World Cup Qualifiers Thrill – Bloodstock Takes a Pasting

The news this week has been manly centred around the London International Horse Show at Olympia for its World Cup dressage, showjumping and driving. Bloodstock practices at the sales are pasted in a major BHA report. There have also been major competitions in Frankfurt in Germany for dressage and in Riyadh for show jumping.

The London International Horse Show at Olympia

At Olympia, the dressage took centre stage for the first couple of days where Charlotte Dujardin was back on winning form the Grand Prix, which was a new shortened test rolled out for the first time at any major dressage international in the world. The following day, again Charlotte was the comfortable winner of the Grand Prix Freestyle. A much longer article on the dressage at Olympia can be found by following this link. https://www.horseview.uk/dressage/olympia-dressage-gp-too-short-for-riders/

In the show jumping, there were the usual array of classes for the international competitor and all the top riders in the world came to lay claim them including the London round of the World Cup. Martin Fuchs mastered and won the World Cup qualifier, a course set by Alan Wade from Ireland and Bob Ellis from Great Britain. It was a twisty big course in such a small arena. The Grand Prix the following day say British riders come to the fore with Scott Brash taking possibly the most exciting class of the week. More info, follow the link. https://www.horseview.uk/showjumping/vintage-

World Cup Qualifier in Riyadh

In Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, there was another World Cup qualifier for show jumping – the Asian league. This was a 4 star class over 12 fences with 15 jumping efforts required. The time allowed was 78 seconds. Four of the twenty one starters went through to the jump off round and three of tose completed a double clear. The winner was Nasser WAlshawaf from Saudi Arabia riding Victor an AES 12 year old stallion owned by Olympian Peter Charles of GB. The pair won in a close time of 41.12 seconds. The second was Mohammed Al Kumeiti from the UAE riding Dalida Van de Zuuthoeve in 41.16 seconds. In third was a second rider from Saudi, Abdulrahman Alrajlhi in 43.44 seconds. Unsurprisingly, there were eight riders from Saudia Arabia with riders from the UAE, Jordan, Italy, Japan and Egypt also taking part.

Dressage in Frankfurt

In Frankfurt in Germany, a 5 star CDI was held, but was not a World Cup event. However all the best of the dressage riders in Germany were present. The invincible Isabell Werth took the Grand Prix and the Grand Prix Freestyle, but some of the other top German dressage riders were put in their place by Ingrid Klimke, normally associated with eventing, who came second in the Grand Prix riding Franziskus 15. Hubertus Schmidt, German veteran dressage rider was third riding Escolar. In the Grand Prix Freestyle, only eight of the original sixteen started and neither Ingrid Klimke nor Hubertus Schmidt took part.

BHA Release Report in Bloodstock Mal-practices at Sales

The long awaited report on unethical and fraudulent practices within the bloodstock industry in the UK was fully published this week. This was no whitewash and several practices seen as ‘the norm’ highlighted and severely criticised. Although the report said that 95% of those in the bloodstock industry were honest and sound, there were 5% who were not and who carried out very dubious practices thus putting the whole industry into disrepute. The report’s author, Justine Felice sought and had interviews with over 2000 breeders, trainers, agents and the main sales companies, all conducted incognito to protect their identities. While there were many who were happy with the status quo, 67% of those interviewed were either mildly critical or down right furious about some practices which they believed were frankly illegal. The report, which is 83 pages long and took two years to compile, is very detailed and the conclusions are far reaching. Basically, the report recognises that there are problems with transparency and honesty within the industry and suggest a new code should be implemented by all concerned and overseen by a new body ‘The Industry Horse Forum’ which would be overseen by the British Horseracing Authority. It sights that many practices like ‘buy backs’ and ‘luck money’ by agents and others should either be made far more transparent or outlawed altogether, and new rules or ‘code of practice’ should be implemented without delay to take account of some of the perceived less savoury practices within the industry. We recognise that this is a very short synopsis of the report which contains far more than we have highlighted here, and further details can be found in the racing press.

Horse View UK Moves Ahead

Just a short bit of news about ourselves at Horse View.uk. This week we were delighted to have reached a small mile stone of having over 10,000 readers at our web site. Thank you to all of you who have looked us up.

Michael Blake Recognised in Ireland

In other news this week, we would like to congratulate Michael Blake on his appointment in Ireland as High Performance Showjumping Director. He comes in at a very exciting time for Irish showjumping as they have a group of really young and talented riders who surely will progress to take top honours in the sport.

Finally Have a Happy Christmas from us All at Horse View UK

As this is our last piece before Christmas, we would like to wish all you our readers a very Happy Christmas.

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