The FEI's conclusion on Patrik Kittel and Scandic

Watch the video again. Then read the FEI's finding regarding this case. If you disagree with their finding, please follow up your grumbling to self with a LETTER or EMAIL to the FEI, letting them know your feelings.




Swedish Dressage News

Patrik Kittel Exonerated by FEI in Blue Tongue Scandal

January 27, 2010

The FEI investigation into the training methods used by Patrick Kittel on his horse Scandic in Odense, Denmark on 18 October 2009 has been concluded. Witness statements and video evidence have been thoroughly reviewed and the investigation finds are that there is no reliable evidence that the warm-up techniques used by Mr Kittel were excessive.

As a result, the FEI Legal Department has ruled that no formal claim against Mr Kittel will be submitted to the FEI Tribunal, however Mr Kittel has received a warning letter regarding the appropriate and inappropriate use of warm-up techniques and has been made aware that his actions will be watched very carefully going forward to ensure that there are no subsequent violations of FEI rules relating to horse welfare.

The FEI is conducting a major review and analysis of its current policy on pre-competition warm-up activities, with an emphasis on hyperflexion. A working group has been set up with a specific brief to define the term “prolonged and excessive” in order to provide more precise guidelines for stewards.

This issue relates to the welfare of the horse in general and not just to dressage and will be discussed in detail at a round table, taking place on 9 February, where all stakeholders will be represented.

one of those manifesting days

I can't remember the first thing that manifested today, but it kept happening and by dinnertime I had to laugh at how fun it is when things flow this way.

Some examples:

I wondered about a check that was in limbo. Got a message on my cellphone that the check is now in the mail.

I decided that Salina is going back into work. Not under saddle, but some serious walking in hand and maybe some trot when we see how the walking goes. I proceeded to forget about it, and was standing in the barn aisle wondering what it was I'd forgotten to do when I noticed Salina leave her hay and walk to the arena gate, where she stopped and stood, looking into the arena. Got her halter and lead rope on and off we went. She was incredibly focused and fussed at the donkeys when they got in our way!

Noticed that our weather forecast now has snow in the picture and a low in the teens by Sunday night. Thought to self: need to remind husband so he can get firewood ready. Gas truck arrives at that moment and fills the tank.

Was getting ready to walk the heavy muck-barrow down the back path and thought - where are my kids when I need them?! Son appeared and took the wheelbarrow from me.

Walking through the woodland path, which now has two connecting paths that make it so much more interesting. Was thinking "I need a circle somewhere in here." Then I found two vines that had wound themselves perfectly together. It was about 12 feet long. I picked it up and whirled it and then let go. It landed in a perfect circle, perched on top of some brush so that it almost seemed like it's floating in the air.

Standing in the front field watching Keil Bay and the pony playing. Remembered a fall morning soon after we moved here, when the two of them galloped up the hill and Keil Bay jumped a log between two trees. I walked over to the two trees, thinking "I need to put a log here again." Moments later Keil Bay galloped through the two trees and leaped over... nothing!

There were so many of these moments today I couldn't keep track of them. But here's the really funny one:

I was complaining that I needed help with chores. In full Mom mode. Saying maybe I needed to advertise for barn help in exchange for riding. (my kids both know that is so unlikely to happen it's virtually meaningless, but sometimes it gets them moving)

Come in to read email and there is one asking if we are interested in an exchange student.

X is cheerful, positive, spontaneous and open to new challenges. One of X's greatest passions is riding. She has always had horses in her life and has ridden for over 11 years. X also enjoys writing and writes about her day to day activities. She loves animals, especially, horses, cats and dogs.

That one raised my eyebrows a bit.

When we put it out there clearly, we get quick results.

go well, Blue Hors Matine

Sadly, she was put down due to a broken leg at the young age of 13. The statement of her death said:

It is with great sadness that Blue Hors today have had to say goodbye to their wonderful mare, and she was undoubtedly a novelty that will touch people and horses dressage enthusiasts the world over.

I hope that the use of the word novelty is a translation issue and not how she was viewed, but I also know that many horse breeders, riders, and trainers view these animals as livestock, and not as sentient beings.

For a very different take on the death of a horse, GO HERE and read what the Purple Pony has to say.

braving the elements

We had a fairly intense night of rain and wind last evening, and although the sun came up bright and early this morning, we're still blowing pretty hard outside.

When we get a lot of rain in a short span of time we get a stream flowing through the front field, and this morning it was enough of a stream that it occurred to me we needed to take advantage of it to do some work with Cody and crossing water.

