2006 Global Dressage Forum

‘Curbed’ Discussions at the 2006 Global Dressage Forum

November 6, 2006

The 2006 edition of the Global Dressage Forum at Bartels’ Academy in Hooge Mierde, The Netherlands (October 30-31, 2006) was one with very inspiring demonstrations, refreshing sessions on equine behaviour and two heated discussions on the judging and training of top level dressage horses. These two discussions – Withages’ review of the World Equestrian Games and Sjef Janssen’s and Anky van Grunsven’s demonstration of the rollkur, had all the potential to become genuine debates that could shape the future of dressage, but they were ‘curbed’ either by a restricted time schedule, which forced one talk to end abruptly, and by a lack of interaction between the presenters and defenders of the anti-rollkur ‘campaign’. Nevertheless, the 2006 Global Dressage Forum was much more interesting than the one in the 2005 and it will be a stepping stone for an even better and improved forum in 2007.

The 2006 Global Dressage Forum started with a word of welcome from David Hunt, president of the International Dressage Trainers Club (IDTC). Hunt stated that this year’s forum would partially deal with comparing training methods: the classical (German) system versus the (Dutch) rollkur system. “If we would all do and think the same thing, the world would be a dull place,” Hunt quipped.

Text copyrighted Astrid Appels/Eurodressage.com, Images copyrighted Dirk Caremans -
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