Watermill's tongue is blue
Usually I try to keep my posts light and fun but I had to write about this. I don’t know if any of you have seen the video (watch it on YouTube) of Swedish Olympic rider Patrik Kittel riding his horse at the World Cup qualifier in Odense, Denmark. He rode his horse, Watermill Scandic hBC, hyperflexed for more than 90 minutes to the point that Watermill’s tongue was blue.
This training method is called rollkur. It’s a technique that’s become a popular way of training and perfectly legal according to FEI rules so he was not disciplined despite a complaint to the steward. Kittel says he only rode rollkur for short periods but the video shows otherwise.
Astoundingly, Kittel and Watermill finished 3rd in the freestyle the next day (see the video of his ride , 3rd video down at about the 1:08 mins).
An example of how forgiving some horses can be and how hard they will try for us!
My personal hero, Anky Van Grunsven, says she rides rollkur with top competition horses (never her young horses) because it helps develop all the horses muscles. You can see in a video of her riding that it is not as severe as Kittel and she gives the horse lots of breaks. I’m pretty sure Anky wouldn’t approve of riding a horse until his tongue is blue.
My coach, Linda, is teaching me to think “flow” when I ride my horse. Relaxation is when he is reaching willingly for the bridle, coming over his back and moving freely from his shoulder.
To me that’s the definition of dressage as harmony between horse and rider.
Hi Janice!
Very cool blog thingey going on here. I had no idea that was happening! It’s not even good to go over the bit so much is it (lookswise). That’s so inhumane. Wow – not what riding should be about. Talk about loosing sight of things.
The horses tongue was over the bit. This happens to all of us all over the horse world. The method was being used not as punishment but as a tool to get the horse on the bit. Yes, this hyperflexation was very extreme and could have been used in a nicer way but it is wrong to use this one person as an example. Many people all over the world use this method everyday. Thank you for the good article!
I agree that it’s being used by riders everywhere as a training tool. Patrick Kittl got the focus because it happened at a World Cup qualifier. I think the problem with this example is also that he kept the horse hyperflexed for so long so it raised the question again of rollkur as a training method. I can’t help but feel that a rider at that level should have realized his horses tongue was over the bit.
I do agree with the fact that keeping the horse in this position for so long could be harmful to the horse. He did realize after a while that the horse’s tongue was over the bit but wouldn’t he feel it in the horse’s head through his hands?