ONLY IN HORSE & HOUND
Anna Ross on the recent winter championships and potential rule changes
OPINION
ADDINGTON was a roaring success for the winter dressage championships.
The excellent organisation from Show Direct carried the championships seamlessly over from Hartpury, with more space to ride and a stunning feature arena.
A bonus this year was the combination of live scoring and expert commentary by Judy Harvey, which brought the championships alive and were super-educational for those tuning in.
There has been some negative press about dressage recently. However there was a lot to be positive about at these championships: the beautiful riding, and seeing riders supporting one another in person and online, for example.
The number of successful British-bred champions – including Dannie Morgan’s Fever Tree, bred by David Stone, and Sadie Smith’s Swanmore Dantina, bred by Ben St John James – was great to see.
TO criticise is the easiest job in the world, so it’s good to see solutions coming forward, however controversial they may be – it gets the conversation going past the naysayers.
Top international five-star judge and vet Hans-Christian Matthiesen has thrown his hat in the ring and suggested some radical new thoughts for the international level of the sport.
He thinks that some horses are showing stress in the arena such as excessive sweating and tail swishing and that this should be more reflected in his score. However, he doesn’t feel he has an adequate place to reflect this on the score sheet.
He suggests new rules where equipment (or lack thereof ) should be up to the rider with voluntary use of bits and even saddles. Perhaps a start would be making it optional to use a snaffle or bitless bridle?
As a competitor, I find it frustrating that I’m compelled to ride my grand prix mare Holly (Habouche) in a double bridle when she doesn’t need one.
We already have the voluntary use of spurs in place and I recently saw a video of a rider doing a grand prix without spurs that received much praise but I beg to differ. I didn’t enjoy the footage, as the rider used heavy leg aids instead, with the horse booted every stride in the piaffe.
I didn’t see that as a move forward for the sport – the horse certainly wasn’t forward anyway!
Hans-Christian also suggested a score given for the wa
