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"I’m enraged when dressage is referred to as “horse dancing" "

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    "

    THE sporting awards season is looming, and one thing I’m sure of is that apart from racing jockeys, equestrians will, as usual, be under-recognised.

    As a horsey person I’m enraged when dressage is referred to as “horse dancing”, even by general “sports” commentators who might be well-informed about football, running, cycling, golf and shot-putting among other human-only sports, but are ignorant about equestrianism.

    It seems they think of a horse as a vehicle . . . buy a good jumper and you’ll win the puissance; hop on a well-trained dressage mount and the only talent you’ll need is looking good in a top hat.

    Well, let’s take running, cycling and swimming for example . . . all things that everyone, unless disabled, can do. Admittedly stars of these sports far exceed normal, human abilities and train tirelessly to build the necessary physique and musculature, plus having the ambition and drive for personal glory.

    "

    http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/opinion/helen-martin-equestrians-deserve-true-sporting-chance-1-4271579

    Posted 8 years ago #

  2. LaidBack
    Member

    "Well, let’s take running, cycling and swimming for example . . . all things that everyone, unless disabled can do."

    Well let's stop generalising about ability. Cycling is one thing we know people of all abilities can do. I've seen it for myself at LB. Helen has lapsed into last century speak. I blame it on Brexit ;-)

    Every activity she lists has had people of all abilities take part. Or did she miss the Paralympics?

    Posted 8 years ago #

  3. kaputnik
    Moderator

    Did I fall asleep and wake up in a parallel universe where the chipwrapper is running opinion pieces demanding more recognition for dressagists?

    Posted 8 years ago #

  4. crowriver
    Member

    Well it's not as if there are any really urgent, pressing issues facing the city right now that require writing about, eh? So why not just let off steam and rant in a bubble?

    Posted 8 years ago #

  5. Min
    Member

    I think Helen Martin is the EEN's answer to Liz Jones.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  6. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    "Horses and riders train and work together, often for years, developing trust, communication and understanding in an extraordinary inter-species partnership. One is entirely dependent on the other."

    Same with Crufts, but that's not going to win SPOTY either...

    "It seems they think of a horse as a vehicle . . . buy a good jumper and you’ll win the puissance; hop on a well-trained dressage mount and the only talent you’ll need is looking good in a top hat."

    Apropos of nothing (perhaps I should post it on the self-driving cars thread) - my great-great-uncle used to get drunk on market day in Ireland every other week - once he was insensate, the other pub patrons would load him into the back of his cart, give the horse a slap and the beast knew the way home on its own...

    "Horses ... are also athletes in their own right."

    I didn't see the geegees in Rio getting medals of their own?

    Posted 8 years ago #

  7. chdot
    Admin

    Medals for bicycles campaign!(?)

    Posted 8 years ago #

  8. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    It's not just horse dancing that's under threat. Horse hockey is also in peril.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  9. chdot
    Admin

    "

    Patron polo is hindering the sport’s perception as a serious, professional game, one with aspirations of a global Champions League-style series.

    That’s the view of Dr Uwe Seebacher, the president of Pipa, the instructors and players’ polo association, who believes that patrons investing into teams – and then playing alongside the professionals – is just “individual luxury entertainment”.

    "

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/polo/2016/09/21/playing-owners-hindering-polos-rise-as-serious-sport/

    Posted 8 years ago #

  10. steveo
    Member

    I'm afraid I must refer the learned correspondent to rule 3 of Is It Sport, as it fails on this measure it falls under Diving, Gymnastics and synchronised swimming as a game; her application to have Horse Dancers applicable for SPOTY is there for rejected along side Strictly Come Dancing's Application for official recognition by the IOC.

    Is It Sport:
    1. Must be competitive
    2. Must involve a level of strenuous activity
    3. Must be repeatable and not open to interpretation

    Posted 8 years ago #

  11. paddyirish
    Member

    Stevo - good stuff Agree with that.

    To be facetious, football and many other "sports" are also open to referee's interpretation, so can't be sports either...

