The 2004 Global Dressage Forum hosted at the Horse Academy in Hooge Mierde, The Netherlands, October 25-26, 2004, took place for the fourth consecutive time this year.
Known to be an international forum where "top riders, top trainers and judges will again come to Holland [...] for clinics and seminars," the Global Dressage Forum theoretically is supposed to be a forum where the current state and future of dressage is being discussed. Its set goals are to discuss the judging at major dressage championships (this year the Olympics) and training principles which lead to greater success in dressage by taking the horse's well being, mentally and physically, into consideration.
Breed associations, breeders, dressage riders, trainers, judges and sponsors with some stature on the international dressage scene, are involved in this forum and can benefit from its clinics and seminars. The forum is called "Global" Dressage Forum, but only the elite that can afford an approximately 500 € entrance fee can attend the forum and only a very select group of journalists (selected by the GDF organization, i.e. Horse Academy) are able to receive press credentials without having to dig deep into their pockets and cough up the 500 €.
As world wide forum and cyber magazine for Dressage, Eurodressage was very eager to attend the forum and check whether all this talk by officials is leading to somewhere. After several emails and more than one month of waiting to get one single reply, the Eurodressage staff received an email from the Horse Academy that said that "only a very select group of journalists is allowed to attend the forum. If you [Eurodressage] want to participate, you will have to pay the entrance fee." Our reply was, "No thank you," thinking at the same time that they should rename the forum into "Elite Dressage Forum" as the 'global' aspect (to be interpreted as pertaining to dressage people from all over the world by broadening their perspectives on the dressage) is totally irrelevant.
Anyway, Eurodressage was not at the forum, but we had some insiders there. With no further ado, here is our Global Dressage Forum 2004 report after all...