-- This editorial first appeared as a Newsletter blog on 25 November 2025. If you want to receive our fun newsletters, sign up for free.
The German equestrian world is weathering a storm once again after a video of their Olympic darling Christian Kukuk surfaced of him schooling a jumper on blank draw reins at the CSI Verona in Italy. A week later photos of an allegedly seriously whipped horse with welts on its hindquarters spread across Facebook, launched by an allegedly disgruntled groom who is accusing its former employers in a barn in Lower Saxony of animal abuse. A few days later an assistent rider was videoed on a WCYH medal winning dressage horse pulled tight in draw reins, the horse grinding its teeth, sweating profusely, and wheezing from seemingly constricted airflow.
Right at the time when the International Jumping Riders Club was able to convince the majority of National Federations to soften the so called "Blood Rule" and allow blood on a horse to be wiped away and continue competing for honour and money, one horror video after another is surfacing to continue pulling the ground under riders' feet.
Years ago, in the 1990s, I remember an article in the German magazine "Der Hannoveraner" which talked about the horse being your mirror. My trained stuffed this German text into my face while I was drinking a Fanta after another lesson in the local barn. He stressed, " this is mandatory reading!" I had little German skills then, but as German and Dutch are not that far apart, I understood the words as my coach orated them out loud. They truly sank in.
We all know that 600 kilogram animals are not the same as a chihuahua on a leash, but when one has to resort the violence, it is more a sign that the (training) tools in your box are limited. It's a reflection of your own character, temperament, and nature to blow up and beat a horse into submission. Instead your mind should overcome your emotions and your intellect admit personal defeat and inadequacy.
One should be honest with oneself and question out loud: "maybe I'm doing something wrong?" This is the first step towards progress, i.e. seeking solutions, new paths, new techniques. A horse with a bum covered in so many welts that it looks like the worst outbreak of hives should put deep shame on your face. The horse learnt nothing and you've shown yourself incapable of training animals. Realise this, learn and be the better, kinder person the next time you handle a horse.
-- Astrid Appels