H&C

BHS RESPONDS TO ROLLKUR RULING

Rollkur has prompted debate

Following the news that the Swedish rider Patrick Kittel will not face disciplinary action after the FEI's investigation into his warm up techniques in Denmark in October 2009, the British Horse Society has released a statement confirming their position on the use of Rollkur, or hyperflexion.

The statement, posted on the BHS website, says:

"As the debate over the use of hyperflexion as a training technique continues, The British Horse Society’s policy may be stated as follows:

The British Horse Society strongly recommends that all riders training horses on the flat and over fences should adhere to the official instruction handbook of the German National Equestrian Federation. Whilst we appreciate that horses are as individual as humans, and that some may require corrective schooling, the BHS’s stand on hyperflexion (by which we mean the extreme flexion of the horse’s head and neck beyond normal limits) remains clear: it is an unacceptable method of training horses by any rider for any length of time.

We recognise that the scientific evidence is conflicting, and likely to remain so as each party seeks determinedly to prove its case. For this reason we doubt that science will ever provide a single, clear, unambiguous and unarguable answer. It therefore falls to humans to do what the horses cannot, namely to follow the precautionary principle: as nature provides no evidence of horses choosing to move in hyperflexion for an extended period of time; and as hyperflexion can create tension in the horse’s neck and back which has no justifying necessity; and as the horse in hyperflexion is, by definition, unable fully to use its neck; and as the psychological consequences of such treatment remain latent (perhaps in an analogous position with horses which are whipped aggressively but which can still pass a five star vetting), we should take all appropriate steps to discourage the use of this training technique, for the horse’s sake."

The furore surrounding Kittel's warm up broke after a Danish journalist posted a video of the rider on YouTube, in which his horse's tongue appeared to turn blue. The rider said he had consequently received hate mail. While the FEI have decided not to take action against Kittel, they have issued a written warning to him concerning appropriate and inappropriate warm up techniques.

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