NRHA Derby European Championships at Equitalyon 2025

There is a fundamental difference between reining and dressage: stewards are highly respected. There were 3 at Equitalyon 2025 on Saturday, around the warm-up area, and one of them kindly lent himself to the discussion. This was all in the public eye at Equitalyon 2025.

The difficulty is that hyperflexion, in its most extreme version (rollkur), is still an integral part of training techniques.

Apparently, the riders are ignorant of the physical and psychological catastrophe that the position creates for the horse. Or worse, they make fun of it, and do it consciously, to ensure an absolute submission (and a podium) whatever the price for the animal…

As you can see in the videos, some riders use it on a few strides to correct something, then return the reins, to allow the horse “free” to go head to knee again (this is the current trend, in reining). Others are more demanding, extending the rollkur on direction changes and spins, with a few bumps along the way.

Alerted, the steward did not hesitate to intervene in such cases. He seemed to us in good faith, eager to improve the image of his sport. Sport he came from, which could explain that he no longer understands the scandal of the widespread practice of rollkur.

We wish rollkur and other forms of hyperflexion would disappear from reining training methods. To do this, it would be necessary to start by banning them completely during official warm-ups, but also penalize any visible trace of this training during the event… We can only dream… We must be dreaming!

But for the time being, the reining remains a gully sheep, which mistreats horses and discredits western riding.

Media Credit: Collectif Pour Les Chevaux