“Rollkur” is once again in the spotlight after the leading German broadcaster WDR ran a damning item last week claiming the practice was allowed in the dressage warm-up ring at Aachen, whose 10-day CHIO finished on July 23rd.
WDR’s twice weekly science program “Quarks and Co” claimed that while that riding style was now officially referred to as “low, deep and round” it was in essence the same form of “abuse” as rolkur. WDR asked biologist Dr. Kathrin Kienapfel, who is also a rider, to examine its video clips and she felt they showed instances of “suffering.”
The allegations have provoked an angry response, in particular from top German magazine St Georg, which led media coverage about rollkur at the height of its original controversy.
However, in a lengthy editorial, editor Jan Toenjes said he believes the FEI and the dressage community have got the matter under control.
The allegations were also firmly rebutted by the German equestrian federation, the FN.
In a statement [translated from German] the FN said: “Both international and national regulations do not accept aggressive riding and the forcing of the horse. However, such behavior is not observed in the eight-minute video material that is available to us. Certainly in some parts unsightly riding is shown, but it is not against animal welfare.”
A few years ago, the media were prohibited from close access to the dressage warm-up area at Aachen. But access is again open and WDR’s critics complain it abused that facility, capturing images of riders in fleeting wrong moments out of context. WDR is also accused of taking too simplistic an approach to the assessment of “force” based on the relative angles of the horse’s head and neck.
WDR, a public service broadcaster, first highlighted rollkur in the era when Edward Gal was riding Totilas at Aachen.
Its latest coverage seems to ignore the extensive FEI and national debates on the subject that have taken place since, and that new rules and guidelines are in place for all FEI dressage shows about how horses are worked in the warm-up and exercise arenas.
Toenjes welcomed WDR’s general coverage of Aachen but was saddened that the normal high quality of its programming was not reflected in this “badly researched” science report.
.
More from Horse Sport:
