Carreg Dressage

26/05/2025

16/05/2025

It is also apparent that some vets are only to keen to offer expensive surgery as a solution, perhaps lacking the knowledge to advise on better training.

11/05/2025

It's Badminton and here is a explanation of each phase....its very funny

Ah…..Badminton week on social media. The time when the KSD’s, otherwise known as the Facebook experts, come together to lecture the lowly 5* riders on how their horses should look, physically, and how to ride. I honestly don’t know what Oli, Ros and Harry, for starters, would do without the KSDs. Or what these 5* horses’ veterinary and physio teams would do without them. Lord knows how they’ve all won multiple 5* events, gold medals, Olympic Games etc etc without the KSDs training them and advising on fitness?? How these riders have even got to Badminton, is astounding.

It always starts with the first jog/horse inspection. Before the first horse has even stood before the ground jury, the “shark fin withers due to poor fitting saddles and being ridden every day in draw reins” posts start appearing. According to the KSDs, these horses are so weak and under-muscled that it’s a wonder they don’t collapse at the end of the first jog, to be honest. And that’s before they’ve put their horrifically fitting saddles on. Let’s not even get started about their bits that only work because they cause pain. This year, the KSDs also made sure to preach to the general public about the poor fashion sense (frequently spelled, “sence”) of some of the world’s leading athletes. Oh, then there are the horses that dare to flick an ear back, or get a bit excited/stressed by the atmosphere (nothing to do with being supremely fit and ready to explode); because someone caught a photo of them with an ear or eye flicking to something behind them, the horse is very clearly in pain/unhappy/would rather be fat and unfit in a field and hack out once a week in a head collar.

Somehow, these weak, under fed, under muscled horses made it to the dressage arena (in their saddles that don’t fit). So then the KSDs feel the urge to post their dressage knowledge, alongside the standard “I wouldn’t want my horse to look as unhappy as these horses”. Meanwhile, half of the KSDs don’t own a horse, and the other half own one obese pony with EMS that spends 6 months of the year with laminitis and the other half staring at a grass field from the confines of a gravel path. But as long as it doesn’t look like a lean, supremely fit, incredibly well muscled, elite athlete, he will be happier. Before anyone takes offence, I also have an obese pony, but I also appreciate what a finely tuned 5* horse looks like, and would rather the obese pony looked like that!

Onto XC day. The KSDs always like to advise on how exhausted these horses look;how the riders have pushed them; how they would have retired their horse after that stumble/bad jump, and not continued (despite 50% having never ridden, let alone competitively). Oh, and how horrific that several of the riders have publicly mentioned being in a calorie deficit for weeks/months prior to Badminton for the welfare of their horse! How dare they! Petunia will now think she is too heavy, at 18 stone, to ride her 450kg 15.2hh TB and may stop eating burgers. These inconsiderate 5* riders talking about trying to be as light as possible 🙄 Anyway, if these horses TRULY loved their job, they’d be going round bitless.

We’ve got the final jog/horse inspection to look forward to, tomorrow, when the KSDs present their veterinary degrees to the FB world, and exclaim that they wouldn’t have passed half of those horses. I have no idea why they don’t get a panel of the KSDs to judge the jog, and get rid of the clueless vet and GJ. Although if they did that for the first one, I guess no horses would be deemed fit enough to even walk back to the stables, let alone start the Event, so maybe scratch that idea.

Disappointed that so many of these visibly weak, poorly muscled horses have somehow winged it to the final phase of one of the most challenging 5*s, the KSDs wander back off to the depths of FB, ready to offer their advice to someone who may actually listen, as these arrogant 5* riders certainly don’t seem to listen.

This is tongue in cheek, with a little bit of truth, so I’m fully prepared to be told I’m an awful person for writing it 😉

04/05/2025

Gagging orders! What defensive behaviour?
What is there to hide? Is there to be no questioning allowed any more? Personally I find this attitude highly offensive

FEI athletes and officials are explicitly prohibited from making any public statement that could be considered derogatory about the federation, its officials, or even other riders and coaches. This is how abuse survives at the top. Not just because harm happens, but because no one with true public power is allowed to name it when it does.

Ask why we don’t see more elite riders calling out dangerous training tactics or poor judging or welfare violations, and the answer is simple: they aren’t allowed to. If they go public with anything critical, about rules, treatment, judging, or leadership, they risk fines, sanctions, and losing selection for international teams. The price of honesty is your career.

But because the people at the top don’t speak out, the message trickles down: this is normal. This is how you get ahead. This is what it means to be “professional.” Don’t question the system. Don’t challenge what you saw. Don’t embarrass the sport.

The truth is, the athletes who speak out are not the ones ruining the sport. The riders who remain silent while others drug, use excessive force, or compete visibly uncomfortable or exhausted horses? They are the ones degrading its integrity. The real threat to equestrianism is not honesty. It's the abuse that keeps getting ignored in its name.

The FEI has mandated that silence is seen as loyalty and truth is treated as betrayal. Where harm can happen in front of dozens of professionals, and none of them say a word. But if you don't pick a side, you’ve still made a choice. Silence always favors power. Injustice feeds on complacency. And choosing neutrality in the face of harm is choosing the side of the oppressor.

If you are an FEI rider, you have a platform. You have status. And that makes your voice powerful. If you’ve ever said “I love my horse,” if you’ve ever claimed to care about welfare, this is where it counts. The horses cannot speak. But you can. And if you choose not to, the system will use your silence as a shield. It will protect itself at the horse’s expense and call that professionalism.

No, speaking up isn’t easy. You might lose your spot. You might lose support. You might risk your career. But if you aren’t willing to risk that, ask yourself: who is paying the price instead? Because right now, it's the horses. Every. Single. Time.

If horse sport wants to have a future, it has to understand that loyalty to the horse sometimes means disloyalty to the institution.

02/05/2025

Conrad nails it once again 👏

22/04/2025

Back in 1849, Steinbrecht told us:
“The first prerequisite for reawakening a general interest in the art of riding and a contribution in this respect is the main reason for writing this book is to ban from the art everything that is stiff, forced, and pedantic and to overcome the prejudices that a man on a horse must carry himself in strange posture, and that the dressage horse has to walk around as if screwed into an instrument of torture. Instead, the equestrian art is for both the type of natural gymnastic exercise with which it is possible to attain and demonstrate the highest development of physical strength and skill.” Find out more:
https://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2022/11/the-most-influential-dressage-master-of-them-all-steinbrecht/

20/04/2025

Classical dressage master Charles de Kunffy died April 14. He was born in 1936 in Hungary and was a member of the Austro-Hungarian nobility. He wrote seven books and many articles for the Journal of Equitation and Culture and has a lecture series online.