Bad news in Olympic Show Jumping-land yesterday: One of the Canadians, Tiffany Foster, was disqualified when her horse was deemed “hypersensitive” just above his left front hoof. According to this press release from the FEI, “There was no accusation of malpractice, but the horse was deemed unfit to compete by the Ground Jury”.
From this article on ProEquest, “The observation was made that Victor was hypersensitive in the area around a small cut near his coronary band. FEI vets used a combination of clinical exam and thermography to find enough sensitivity near the area to deem Victor unfit to compete.”
And yet, from the same article, teammate Eric Lamaze stated, “This horse was exercised in the morning, jumped in the morning, was fit to compete“.
Let me try and wrap my head around this: A horse that shows sensitivity at being poked in the coronet band, but who was sound during warm up (flat and jumping), was not permitted to compete. However, a dressage rider who warms up in what is clearly rollkur (and is known to abuse the banned practice, as seen here during warmup prior to a competition in 2009) is good to go? What the fuck FEI?
Again from ProEquest, “FEI Foreign Veterinary Delegate Kent Allen was on hand to defend the FEI’s decision. He confirmed that 86 Olympic horses were monitored on the first day of the competition, and 70 were monitored the second day, and Victor was the only horse found to have abnormally excessive evidence of hypersensitivity.”
“The equine Olympic athlete is the most closely monitored athlete at the Olympic Games, and the FEI’s mandate is for the welfare of the horse and the well being of the horse,” Allen stated.”
Oh, really? Where were these “monitors” during Patrik Kittel’s warmup?
What bureaucratic, political bullshit is going on here? A dressage competitor is allowed to use rollkur and a show jumper is disqualified for a small cut? Where were these vets during Kittel’s, now infamous, warmup ride?
Photos seem to be by Julia Rau of St. Georg (Dressage magazine)
Yup, that’s how ol’ Pat rolls and the Olympic stewards and FEI are a-ok with it! Kittel, by the way, maintains his innocence – check out this article from Epona.
I CANNOT believe they dashed someone’s Olympic dreams over a minor cut. Show me an open gash and it’s a different story. Of course a horse is going to be sensitive when you poke a small cut – but that doesn’t mean the horse isn’t competition sound (and, to my way of thinking, competition sound should be held to higher standards than everyday riding). If the horse trots out fine, why disqualify it? I realize this disqualification took place in the stall but if something is found to be amiss in the stall, wouldn’t you take the horse out for further investigation? Or is there no place for logic here? You know, this isn’t the freakin TWH Celebration. You’re not looking for soring agents that are going to make the horse perform Big Lick-type movement!
On a completely separate note, I have a hard time believing that “the FEI’s mandate is for the welfare of the horse and the well being of the horse” as Allen said, after watching this video from EponaTV that clearly shows a steward harassing a journalist videotaping a dressage warmup. All at the request of some riders because it’s “making them uncomfortable”. I’m sure most criminals are uncomfortable with their actions being videotaped as well. No, that video isn’t from the Olympics, but from all that has gone on at the Olympics so far I sincerely doubt their attitudes have changed much.
If you would care to join many, many others attempting to communicate to the FEI the fact that they’re not living up to their mission statement, please check out their Facebook page.
33 Comments
Yes the rolkur episode should have had the FEI down on him like a ton of bricks I agree with you there .But the hypersensitivity of the canadian horse was what they are supposed to do , it would be way too easy to slightly injure their horse before the jumping round therefore meaning their horse would be more careful over the fences. Yes it’s sad for the rider who’s got so far but the wider picture has to be seen & dealt with. The rolkur episode definately should be dealt with & here in England there has been an outcry about the FEI ignoring it .
There is absolutely no comparison between a small (likely self inflicted) cut on a horse’s coronet band and the deliberate abuse of a horse forced into rollkur. Rollkur is a cheat. Can you imagine the relief the horse gets when the rider releases his head and neck? Must feel absolutely wonderful to hold your head slightly in front of the verical after all the pain of rollkur. Rollkur has be banned by the FEI – what the hell happened to that?? The rider should have been immediately disqualifed and sent home in disgrace – what he did was deliberate and flouted the rules. The rider did not care that the movement is banned and he did not care about the safety or health of his mount – he did it to improve his chances of winning, at his horse’s expense. Shame on the FEI!