There were actually two streams in front - a smaller one that was a fairly easy success for him, guided by my daughter, and then the bigger one, which he crossed one way and then turned around and came through a deeper, muddier section that really tested his bravery.

He did it with much praise and a few alfalfa pellets as a reward.

Back up at the top of the hill, daughter took off his halter and let him negotiate the huge mud puddle now sitting at the gate that leads back to the paddock. He walked the fence line a few times, hoping maybe we would let him off the hook and bring him through the other, drier gate, but we didn't. When he realized hay was being served in the paddock he walked to the gate and hesitated, then marched on through.

He will often brave the water by either going airborne or going through fast, but today, he did a good job of marching through, keeping solid contact with the ground.

We're proud of the big red Quarter Horse.

re-reading L'Engle, pondering middle life

Madeleine L'Engle's A Circle of Quiet is a favorite book of mine. I re-read it every couple of years, along with the other volumes of her Crosswicks Journal series.

This time the re-reading happened on impulse. I was doing some cleaning in our book loft and for some reason this was lying on top of a bookshelf. I picked it up as I headed down the stairs and put it by my bed. That night, it pulled me away from the novel I'm reading, and I haven't been able to stop.

Mid-way the book I came across a page where I had turned down the corner. Curious as to what I'd wanted to mark, I read quickly and then stopped short at this passage:

Jung disagreed with Freud that the decisive period in our lives is the first years. Instead, Jung felt that the decisive period is that in which my husband and I are now, the period of our middle years, when we have passed through childhood with its dependency on our parents; when we've weathered the storms of adolescence and the first probings into the ultimate questions; when we've gone through early adulthood with its problems of career and marriage and bringing up our babies; and for the first time in our lives find ourselves alone before the crucial problem of who, after all these years, we are. All the protective covering of the first three stages is gone, and we are suddenly alone with ourselves and have to look directly at the great and unique problem of the meaning of our own particular existence in this particular universe.

I suspect I marked this passage when I last read it out of wonder. Would I agree with it when I got there?

I'm close enough to this stage to realize the truth of what L'Engle was getting at. Like L'Engle at Crosswick, I've ended up in the country for this stage of my life, where the pondering can be done while doing chores, or in the company of horses and donkeys, cats and Corgis, or even standing inside the house looking out at the mostly quiet landscape.

There is pasture and forest, paths that lead to clearings, and although I can't sit with my feet hanging in the stream as L'Engle did, I often find myself filling water troughs with the hose in hand, just listening to the water, letting it soothe my mind.

There is a busyness to the first three life stages. In childhood we seem driven from within to master basic skills: self-constancy, the notion that we exist separately from our mothers; sitting, crawling, standing, walking - the ability to move about; and of course numerous other milestones.

In adolescence there is the energy of growth and maturation, of separation and individuation from parent figures, of peer relationships and the beginnings of sorting out who we are, separate from our parents and family. Who we are in our own essence.

Young adulthood brings partnering and career and childbirth.

And then middle life comes. And it is quiet. I know for many people the quiet is difficult and there can be a sense of loss and confusion. Who am I can be a terrifying question when one is no longer the child of parents (who may be dead), no longer focused so intently on career, and no longer needed quite so particularly as a parent to one's child.

For me, the quiet is a return to something I always needed and gave up for awhile to pursue the other things. And I'm thinking of it as a time to create the kind of life I always wanted, to find joy in the moment and let that ripple out, because I think it does. I think it matters.

I read on and reached one more page that had its corner turned down:

I am naive again, perhaps, in thinking that the love and laughter of Crosswicks is, in its own way, the kind of responsibility Mann was talking about. I do not think it is naive to think that it is the tiny, particular acts of love and joy which are going to swing the balance, rather than general, impersonal charities. These acts are spontaneous, unself-conscious, realized only late if at all. They may be as quiet as pulling a blanket up over a sleeping baby. Or as noisy as the night of trumpets and stars.

She describes a night at Crosswicks, watching the stars with toy trumpets in hand, heralding the arrival of each star with a "wild bray" of the trumpet.

And I was totally back in joy. I didn't realize I had been out of it, caught in small problems and disappointments and frustration, until it came surging back. It was as radiant as the rock, and I lay there, listening to the girls trumpeting, and occasionally being handed one of the trumpets so that I could make a loud blast myself, and I half expected to hear a herd of elephants come thundering across the far pastures in answer to our call.

And joy is always a promise.