5 Ways To Fix The Corruption In The Dressage Ring - In Light of The OpX Helgstrand Expose

[@piaogilvie8463]

It's truly great that you're looking into the dressage world and the mistreatment of the horses. Of course not everyone is guilty of harsh and unacceptable training methods. But those who are, need to get banned from the sport. Thank you for your work and your sharp eyes on this! PS. Helgstrand has now been bought out of 3 companies and he's been banned from The Danish Team for 1 year. More consequences will follow, I'm sure. He's become a persona non grata since the tv doc.

[@spellywelly]

I’m glad to hear that. Thanks for relaying it! I hope it remains the case and doesn’t get swept under the carpet over time. Lifetime bans should’ve been slapped on Helgstrand, Beerbaum and the lot of them. I’m sure we all agree, just as we all know it’ll never happen. 😒 Grateful to this channel and everybody who isn’t prepared to let this happen without constant scrutiny.

[@piaogilvie8463]

It's The Danish Rider Association (DRF) that has banned Helgstrand for 1 year. The 1 year ban does not automatically end in January 25. Then it will be discussed, if he can return and under which conditions. Furthermore Helgstrand can look forward to receiving a fine and exclusion from further equestian events and championships including The Olympics in Paris.

[@equestanton1017]

Yea I noticed over on the "Chronicle of The Horse" still owned by Helgstrand , they don't even know he sold his Wellington facility already, for a profit mind you before this debacle of the depravity happening at his facility in Denmark erupted. However I see the editors there are holding fast and allowing full discussion on the matter which is all negative.

[@suzanneberger8202]

A.H. should be banned for life. Paul Schockemohle was literally banned from competing for life!

[@lolotaeja3911]

Excellent suggestions. Make judges accountable for their graft, dishonesty and favoritism. Start at the top. They have skewed this sport out of control.

[@FoxyBriar]

Thank you for stripping off the facades and bringing the ugly truths to light. It isn't easy being the voice that needs to be heard but too often is muted. You go girl!!!!!

[@sarahwagland1559]

Maybe we should consider that dressage and competition are simply incompatible by their very nature. Any competitive sport that involves the vulnerable there will always be abuse, take children in the world of gymnastics as another example. In his book Riding Towards the Light Paul Belasik talks about displaying dressage like pictures in an art gallery. Something to wonder over in awe not designed to wow the crowds and appeal to our unhealthy desire to be great. The emphasis should always be on being a good rider which means that the horse always comes first. Many great riders are not good riders. We owe it to our horses and the next generation of riders to get this message across. It isn't going to be easy but we need to turn the tide before it's too late.

[@caciliawhy5195]

Ice skating has the same problem and they drop the highest and lowest scores, at least they used to.

[@TheMandyM]

I love these ideas! I'm not a dressage rider, in fact I can't hack out anymore due to health concerns. But watching from the outside I can see the corruption. I'm so sick of seeing sentient beings treated like some rally car to be beaten up. I cant claim to have any real answers, bc I don't understand enough to begin with. I wonder if there was some sort or ribbons/awards in place for POSITIVE horsemanship would that work? I truly don't know. But I can see there needs to be a massive shift in consciousness! You are an amazing human! Keep on keepin on!!❤

[@annscott3228]

thankyou for doing such a great job... you certainly have made me wiser on certain things in the dressage world, keep it up , dressage needs you

[@horseygurl143]

Good valid suggestions! Being fair is always the right thing to do.

[@shanereilly9216]

These are great ideas, and I think it can only make the sport better I loved them all :)❤

[@DressageHub]

Thank you!

[@NancyBlake]

Some reasonable suggestions here.

[@jonjonwp]

Judging is still a huge problem. As you say one judge throwing in a random 4 will completely alter a result. An average from every movement?

[@DressageHub]

In that case it was 8 across the board so it was an obvious "error"

[@jonjonwp]

@@DressageHub Well i'm counting on you to solve the problem.

[@elkefaber3103]

But sometimes only one jugde in one position can watch a mistake, so he may be right. In Herning there was a mistake in the end of the extended canter from Glamourdale, only watched by one judge. And by Kim K. the german commentator of Clipmyhorse.

[@cynthiajohnston424]

@@elkefaber3103 Having judged western pl. & hunt seat rail classes fr. the center of the ring & trail classes fr. one position inside of the ring , it sure is a different view than what those outside the ring at different vantage points may see . This does not mean that a judge cannot or will not see or acknowledge & eliminate a rider fr. the class for lameness , abusive riding behind the judge's back, etc. ; it merely means we see different aspects at different times . I truly liked showing under a two or three judge system , frequent at larger QH shows , as it demands so much more honesty of the horse & rider . While only a beginning dressage rider , I feel that abuse & poor / unfair judging is unfortunately seen in many disciplines , from international dressage to local shows . We must all strive to " Know better to do better . "

[@DressageHub]

That's a false narrative they want you to believe in order to get away with corrupt judging. Gaslighting.

[@Tser]

We don't need "AI", just a computer program written for this purpose to be fed the data. The numbers involved would be fairly straightforward and the correlation pretty easy to handle. And a team of humans as you mentioned doing statistical analysis would be important to break it down for us non-statisticians (statistics are not always intuitive). It's already done in so many areas of sport down to minute detail, both for purposes within the sports but also just for total nerds. However, it would take years of data to have any statistical significance. In shorter time periods, variation would just be noise.

[@nabgilby]

How does one get access to all the individual judging scores for FEI event, and how far back does the data go? We can try an analysis to see what shows with what we find and continue forward. Get me access, we can do it now.

[@godisreality7014]

It is a show-jumping problem as well.

[@sarahwagland1559]

Abuse, no doubt, but there's no arguing about a refusal or a fence down or the stop watch 😉

[@godisreality7014]

@@sarahwagland1559 you missed the point. 😳

[@piaogilvie8463]

I believe so yes. Show jumping horses are also being mistreated by people, who constantly want to push the limit

[@godisreality7014]

@@piaogilvie8463 I followed show-jumping here in Germany for decades. I always wondered about those horses that were "sold" and then completely disappeared from the limelight.

[@NordeggSonya]

or the ones with sudden fatal colic?? @@godisreality7014

[@gwendiferous]

If they would ad bit less spur less to the competition it would open the eyes of the public. The equipment is the issue. The foaming and quivering lips reveal excessive force. Most riders harness the anxiety to create the illusion of impulsion and self carriage. My first job was starting racehorses. Do you know why they use training forks ? It is not for speed. Those horses want to escape. They learn to run for a reason.

[@piaogilvie8463]

Oh, it's so horrible and really, really sad. Draft horses, racing horses, dressage, show jumpers - they're All being exploitet and treated with contempt almost.

[@caciliawhy5195]

What you forgot to mention is that many judges are also competitors and so it becomes a tit-for-tat type of deal. I know ice skating used to drop the high and low scores for the exact same reasons, except that an animal was not involved. I don't know if it made their scoring system better but that still wouldn't take care of the overall picture of over-round horses that are not using their backs properly.

[@DowntownChris]

AI is a fantastic idea!! I have been fantasizing about an AI program that would put all of this egregiously subjective judging where it belongs--in the trash can. And if we could run the program live as well, well that would be the best of all worlds and make watching dressage shows interesting again.