I signed a petition, sent to me by my dressage instructor, that would ban rollkur, hyperflexion and LDR at all FEI competitions. I signed another similar petition last year. I was pleased to see that LDR was included in the current list of abuses on the petition, but I thought that hyperflexion was banned already. Was it not banned? I thought I’d read that if a steward saw hyperflexion/rollkur used in the warm-up ring they could disqualify a rider. Maybe the current petition includes rollkur and hyperflexion–which are banned already–in order to add the LDR. Anyone know?
GBR might be going overboard on the hypersensitivity, but I guess too much is better than too little. The Canadians are running into all kinds of trouble these Games.
I think *technically* rollkur is allowed in very small doses but excessive rollkur isn’t allowed. LDR is allowed – however, I disagree with what they’re allowing to pass as LDR – it looks more like thinly veiled rollkur.
If dressage ever wants to be widely embraced, the head honchos need to see that most of us lower-level dressage enthusiasts will not torture our horses to achieve “beauty.” I would like to think that most of us, who love our horses, will want to achieve true beauty and elegance by working humanely with our horses. Crap like this sickens me. It makes me wonder if this is why eventing dressage is never as showy- if you rolkur’ed your eventer, they would abandon you at the first scary fence. It is a breach of trust, and trust is what gets you through the rough patches. Of course, when you are a hired gun on someone else’s horse, who needs trust…
Ok at the risk of sounding stupid, I ride western and I do not know what the heck Rolkur is. I do know that that poor horse has got to be hating his job right about now. Where is the trust that a good solid riding relationship is built on?
I hate to say it but you just gave the number #1 excuse sorers use in regards to the USDA’s techniques on palpation. Their defense is if you poke a horses ankle long enough and hard enough, you’ll get a reaction from the horse.
Apples and oranges twhgait. The Canadian horse had no scarring, his foot angles are perfectly normal and he is not wearing pads that cause him to walk on the tip of his coffin bone. The nick in the coronet band was not found until they did a thermograph (which from what I have read are not very reliable). They found that the coronet band (not the pastern) had a bit of heat and then found that the coronet band had a small cut. The horse had worked that morning with no signs of lameness. You certainly can’t say that about horses who wear pads and /or have been sored. How anyone , especially a judge,
can look at the way those horses move and not know that they are in agony boggles the mind.
I’m only pointing out a similarity. I don’t see it as apples and oranges. The way I read the post, the horse showed sensitivity on exam. Granted I’m assuming, but an exam would include hands-on palpatation before pulling out the bigger guns like a thermograph. On a BL inspection, you won’t see scars, you would see a clean hoof and pasterns (clean to THEM, not to a non-BL person). I’ve been behind the USDA inspections since I bought my first TWH 18 years ago and that is the most often heard excuse…the examiner pushes too hard, too much for too long. They “try” to get the horse to react. I’m not agreeing with it, I’m just pointing out the similarities
Small time hay:
Rollkur, also called hyperflexion or LDR (low, deep and round) involves forcing the horse to hold its head in an unnatural way, quite behind the vertical, with the chin at the chest. In that position, the horse cannot see where it is going, can only see the ground, and has it’s neck in an extremely uncomfortable bend. Rollkur can damage the horse’s neck, physically, and the horse’s head, mentally, and that is why it is considered abusive. It was developed, I believe, so women–the weaker sex?–could control the larger and hotter horses bred now, since rollkur makes the horse rely upon the rider for everything that it is doing b/c it can’t see anything. Of course, those of us that know horses know that strength is not required to control a horse as long as you have a good connection with the horse, and we loathe the idea of rollkur.
I thought the method was developed so that when they released the horses they held the desired head frame – which was a relief compared to holding a rollkur head position. Kind of like the WP guys tying the horse’s heads up high all night and so the horse’s muscles are so exhausted the next day, they only want to go with their noses practically to the ground. It’s artificial “training”. Like so many other practices we seen in the horse world these days, it’s a short cut to what traditional training brings over time.
Both of those reasons are valid for rollkur. There is also the shortening of the neck muscles that lift the forelegs higher. There are many stupid reasons for this abuse.
