2021 Year Report from Frank Kemperman, Chair of the FEI Dressage Committee

Dressage

FEI

The chair of the FEI Dressage Committee (DC) annually has to present a year report at the FEI General Assembly, reviewing the year and making suggestions for the future development of the discipline.

Outgoing chair of the FEI DC, Frank Kemperman, wrote: "2021 was not only affected by the Covid virus but also the EHV made it a very exceptional year. Again, many Dressage Events, including the FEI Dressage World Cup™ Final, were cancelled. The Dressage Committee did not have any physical meeting but all necessary work was done through several conference calls. Due to the situation several “Covid related issues” had to be discussed. The yearly meeting with the stakeholder groups was organised as a conference call and was successful."

Here is the full year report, Eurodressage highlighted the interesting sentences in bold.

Olympic Games Tokyo

The dressage competitions were of an outstanding level and the Athletes presented exciting sport. The Organiser of the Tokyo Games did a tremendous job and the conditions for horses and human were the best of the best. Also, all FEI Officials contributed to the success of the Games and here I want to mention especially the Judges as they got compliments from many for their first class judging.

It is a great pleasure to see that the new format was well accepted by all and worked brilliantly. Only some small details should be discussed for the future. It will be discussed if this format is also to be used at other FEI Championships, but it could be a solution to avoid the huge number of competitors in the Grand Prix, and to make the championships more attractive.

Judges Advisory Group & Judges Supervisory Panel

As previously decided in the Dressage Judging Working Group, the Dressage Committee implemented a new job description and appointed the members of the new Judges Advisory Group & Judges Supervisory Panel.

Code of Points

The so-called “Code of Points”, aimed at being a supporting tool for the judges, in conjunction with the Dressage Rules and Handbook, has been worked out in detail for the Grand Prix movements and finalised by a group of experts. Stakeholders were involved

We are currently working out the next steps, with the first one being to share it will all 5* Judges. A big thanks to all experts involved in this process.

Nations Cup

Everybody agrees on the importance of the Nations Cup competitions. Now a consensus has to be found regarding a concept for the future and importantly, new CDIO events should be included in the calendar. A new concept of a Nations Cup in Dressage is being worked on and the goal is to finalise the concept as soon as possible.

Thanks

After 1 year on the Dressage Task Force and 12 years on the Dressage Committee, this is my last report. In these years several sensitive issues have been discussed and solutions have been found. We always had the goal to keep the values of dressage in mind, but also to make dressage more popular and understandable for a wider audience. It has been a pleasure for me to contribute to this process. Here I take the opportunity to thank the colleagues in the Dressage Technical Committee and the several advisory groups. A big Thank You to the team of the Dressage department at FEI Headquarters for their hard work and support. I wish my successor all the best and I try to do my best for a very important group in our sport, the grooms.

Original document here.