hors Lodestar (by Lauries Crusador xx x Weltmeyer x Bolero) has been leased to Anne Niemi for 2010. The stallion will therefore stand at stud in Finland this year.

Horsetelex.nl reported that a famous German horse dealer is being taken to court in Landshut, Germany. He made horse sellers sign confidentiality contracts in which they were forbidden to disclose the sales price of horse to anyone and in which he made them pay gigantic commission fees through his various companies in Europe. The court case involves a Dutch bred Grand Prix horse sold to a German client for 900,000 euro in 2008. The horse has been chronically lame and, according to Horsetelex, the dealer supposedly took more than 500,000 euro in commission fees. Ouch!! Horse buyers be sure you vet-check your horse by your OWN vet or at an independent clinic of your own choice!

The Swedish state stud Flyinge and Dutch stallion owner Ad Valk, a member of the IPS Horse Group, have come to an agreement to work together. Three Dutch stallions, including the 10-year old KWPN sire Tuschinski (by Krack C x Pion) and the 4-year old Apache (by UB40 x Krack C) as well as three 3-year olds will be participating in the Swedish Stallion Performance Test held in March 2010. The co-operation has been made in order to get a bigger influx of Dutch blood into the Swedish breeding programme.

Equine infectious anaemia (EIA) has been detected in two horses in Wiltshire following importation from Romania via Belgium, Defra confirmed. The premises is currently under restriction and the two infected horses will be humanely destroyed in line with existing regulations. The animals arrived in a group of 10 horses, nine of which originated from Romania and one from Belgium. The nine Romanian horses were tested for EIA as part of routine post-import testing. Seven horses all tested negative. The horse that originated in Belgium tested positive and was euthanized as well. Every year, 100,000 horses are transported across Europe for slaughter and spread diseases all over the continent. The terrible conditions endured during these long journeys mean that they suffer from disease, dehydration, exhaustion and injury – all for a needless trade. Take action against horse slaughter transport by signing up with the World Horse Welfare website! http://www.worldhorsewelfare.org/you-help/take-action

Silke Rottermann, the writer of the brilliant "Greatest Oldies" series on Eurodressage, said that she first got acquainted with most of the greatest oldies at the 1991 European Dressage Championships in Donaueschingen. She told us the following: "I was in heaven when my parents took me to Donaueschingen in 1991. They find dressage veeeeery boring. Still to date my mum always says, "I was so happy when the horses did the pirouettes, because then I knew it would be over soon!" I saw so many great horses there: Rembrandt, Gigolo, Corlandus, Dante, Goldstern, Andiamo, Dutch Gold...many greatest oldies!"

Supporters of the fight against the rollkur have been proclaiming online to take a stand with Dr. Heuschman to put an end to Rollkur on 9 February at the next FEI Round Table Conference. They ask for all supporters to sign their name to a list Heuschmann will take with him on  "Officials! Stop Hyperflexion!" Several emails have reached our inbox which state the following: "Don't let Dr. Heuschman stand alone, let your voice be heard with his and fill that room with compassion and a plea to end a practice that robs our beloved horses of their dignity, strength and beauty."

On Facebook, an "OK Low-Deep-and Round" group has been founded. The group has 669 fans of which many are international riders.

Dr. Sue Dyson, who is also on the panel at the Round Table Conference, told Horse and Hound that " there is little hard evidence to show there is anything wrong with rollkur if it is done well. If you have a horse in any position for a long period it's going to tire, which leads to injury. But you could say that working in any manner will do that. We see show jumpers warming up using draw reins, but nothing is said."

Gestut Birkhof reported that the German breeding stallion Alassio's Boy (by Alassio x Heraldik xx) has a new rider. Nicole Casper, head trainer at Birkhof, had to give up the ride on the gorgeous bay licensed stallion to the Austrian junior rider Franziska Fries. The latter was member of the Austrian junior riders team at the 2009 European Championships and is trained by Alfons Friedberger.

Danish FEI Pony riders collected 10,100 Danish Kroner (approximately 1350 euro) to help homeless women in Haiti. The pony riders donated 1 kroner for each kilometre they had to travel to get to the national indoor pony competition in Billund. The pony competition was won by Anne Fabricius Tange aboard Tim.

We were rolling on the floor laughing when we read Australian Grand Prix rider Heath Ryan's column "Ryan's Rave" in the January issue of Horse Magazine. Ryan described a very comical situation when he accepted the Ian Thorpe Outstanding Achievement Award at the New South Wales Institute of Sport Awards held at the Randwick Racecourse on 19 November 2009. You HAVE TO READ what Ryan wrote: "The Thursday before the Auction of the Stars was the NSW Institute of Sport Awards night. I was embarrassed, but I managed to snare the Ian Thorpe Outstanding Achievement Award. As usual I had left it to the last minute to jump out of the indoor school, have a quick shower, throw on some clothes and break all speed records driving to Sydney. Upon getting out of the car and walking to the venue I realised that the sole of my shoe was falling off and so I sort of hobbled to my table pretending nothing was awry. When my award was announced I scuffled up on to the stage thinking nobody would notice. Unfortunately the steps were polished wood and the stage was also wood and my shoe clattered all the way up and across to Alan Jones who was the MC and Ian Thorpe who was presenting the prize. Everyone noticed! A short interview with Alan Jones and then it was across that dreaded timber stage, clattered on down the steps and then right across the room to a corner where all the recipients were getting their photographs taken. I was gallantly staggering across pretending to be a stroke victim when that bloody sole completely let go and I had one leg two inches shorter than the other. It seemed like the whole room of 500 athletes was watching and I didn’t flinch, just kept my head up and kept walking. Once I got to the designated photo shoot I turned around to see Ian Thorpe approaching me. In his hand he had that sole from my shoe and in a very discreet and polite way asked me if this was mine. I was so embarrassed and was so tempted to say I had never seen it before. Talk about get remembered for all the wrong reasons." God bless you Heath!

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