I thought rapping was forbidden
It’s neither rocket science nor “secret information,” especially not for a competition official! Such as the president of the ground jury, the course designer, a steward, or like the technical delegat
Here I was thinking rapping was forbidden not only according the competition rules and regulations but basically full stop. At least up north in exotic Sweden.
Based on the footage from the Swedish Indoor Championships in showjumping for both ponies and children held in Sundswall I must have misunderstood the whole thing..
Cause from this event we could watch ponies [try to] jump while also listen and watch the very President of the Organising Committee stand smirking on the tele, while basically mockingly talk about how the [poor] ponies couldn’t read one of the jumps on the course.
The fence was a black and white vertical with round poles topped up with a black plank on top. A construction that together with the black and white walls of this indoor arena created an optical illusion since the top plank blended perfectly into the wall.
Which of course made at lot of the ponies jump straight through the fence instead of over it.
What goes around comes around..
Last time I checked, constructions like this fall under the rules and regulations of “rapping”. Rapping is first of all outright banned in Sweden for both training and competitions.
So it seems to me not only did the course designer, the woman on the tele, plus all the other officials involved at these indoor championships just skipped this section of the rulebook of both Swedish, and International showjumping!
The Swedish Rulebook’s text on rapping, is basically nothing else than a translation of the International Equestrian Federation’s (FEI) definition.
2.1. Rapping Horses The term "rapping" is construed to include all of the artificial techniques intended to induce the Horse to jump higher or more carefully in Competitions.
It is not practical to list every possible means of rapping, but in general it consists of the Athlete and/or dismounted assistants, for whose behaviour the Athlete is responsible, either hitting the Horse's legs manually with something (no matter with what or by whom) or deliberately causing the Horse to hit something itself, whether by building obstacles too large and/or too wide, setting false ground lines, placing trotting poles or the elements of a combination at a false distance, intentionally pulling or pushing the Horse into an obstacle or otherwise making it difficult or impossible for the Horse to negotiate the practice obstacle without hitting it.
It’s neither rocket science nor “secret information,” especially not for a competition official! Such as the president of the ground jury, the course designer, a steward, or like the technical delegate even.
I’m quite certain there were also plenty of trainers licensed by the Swedish Equestrian Federation (SvRF) present at this event. Wouldn’t it be fair to expect they know “this kind of shit”?
Still no one seemed to mind that a championship showjumping course for children, riding ponies, had this kind of optical illusion on the track. No one!
Stupidity and ignorance like this, is why equestrian sport is struggling in the eye of the public.
Who needs animal rights people telling us we’re doing it wrong, when it is obvious we cannot even make a clean sweep inside our very own house! What do you think?
