BHS stand against rollkur
By Justine Thompson
General news
02 February 2010 10:57
The British Horse Society has made a stand on hyperflexion – to say the practice is unacceptable.
Hyperflexion, also known as rollkur, hit the headlines in recent months after a video was posted on youtube showing a horse being ridden in this way in the warm-up of an international dressage competition, and apparently in distress.
The Federation Equestre Internationale (FEI) failed to veto the action, but now the British Horse Society has come out against it.
In a statement BHS Chairman Patrick Print said: “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.”
Some experts have said that riding in this way causes pain and contorts the animal’s airways, but many top level dressage riders regard it as a gymnastic exercise for their horses.
The BHS went on to say that as horses could not speak out it was down to people to follow the ‘precautionary principle’ as ‘nature provides no evidence of horses choosing to move in hyperflexion for an extended period of time’.
For the full statement from the BHS click here