48northfarm, Thankyou for explaining to me! I dont know a whole lot about dressage but wouldnt bringing the horse’s chin to his chest totally throw off not only his center of ballance but his sense of collection as well? It makes me cringe at what kind of pressure you would have to use to get the chin to the chest. I bet its not just the neck, and mouth that suffer physically but I would imagine that it puts strain on his back and legs as well. How that horse must feel being forced to rely on someone so brutal. If someone as uneducated as me can see from a simple explanation and pictures what rollkur is, why cant so called professionals see it too, and see the damage to the horse physically and mentally?
@ Small Time Hay: Exactly. YouTube Anky Van Grunsven… You’ll notice that even when her horse isn’t behind the vertical, his hind legs are just sort of trailing behind, and there isn’t any *true* collection. Everything that’s happening is going on from the shoulders forward. Sure, the front legs may be crazy elevated and the gaits BIG…. so are Big Lick TWHs, though. Bottom line: it isn’t correct, and like someone said farther up thread… It’s a cheat, pure and simple.
Rollkur is often used by western pleasure trainers. It looks a little different but, it is roklkur.
Is there a point to rollkur that im not seeing? I just cant see any benefit coming from him being in that position.
Rollkur makes the horse completely submissive: it can’t even see where it is going. I believe that is called “learned helplessness” in human psychology terms, although you cannot use human words for animal feelings. But that’s sort of the gist of it. The point of rollkur: it’s a quick fix for making the horse controllable, rather than taking the time and patience to teach the horse to see the rider as its partner, the leader in its herd of two. In rollkur the horse has absolutely no voice in what it is made to do, b/c if it doesn’t, it falls on its face. A real horseman or horsewoman ASKS the horse for its cooperation; rollkur is used to MAKE the horse do whatever the rider wants. It’s pretty gruesome. In a video of Patrick Kittel, you can see Scandic’s tongue turn blue. Pretty nasty.
An sad thought, the games are supposed to be a show of equitation not a show of domination. What sticks in my mind is that the horse must be docile in the first place and not an agressive minded horse. Even with harsh tactics an agressive minded horse would fight. This horse looks like he’s doing his best to comply he fought once but then went along with it.
Actually, the pictured horse, as most upper level dressage horses, is hot and strong. RK is used to gain submissiveness and tire the horse. One of the riders who uses RK (not the one pictured, but from the same country) is a woman (less muscle strength than a man) and her horse is big, hot, and strong… People think she uses RK because otherwise she would not be able to control him.
In contrast, try to dig up some of the videos of the UK dressage riders (e.g. Carl Hester), and Steffen Peters on Ravel.
actually using the term “learned helplessness” to describe animal behavior is appropriate as the term resulted from some pretty disgusting animal experiments. they took a dog and placed it in a box, one side would have a charge and a shock and the dog quickly learned to jump to the other side where there was no charge. when *both* sided were charged, the dog eventually stopped trying to get away from the shock and just layed down. :/
some people are sick :/
Thank you for posting this because it was EXACTLY what I was thinking. Completely ridiculous and the FEI is one big badly told joke. I take horse welfare very seriously, but honestly if my horse was DQ’d for every little scratch, the poor guy would never make it to a show just because he’s a bit clutzy. There should be a proper investigation including watching the horse on the lunge to check for any lameness before they arbitrarily declare them unfit. Especially considering the ridiculous dressage LDR, which in my opinion is nothing other than politically correct rollkur.
Kittel should have been disqualified and sent packing. The spirit of the Games and the welfare of the horse demand that the practice of Rollkur (already banned) should not be tolerated or overlooked. This is a shame and a black mark on these Games. The ban needs to be enforced and this cruel practice should not be rewarded but reviled. Shame on the FEI and the Olympic judges, stewards, vets etc. that let this slide, and gave this man scores in dressage for his performance. Shame.
Amen sister!!!!!