    Posted 8 years ago #

  12. paddyirish
    Member

    Also, does Danny MacAskill excel at bike dancing?

    Posted 8 years ago #

  13. crowriver
    Member

    Hm, on the basis on Rule 2, the following are now declassified as sports and reduced to hobbies or parlour games:

    Golf
    Lawn bowls
    Shooting
    Snooker

    Posted 8 years ago #

  14. steveo
    Member

    football and many other "sports" are also open to referee's interpretation,

    But they are not judged. The Referee controls the flow of the game within a predetermined set of rules and punishes those who step out of the rules. The goal/no goal decision isn't based on the opinion of 5 match officials with two randomly discarded.

    paddyirish, I have had this debate with many friends in the pub all off whom have tried to question my orthodoxy all have failed :D.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  15. steveo
    Member

    the following are now declassified as sports and reduced to hobbies or parlour games:

    Indubitably.

    If you can play your "sport" whilst drinking a pint, it is not a sport. If you can be at the top of you're game and collect a state pension it is not a sport.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  16. Frenchy
    Member

    her application to have Horse Dancers applicable for SPOTY is there for rejected
    Horse Dancers have, of course, previously won SPOTY (although the winners are best known for Horse Triathlon, of which Horse Dancing is just one part).

    Posted 8 years ago #

  17. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    If you can play your "sport" whilst drinking a pint, it is not a sport.

    My best ever spell at cricket (that's not saying much) involved bowling while holding a half-drunk can of Stella in my left hand. 250ml of strong lager just seemed to extinguish performance anxiety without affecting performance.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  18. paddyirish
    Member

    @IWRATS,

    If David Boon excelled at cricket, is it a sport?

    Posted 8 years ago #

  19. Frenchy
    Member

    If you can play your "sport" whilst drinking a pint, it is not a sport

    [+] Embed the video | Video DownloadGet the Video Plugin

    Posted 8 years ago #

  20. steveo
    Member

    250ml of strong lager just seemed to extinguish performance anxiety without affecting performance

    One afternoon at Megabowl my mates and I devised an experiment to plot the Beer/Bowling performance ratio but we got too drunk and forgot to write it down. Biggest problem was trying to find someone to be the control.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  21. steveo
    Member

    @Frenchy ah the old days of rugby! :)

    Posted 8 years ago #

  22. Frenchy
    Member

    Or perhaps a better example:

    [+] Embed the video | Video DownloadGet the Video Plugin

    Posted 8 years ago #

  23. neddie
    Member

    I'm pretty sure that training horses to perform dressage is considered cruel.

    Not much different to the dancing bears you find on the sides of Indian highways.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  24. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    If David Boon excelled at cricket, is it a sport?

    I dunno. I hear Bill Werbeniuk's cover drive was a thing of beauty.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  25. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    @edd1e_h

    In a sane world dressage would only be allowed on pantomime horses.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  26. dougal
    Member

    @steveo Not sporting, but Randall Munroe of XKCD fame tried graphing alcohol consumption against Rubik's Cube solving performance.

    http://transcriptvids.com/v/zJOS0sV2a24.html

    The summary is that the time-to-solve doesn't appreciably change, but the time to pick it up again every time he dropped it escalated massively...

    Posted 8 years ago #

  27. wingpig
    Member

    You'd just need something in the definition to ensure that the largest applications of force involved are derived from human musculature. Horse-based activities could be added to a category containing Ultra-Modern Heptathlon, which is basically the same thing but everyone wears powered exoskeletons.
    Seeing as the modern business-suit is sometimes described as being derived from eighteenth-century toffs' sportswear, toffs probably think of horse-based fox-harassment as sport.

    Posted 8 years ago #

  28. deckard112
    Member

    A former GF of mine is a professional dressage rider so I have a bit of an insight into the sport. Unfortunately some of the comments on here resemble the type of ill informed nonsense that we have to put up with as people who rides bikes.

    Posted 8 years ago #

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