Monday, 3 August 2009

Haras De Pompadour

I spent yesterday afternoon at the very beautiful Haras de Pompadour. I went with a friend to watch a Pro/Am Dressage Competition. Why do I do it??? I've never seen so many beautiful horses being ridden so badly. They were pushed and pulled about, lots of spurring and whipping. Overbent, mouths strapped shut, tense, tight, held like a vice.
I'm not saying this from the standpoint of an expert, but I can certainly see bad training and riding when I see it. I despair of competition dressage, I really do.

A beautiful young horse, full of vitality and potential, moving easily and joyfully. Good training should enhance this, but over and over we see this being replaced by resigned acceptance, dead, sad eyes, bodies pushed to the limit.
Oh, dear, it's a bad day today!!! I can't bear the thought of Remy ending up like that. No happy blogging today.

36 comments:

trudi said...

I,know Di, every time I go see competitions I feel so depressed. That's why I don't go any more, lol. I feel my time is much better spent playing with my own. Was it your compo friend you went with? What did she think?

Anonymous said...

I pretty much stay away from competitions for that reason - how can these people not see what they're doing to their horses? Or even worse, maybe they do see and don't care because they want fast results (if you can call what they get results) and to win, and the horse is just another piece of equipment. Very sad - if the judges didn't reward it and if the warm-up rings were supervised - with penalties - this sort of thing wouldn't happen as much.

Di said...

Totally agree!! Oh, don't get me started! :-(

HorseOfCourse said...

I am just starting to wonder whether we are a small protected corner up here in the north?

Because I cannot chime in in the general chorus of how bad the competitive dressage is. I feel that most of the riding here still adheres to the sound, classical principles, with respect to the horse.
I have never seen a horse here ridden in rollkur.
Tight nosebands, yes (unfortunately).
Not all riders rides well, but you cannot expect that, can you?
Tenseness, yes. But on the other hand you will always have more nerves in both horse and rider at a show.
The warm-up is supervised, and any bad behaviour is addressed. I have never seen it necessary at a dressage show, but I have seen it happening at show jumping shows.

HorseOfCourse said...

Oh sorry Di, I feel it came out all wrong.
Didn't mean to.
But I get so sad about all the negative comments about a sport that lies so close to my heart, and where I don't recognise the (black) pictures that are painted.
Is it really so bad down at the continent?

Di said...

Don't worry HofC. I hope that the standards are much higher where you are. I realise that there are people doing competition dressage who have a better trainiing ethic, but do you not think that it is terrible that top international riders are being rewarded for training horses with such questionable training methods.

HorseOfCourse said...

Yes it is.
And I believe FEI should take action.
But there are riders at the top that do a good job too, don't forget that. Kyra Kyrklund, Jan Brink, Andreas Helgestrand.

Claire said...

sorry you had a disappointing time, di. A lot of it is who turns up on the day.. i saw some nice stuff there last year, and some terrible as well....

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