For greater than 40 years, Danish stud Blue Hors has been one of many main dressage breeding packages in Europe. However that’s simply the cornerstone of its efforts.
On its web site, Blue Hors describes its mission to “…create a dressage [Mekka] which equips the equestrian world with an optimum atmosphere for each the every day coaching of prime horses and [riders]….” As of this week, that ethos is taking a major and controversial step ahead to reevaluate horse welfare in Denmark and past.
“So long as there may be uncertainty about what the moral use of horses in our sport is, we have now determined to quickly pause Blue Hors’ participation in dressage competitions,” the stud introduced on Instagram.
“We consider that dressage sport and horse welfare ought to go hand in hand, with horse welfare all the time being the highest precedence. The pause will initially final for 3 months, after which we are going to assess if there was a better shared understanding of horse ethics and the sports activities pointers.”
The announcement comes on the heels of the Danish Equestrian Federation’s 2025 marketing campaign, “Collectively for Horse Welfare,” which goals to create a standard basis and understanding for the moral use of horses in sport.
With that in thoughts, Collectively for Horse Welfare is working to draft initiatives that it hopes will lead to operational, evidence-based pointers for dressage and different disciplines. The group specified that it’s going to handle elements corresponding to strengthening schooling, updating competitors assessments, and making a extra clear framework for sanctions.
“Within the Sports activities Plan for 2025, the Danish Equestrian Federation has set out stricter expectations and pointers for the usage of horses in sports activities,” the Danish Equestrian Federation’s new chairman, Kimi Gerd Nielsen, stated in a press release. “Because the new board was elected in December, we have now been working to arrange the method, which we are able to now begin. The brand new pointers will information how we practice and consider our horses in sports activities sooner or later.”
Dressage excessive efficiency, specifically, is a probable catalyst for the brand new marketing campaign, having lengthy been tormented by questions surrounding generally accepted tools (suppose: double bridles) and practices (suppose: rolkur, or hyper-flexion of the horse’s neck). In response to Equine Ethologist Renate Larssen, that reevaluation is lengthy overdue.
“There’s strong and rising proof highlighting the detrimental results of issues corresponding to tight nosebands and overbent necks. A current systematic evaluate and meta-analysis of head and neck positions confirmed that driving with the horse’s head even barely behind the vertical dangers negatively impacting their welfare,” Larssen advised Horse Community final month.
Larssen—whose work entails the scientific examine of animal conduct in an effort to higher perceive how animals suppose, really feel, and understand the world—was responding to the FEI’s personal, newly launched Working Group charged with finishing up a full evaluate of the present state of dressage. “That is one thing that must be addressed each by the riders, themselves, of their every day apply, but additionally by the governing our bodies via the scoring system,” Larssen stated.
Dressage’s present feeling of palpable uncertainty surrounding that query of scoring, specifically, was on full show at CDI Herning final week. There, Blue Hors rider and Olympic crew silver medalist Nanna Skodborg Merrald put in a profitable efficiency aboard Blue Hors Znickers within the CDI3* on a rating of 69.804%, regardless of a major 7% scoring differential among the many judges.
One low rating (65.11%) got here from Danish five-star choose and veterinarian Hans-Christian Matthiesen, a famous advocate for change within the sport. Matthiesen has beforehand really helpful new pointers for elements of the game together with scoring, the elective use double bridles and spurs, and a marked evaluation of every rider’s warm-up practices.
Based by Danish Lego Group billionaire Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, Blue Hors has helped to launch the careers of prime dressage riders together with Skodborg Merrald, but additionally Danish Olympian Andreas Helgstrand.
Helgstrand, for his half, has acquired a number of FEI and Danish Federation sanctions and suspensions through the years, together with varied horse welfare prices stemming from coaching periods throughout 2023-2024. A few of these got here to a light-weight following the discharge of an undercover Helgstrand Dressage documentary titled, Operation X.
Whereas Blue Hors says their competitors suspension won’t have an effect on their every day stud farm actions, together with a deliberate stallion present and open home, the three-month window would influence Skodborg Merrald’s participation at 2025 FEI Dressage World Cup™ Finals.
At the moment ranked sixth within the Western European League standings with mounts together with Blue Hors Zepter, Blue Hors St. Schufro, and Blue Hors Don Olymbrio, Skodborg Merrald—who took back-to-back silver medals at FEI World Cup Finals in 2023 and 2024—would have certified once more as one of many prime 10 riders within the Western European League.
It seems that sitting out, nonetheless, is a sacrifice that each Skodborg Merrald and her employer are ready to make. “We absolutely help the [Danish] Federation’s work to create clearer and higher pointers for the long run collectively,” Blue Hors wrote of their announcement, “for the sake of the horses, the riders, and the game.”
