Danish 5* dressage judge and veterinarian Hans-Christian Matthiesen is heading and supporting a new pilot project in Denmark which is investigating horse welfare in dressage.
Matthiesen is supported by international trainer Joan Sartori and veterinarian and PhD student Sophie Reedtz.
The project was launched at the Danish Warmblood Elite mare show in Vilhelmsborg the first weekend of September 2026, where existing, research-based methods were used to assess the welfare of horses in the warm-up and competition.
The project group was joined by several specialists who observed the horses on the warm-up. The organizers and technical delegates were informed about the project in advance, and the riders were told that someone was standing on the warm-up track observing
"There's not really enough happening either nationally or internationally in terms of assessing the welfare of the horses in connection with the start of the event and warm-up. So now we've just agreed that we'll do it ourselves ," says Hans-Christian Matthiesen.
The method applied during the observation was Sue Dyson's Ridden Horse Pain Ethogram, which is a research-based method for identifying pain and conflict markers in the horse during riding.
"It's not certain that this is the best solution in the long run, but we just have to start somewhere, and there is some research behind this," said Hans-Christian in an interview with Happy Rider. "One of the things we noticed when we assessed at Vilhelmsborg was that the last 10 minutes of the warm-up, before the team enters the field, there was significantly more stress and conflict."
The plan is to attend several events and observe the horses in the warm-up and the observations will be compared with, among other things, the judges' assessments and the results in the competition ring. In this way, the project group hopes to investigate whether there are connections between what can be observed in the horse and the way the team is judged.
Read the full article on Happy Rider.
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