Now That’s More Like It!

Global Dressage Forum 2007 Day Two

The second day of the forum gave us much more of what everyone came for: some great training demos (Jean Bemelmans), putting the judges on the spot, and wrapping up with the big bang of the Coby and Jo show. Bemelmans was inspiring: passionate about the horses, humble in aspect, but firm in his knowledge and philosophy. In response to some lady trying to categorize him as either ‘classical’ or ‘modern’, he dismissed her by saying he was tired of such labels: “there is only good training and bad training.” Too bad Jean is so busy with his Spaniards. He’d be a kick ass Canadian coach.

Stephen Clarke Stands Tall

It was perhaps a blessing that Mariette stayed away this year, since it gave the eloquent Mr. Clarke the opportunity to apply his speaking and defense skills during the analysis of the judging of the European Championships. Like last year with the WEG analysis, comparative videos of specific movements were shown of several competitors, followed by much animated discussion about scoring. Stephen had pointed out in his opening remarks that judges are actually human (despite the popularly held belief that they are the Devil), and that when one or two judges in a panel of five gives out a too-high or too-low mark, it is usually the result of human error. Admitting fallibility – now that’s a breakthrough! When Wim Ernes, one of the judges at the Europeans, confessed that in seeing the video he now believed he had given too low a mark for an extended walk, the crowd became near-orgasmic. If only men like Stephen and Wim were the norm in the international judging community…

Where’s Coby?

Richard announced that it was Coby up there for the last presentation of the day, but I have my doubts. I suspect it was a robot made up to look like Coby. The robot read from a script in a monotone, never looking up from the notes, not even when addressing the issue of the red-handed photos of Power and Paint cranked in like a circus pony. The Coby-tron did heed Richard Davison’s pre-speech advice to deliver her defense about the lunging photos before talking about her ‘main’ topic – the pony-to-Grand Prix rider program that she and Jo Hinnemann have developed together over the years. Richard had quite rightly told her that until she said her piece about the photos, no one would pay any attention to the training presentation. Before the session started, a high-profile participant in the forum (who shall remain anonymous because I don’t quite have the balls to name him) said to me that in his opinion Coby should admit she had made a mistake and apologize. She did nothing of the sort; she simply reiterated the story that the whole world and their dog has already read on line, that the photos were a misrepresentation, that the child lunging him had made them too tight (must be a hell of a strong kid) and that Coby immediately loosened them when she came to help with the lunging.

With that bit of fluff out of the way, the Coby-tron gave a presentation that was a finalist for ‘driest presentation of the week’, making the system of training children to become Grand Prix competitors sound about as much fun as military school. There was a small betting pool in Journalists’ Row about whether Power and Paint would be one of the demo ponies, and I was a winner. His was the first adorable face to peek around the curtain for the mounted demos. Jo now took over the mike, and although I’m sure it was really him and not a robot, his style was not much more animated than Coby’s. But it WAS more opinionated. One little gem he threw out (and one final jab at the judges) was that he teaches the kids two different shoulder ins: a correct one without bend, and one for the judges, who naively still look for bend in the movement. Because of course everyone else knows horses can’t bend in the rib cage. Too bad Hilary Clayton wasn’t on hand with some of her overhead photos of horses doing shoulder in – with body bend.

Send in the Lions!

Finally, the moment everyone had been waiting for: question period. Coby herself spoke no more in her defense, but there was plenty said from other quarters. A spokesman from the Dutch federation said that an investigation into the lunging of Power and Paint is under way, and a man with the ominous title of Prosecutor is on the job. A German from the magazine St. Georg (the same mag Sjef sued for slander) voiced what was on everyone’s mind: “as a Grand Prix rider, and an Olympic team member, you can never have the reins that short by mistake. Also you said you didn’t trot but the photographer produced photos of the pony trotting.” The federation guy jumped in to say he didn’t want the scene to turn into a ‘court case situation’ (he was definitely in the minority), and that the prosecutor would get to the bottom of things. I did have one question for Coby: “in retrospect, would you have done anything differently?” But I didn’t get to ask it because Richard Davison never gave me the mike. Maybe he thought I was going to cry again.

So that’s it folks. The Forum that puts all the players together: riders, trainers, coaches, judges, wannabes, groupies and journalists. If I were you I’d be marking it on your calendar for next year. I can recommend some lovely cheap accommodations very nearby.

