The blue tongues doesn't bother me..
The blue tongue cases of the dressage horses doesn't bother me that much. Mostly cause the photographers providing the "evidence" most of the times are quite unknown to everybody, and also seem to bolt like bats out of hell when asked for the original files.
Secondly I have a foot in the horse racing industry where it indeed is allowed to tie down the tongues. I am not claiming nor stating this is an all good plan, but then again, neither me nor any of my friends have actually seen a blue tongue coming out of this.
Third of all, I worked plus 10 years as a professional horse photographer and know how the lights in various arenas can trick your camera to create weird things in regards to colours.
That said, I am all in on animal welfare and this time around I am quite shocked over recent photos published in the mainstream media from the FEI Dressage World Cup™. The use of spurs and the double bridle is quite frankly, disgusting.
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If me and my former class mates from the riding academy had ever been riding like this, or even thought about using the double bridle and spurs like some of these [so called top] riders of dressage do, we would have been GROUNDED!!
No questions asked! Never EVER would we have gotten away with it.
Interesting enough me and an old school mate joked about bad riding just the other day when one of the worlds greatest show jumpers posted a video that would have made our old teachers turn in their graves of horror.
The ground work was quite awful.
Even so, I'll give it to this man, who doesn't seem to know how to neither sit properly nor how to place his legs and hands in a good position, full credit for having is gear into place.
The horse's mouth was closed, and the spurs weren't yanked into the sides of the horse!
This pro may look almost like an absolute beginner at times, but when he starts jumping there's a complete other ball game. Now we're talking amazing feeling and horsemanship.
Nothing prepared me for the following.. **warning**
As bad as the World Cup dressage may be NOTHING had prepared me for the following.
First I read about a poor swan being beat up and stoned by kids. The swan is now in a rescue center.
Then..
My heart shattered into a million pieces.
Cause this is when I read about an innocent, pregnant mare, being beaten to death by grown men on a field in Belgium.
People who saw the beating called the police, but when they arrived it was too late. The owners now claim the horse died of colic. Others say, this is not the first time something bad happens at this place.
Either way, where there's smoke there's normally fire, and THIS story made me completely loose it. I was out and about with my hubby when I read about this, and suddenly I found myself sitting in a pool of tears in the car.
WHAT THE HECK is wrong with people!?!
What the f is wrong with the world?
I am heartbroken.
I am lost for words.
No, I am not completely lost for words. Cause I really like to know why I can read about this poor mare in a so called horsey magazine [click bait], when they tend to fail to mention the state of modern dressage. Why is that?
Hoofbeat
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