Doping And Our Sport In Peril
Today’s news of Isabelle Werth being suspended for allegedly doping her Prix St. George horse, Whisper, is bringing our sport of Dressage even deeper in peril, after the huge German scandal which recently occurred. But let me go on record right now that I actually have great optimism for thge future of the sport. While this has brought home, as did the judging problems in Hong Kong, the huge challenges for Dressage, it is sometimes necessary to be brought to one’s knees in order to pick one’s self back up and start a new.
Let us not villify anyone before they have their day in court.
And even if found guilty, let’s take this situation to be looked at as an opportunity to try to make our sport better in every way.
I am very excited that our FEI Dressage Task Force is working to put on the first ever Judging Systems Trials to be held in Aachen, Germany on September 7-9.
This is a huge step and I can’t wait to be there to hopefully help usher in a new era in Dressage Sport.
It should also be a lot of fun!
Cheers!
RD
Dee Loveless — June 24, 2009 @ 9:14 pm
As a long time dressage competitor, judge and trainer it is extremely disheartening what is coming out about the German jumping and dressage riders. For so many years we in the U.S. have been lamenting our inability to rise to the standard of the German teams. We talk non-stop about how well they ride, how well they train and wonder why we haven’t been able to beat them, except on a few individual rare occasions. We send our riders to Germany to learn how to reach that German standard. Now it would appear that we were being terribly naive. What we weren’t able to do was cheat as effectively as they have with the assistance of their vets and perhaps even German Federation officials. How well would our horses have done if they had been given a human tranquilizer to calm them, or undetectable anti-inflammatory drugs, or pain relievers. Really, giving a human anti-psychotic drug to a horse, everyone in the sport should be outraged by that!
Well now we know the truth, most likely we were not beaten “fair and square” by the Germans, we were playing by different rules. The German riders, vets and officials who have had any involvment in these events should be banned from at least the international level of the sport for life, and then lets move on. That will get everyone’s attention for sure - not just a short suspension. The suspension is effectively a slap on the wrist to people who make hundreds of thousands of dollars in this sport. Ulla is back in full swing again as we all know and is doing very well. Let’s see how serious the German Federation and the FEI really are about cleaning up the sport this time.