Cheers,
Karen

Let the Controversy Begin

They didn’t take my advice! They let Monty come back and talk, even if it was only in the opening remarks. In his speechifying he told us a forum necessitated everyone leaving their egos at the door, but of course Monty’s own ego was right there in his pocket. Kyra and the jumper rider Franke Sloothaak gave a joint presentation about how much jumpers and dressagers can benefit from one another, but it never really got off the ground (no pun intended). The most impressive part of that session was watching Franke ride his Grand Prix jumper and do really rather good canter pirouettes in a jumping saddle and almost buckle reins. The session contained a bit too much mutual back slapping and not enough real information sharing or dialogue. Kyra always has so much of value to say but things didn’t go quite in the right direction for her to share her pearls of wisdom.

Quote of the Day Since the action was a bit slow during the Kyra and Franke show emcee Richard Davison decided to spice things up by asking Coby van Baalen (out of the blue) to comment on the roll kur issue. Coby would have none of that: “Tomorrow we will have our presentation and that’s when it will be time to talk about it.”

Things definitely warmed up during the session on Learned Helplessness by Australian animal behaviourist and trainer Andrew McLean. One of the photos he used in explaining what causes Learned Helplessness in horses was a shot of a circus pony in a very tight side rein; both the pony itself and the extreme position of its neck looked identical to the photos of Power and Paint being lunged by Coby van Baalen that appeared on various websites a few weeks ago. I bet Coby won’t get much sleep between now and her presentation tomorrow.

After dinner the two patriarchs of dressage in Europe, Joep Bartels and Aachen’s Frank Kemperman, delivered their much anticipated criticism of the sport as they perceive it at the moment – that it is being run from the wrong end by the judging community. Stephen Clarke jumped in to say he was ‘fed up with’ the judges always being attacked, adding that ‘until you can get computers to do the job you are stuck with us.’ Kemperman got the last word in with ‘so when do we get the computers?’ There was no sign of FEI dressage chair Mariette Withages, who is usually so eager to promote the sport in her own vision – nor was Italian judge Enzo Truppa, whose histrionic open letter on Eurodressage.com showed such indignation at the gall of Kemperman to suggest the European Championships in Turin were underpromoted. Well if you folks don’t turn up for the match you can’t win!

Wine, Horses and Song

It was worth the whole trip to see Wibi Soerjadi play Imke Schellekens-Bartels’ freestyle live on his own grand piano. The diminutive but charming Soerjadi proved he’s no introverted musician-type by enthusiastically sharing his approach to composing The Spirit of Sunrise. The presentation left many people with lumps in their throats, including mine. Unfortunately for me, I had been invited to be on the the three-member panel that commented and asked questions afterward, and Richard Davison shoved the microphone under my nose before I had composed myself. I managed a blubbery ‘I’m speechless’, though I did recover enough to ask Wibi and Imke a couple of questions after the other panelists had had their say. So now I’m known as ‘the journalist who cried’. What a distinction.

All The Pretty Horses

If you want to see how rich Dutch horse people like to throw their money around, the Elite Auction is a pretty good starting place. Not that all the buyers on Saturday night were Dutch – but the mood and primary language of the evening was definitely of the wooden clog variety. I think Diederik and Craig may have made a tactical error with their choice of Lou Vega for the half-time entertainment. By the time Lou and his go-go girls had made their way through a third Mambo#5 sound-alike the crowd was barely acknowledging them. The last horse at the 2006 auction fetched more than 400,000 Euros, but this year not one horse broke the 300k mark. The top priced ponies this year (a gelding at 220k and stallion at 280) were also in the first half of the evening, which meant there wasn’t the same climactic finish as last year.

My impression of this year’s crop was that the horses were higher quality than last year, but for some reason the bidding was not nearly so frenzied. It could even be said there were deals to be had this time around, with a few horses going for perhaps less than market value. But like last year, the horse I thought would get the highest price went for less than some that I didn’t care for at all. My favourite this time was a three year old grey mare called Zonneschijn (Sunshine in Dutch apparently). She did have an ugly scar on one hind leg but she was quite the mover and very brave in the crazy atmosphere. Prevalent on this year’s auction list were stupid ‘Z’ names. Instead of using words that really start with ‘z’, the breeders took lots of ‘s’ words and converted them: Zilver, Zwarovski, Zan Tropez, etc. Not one Zebra! And what’s wrong with Zamboni for a name?

Everyone knows that wine leads to loose purse strings, so it was no surprise that glasses were kept topped up by the servers, leading to some heavy nappers during the second half. An English lady at our table just couldn’t keep her eyes open by the end of her fourth glass. No matter; by the after-party she was back in action with a spring in her step and fresh glass in hand. The presentation was top notch as it was in 2006, but for whatever reason the dollars just didn’t quite flow so fast, even if the wine did.

Tune in tomorrow for my report on Day One of the Global Dressage Forum. Monty Roberts is giving part of the opening address – yikes!