Training horse for dressage

[MXRod]

Don't know if this is covered e!elsewhere ,just seen video on BBC of horse being trained to lift legs for dressage .
It is disgusting, the horse is whipped round the legs to make it lift as it trots .
I will never look as dressage in the same way again

[Thevet]

How do you think horses are trained to do such ridiculous actions? Such a stupid exercise populated by too many .......

[CharlesdeGaulle]

Slight sense of outrage for the sense of outrage over this issue. Did you think it was a natural activity for horses to 'dance'?

[Tenacious]

Is this the video with Olympic rider doing it?

[Nightmare]

It’s a strange video all round. She doesn’t seem to be doing it for any particular reason at all. She doesn’t even seem to be cross. There’s no plan, no specific direction and no accuracy. If I’d seen it with no context I’d have guessed she was drunk quite honestly. Both totally unacceptable AND pointless.

@thevet. We have a few dressage riders at the stables and none of them have ever or would ever do something like that to make a horse do anything. I’m sure it happens - there are stty people in every walk of life - but I’ve never once seen it in 35ish years of being a horsey person and it doesn’t seem essential given two of them compete at a very high level. Also their specific horses clearly love doing dressage and do a lot of the stuff when they’re in the field on their own. Ours finds it boring I think but gets wildly excited the second a jump appears. Horses are definitely quite individual and I don’t think there’s really a ‘they all like/hate/do x or y’ (except maybe spooking at totally irrelevant things which seems a standard horse activity regardless)

I agree dressage is definitely a weird thing to do but I don’t think it’s an issue by and of itself

[Stick Legs]

There are a couple of my wife’s friends who compete in dressage & they are both horrified.

Everyone we know who is horsey put horse welfare first (ahead of their own sometimes!).

Sure it’s not isolated but also sure it’s abnormal behaviour.

The biggest issue to my mind is how the cost / reward metric in equestrian sports means that if you are relying on winning to fund your outgoings then the financial pressure clouds judgement.

Just talking part is for amateurs.

[leef44]

I have a friend who trains her horse for dressage. Just amateur stuff but she has won many prizes. She has never whipped her horse. She doesn't even have a whip. Her horse was retired from horse racing and was going to be put down. She rescued him and they are best friends.

This just goes to show that dressage can be done and can be trained without harm to the animal. It's just that when you get professional competition level then the competition becomes higher priority than the welfare of the animal.

But then you take top athletes when injured how they put themselves through pain to compete or cyclist who do things with their blood.

[Tenacious]

Training a horse, properly, for dressage is the same as training a dog to beg. It's not natural for them to do it but they can still do it. My sister's old stallion was amazing at a flying change!