Now, remember, those pictures ^^^ were from 2009. But, Kittel is still competing, and there is a picture circulating the Internet of him supposedly doing something like rollkur in the warm-up ring at the 2012 Olympics. I can’t believe that Kittel is so stupid that he’d try to sneak in some rollkur when he is being watched; undoubtedly he saves that for his home turf. As Rhonda Stock said, LDR is noting but a euphemism for rollkur, and I was glad to sign the petition that added LDR to the list of abuses of rollkur/hyperflexion.
No, the pics are from the current Olympics. The video is from 2009.
There are big London 2012 signs behind Kittel as he warms up in the photos.
The ruling was ridiculous. And the fact that they aren’t allowed to appeal the decision even worse. I saw the interview with the rider afterwards, and she was absolutely devastated and in tears – it seemed more over the implication that she doesn’t look after her horse than the fact that she was disqualified – so much so that her coach (I think it was her coach) had to take over speaking for her. If they had discovered that the cut was purposefully inflicted by the rider or one of her assistants/staff members, then yeah, disqualify her. But when it’s something so minor, and they were clearly able to see that it was an accidental injury, and the horse had no soundness issues… I understand that he *might* be more sensitive, and hence more careful, over the jumps, but at that level of competition, where the horses are jumping basically as high as they physically can, I don’t see how it’s going to make much of a difference. It seems to me, unless you have been deliberately making the horse sensitive during training, it would be more of a disadvantage than anything for a horse who’s not used to it to suddenly feel more pain than usual when he hits a jump – I mean, how do you react if you have a cut and bump it against something? Unless you’re used to such things happening, you’re probably going to stop whatever you’re doing and go “what the hell was that?” and not do it again.
I can understand the reasoning behind the rule, but I feel like this was a case where it was applied blindly. If they were being that strict across ALL equestrian competitions, I wouldn’t have nearly so much of an issue with it. But not only are they NOT being that strict with the rules, the rules themselves aren’t equally defined – if a tiny cut, when following the rules to the letter, is grounds for disqualification, then why aren’t similarly strict rules being placed on rollkur? Why is there no wiggle room at all in the medical exam, but the limits of rollkur are so vaguely defined that they may as well not even exist?
LDR, do you mean, Long, Down and Round? Or Low, Down and Round? I use those exercises a LOTin order to get the horse to actively stretch the Whole length of the spine. A tense or blocked horse can not do this, they must be loose like cooked spaggetti. This excercise is quite valluable in so so many ways. But the horse must Offer this so artificial adis like Draw Reins, sliding reins, cross roping, chambon ect defeat the purpose and thus must NOT be used.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
They refer to is as Low, Deep, Round. I like long and low for stretching while riding – no effort to get the horse to “round”, but to step through from his hind end without falling on the forehand. I think it’s a great tool for building back muscles and harder to do properly than it looks!
I don’t see any “low” in those pictures – the horse’s head is still high although the neck is certainly round…and doesn’t the horse look “happy” to have his head forced into that position. Obviously not a happy animal – just as those TWH big lick horses do not look happy. Amazing what people who want to win at any cost refuse to see. Sometimes I really hate being part of the (in)human race!
Yes, Kittel is not doing LDR, but actual rollkur. Some say LDR is not rollkur b/c no force is exerted, but the damage to the neck and mind of the horse is the same. That’s why people are trying to get LDR banned like rollkur. The FEI says rollkur is okay if done in “short periods of time” and Kittel uses that part of the rule to his advantage. Rollkur has nothing to do with the set of the head, and all to do with making the horse do what you want it to do.
If Victor the Canadian horse was cut on purpose to induce tucking, he would have been cut on both coronary bands.
This is BS.
The FEI made a statement saying that there was no suggestion of any misconduct by Foster or Team Canada. No one has suggested the horse was cut on purpose to make him more sensitive. Rather, an accidental small cut has caught the horse in a set of protocols that were intended to prevent deliberate sensitization. That’s the problem, the testing protocols do not distinguish between sensitivity that occurs for a benign reason (cut, insect bite) from deliberate conduct. If the horse is hypersensitive, it’s out, regardless of the reason, and with no appeal – rather heavy-handed.
If there was any shred of evidence that Foster did this on purpose, I’d be all for tossing her out of the sport on a long suspension. But the FEI has acknowleged that’s not the case. So instead it really is about whether an accidental small surface cut on the coronary band should disqualify a horse from competition.