Observation of horse and rider
Horse friendly conduct, conspicuous issues or non-horse friendly conduct?
The practice and the preparation in competition was brought more and more in public focus over the past years. But where is the border line? When does a judge in the practice area have to intervene or when is the rider´s behavior still acceptable?
A commission of experts was appointed to find answers to these questions. Thies Kaspareit, head of the education and science department of the NF of GER: "Only in an exceptional case it is possible to evaluate the situation of a horse based on only one single criteria. The horse needs to be seen in the whole context. The list of criteria serves as an orientation and not as a check-list to be processed! It is giving us three columns in which we can find nearly all possibilities of the horse´s body language. It is valid for all national competitions in Germany and helps us a lot with the evaluation of various situations."
All riders who are competing on national level in Germany were informed in a campaign in the beginning of 2014 season and they have to commit to the list of criteria in competition as well as in the practice area.
