2006 Global Dressage Forum

Lifting the Smokescreen

The smokescreen is clearly that, to this date, tense horses are still being rewarded by the judges in the competition ring. It does not matter via which system they are trained. Horses that show unevenness in the movements (not particularly lameness, but an uneven rhythm of short and long steps) should not receive scores from 7 to 10. The absence of the top German dressage riders and trainers at the 2006 Global Dressage Forum was very striking and a great pity because the Janssen/AVG session had the potential to become a really interesting debate on top level dressage training. The Dutch rider and trainer were prepared to publicly put their neck on the line by showing their training methods at the forum and, regrettably, the detractors were not there to defend their opinion.

The 2006 Global Dressage Forum was a big improvement to the 2005 version and it gave much food for thought. Hopefully, next year, the smokescreen can be lifted by reviewing current judging into more detail in a diplomatic and democratic way of debate and discussion.

Text copyrighted Astrid Appels/Eurodressage.com, Images copyrighted Dirk Caremans -
No Reproduction allowed without explicit permission

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