I attended the seventh Global Dressage Forum held at the Academy Bartel’s at the tiny village of Hooge Mierde, South Holland. This year I was happy to have my daughter Jules attend her first Global Dressage Forum (GDF) as well as friend and regular GDF attendee Johanna Gwinn.

The 2007 GDF focused on “Flexibility and training methods, scientific learning behavior, marketing of dressage and the evaluation of judging” Although the controversial “rolkur” was mentioned, it was decided that we should move on from this angry controversy of many years and work for “balance of training and promotion of the sport” for dressage riders, judges, trainers and the public at large.

To start the program we had Kyra Kyrklund, international dressage rider and trainer, and world champion show jumper Franke Soothaak and his horse Legurio demonstrate the similarities between dressage and show jumping. The theme was “rhythm, harmony and easiness” and Franke showed harmony and obedience with Legurio in gallop, canter pirouette and flying changes. Kyra rode Legurio and showed that the horse had potential for passage and that Legurio was very willing to do the rider’s bidding whether dealing with a huge show jumping fence or basic dressage movement, ridden either by a show jumper or a dressage rider. This exposition demonstrated that a “good” rider is a good rider and a “good” horse is a good horse in any discipline. As dressage enthusiasts, we should learn to embrace good horsemanship and enjoy and appreciate other disciplines.

Next was a presentation by Australian behavioral scientist Andrew McLean who has studied animal learning behavior for many years. Dr Mclean demonstrated that “learned helplessness” shown in horses who have succumbed to brutal or ignorant training techniques’, is not usually amenable to retraining as the brain has shut down. Before this point the horse has many steps of learning and is a willing partner for any discipline. Dressage is the most complex form of animal training known. As a result of this complexity, there are potential problems. Because top dressage horses work at peak capacity of learning potential, it is important that trainers know as much as possible about these behavioral disorders and how to avoid the behavioral traps. Our goal for top dressage horses is “self carriage” and we must be strong to ensure that we move in a determined way to achieve a unified definition of “self carriage”. Training the dressage horse is always balance, repetition, harmony and “easiness”. Famous “Horse Whisperer Marty Roberts backed up this information as a sound basis to train any horse in any discipline.

Joep Bartels teamed up with Frank Kemperman (the director of the CDIO at Aachen) to present “the marketing of dressage”. To some spectators dressage is a boring as “watching paint dry”. As dressage and the musical freestyle can provide, with correct marketing, an exciting spectacle to excite millions of live spectators and TV audiences world-wide, it was concluded that the sport of dressage needs new ideas and leadership in the future with the cooperation of judges, organizers, riders, officials, journalists and TV experts at the top tier of advertising.