I know it will come as a complete shock to everyone that an upper level dressage rider would overreact to something and throw a temper tantrum, but such is the case today with the esteemed Robert Dover. Robert has written a post on his popular Dover’s World blog titled “Eventing Nation’s, Coren Morgan” in which he called Coren’s Saturday morning post “snide and inappropriate” because she joked about his recent and self-proclaimed role as a commentator on eventing safety. Obviously the widespread criticism from eventers directed at Robert after he questioned the legitimacy of our sport had Robert chafing at the bit.
Let me say that I have a ton of respect for Robert as a rider, and for his ability to make a successful business out of his popularity with his website and other ventures, but his inner Wellington is showing. Even though virtually none of the US riders liked Robert when he helped coach the US Eventing Team a few years ago, I supported him then and he has obviously done a good job with the Canadian dressage team and I wonder why they only rehired him for four months.
But, all of that being said, there was no way to defend Robert when he wrote a few weeks ago that:
“The problem for me is that I am having greater and greater difficulty as I get older, finding a way to legitimize Eventing while horses which have no choice in the matter end up getting killed for the sake of sport.”
Frankly, Eventing doesn’t need Robert to legitimize our sport and eventers were justified in getting upset that Robert implied we are killing horses for the “sake of sport.” Every horse death is one too many and we can all get behind the need to continually improve eventing safety, but no one knows this more than eventers.
A growing number of dressage riders are cranking their horses’ heads in hyperflexion (some of whom Robert has defended), and there is a conflict raging in the dressage world about the use of helmets. To his credit, Robert has supported the use of helmets, but I have not seen him publicly support the use of helmets at all times when mounted at competitions–in 2010 his Canadian team often wore them everywhere except for in the competition arena. With all of these safety issues, I think Robert’s commentary is needed more in the dressage community that he knows best.
Go eventing.
