FEI Dressage Director Trond Asmyr sent Eurodressage the following clarifications from FEI in response to the discussions about judging posted on Eurodressage, in particular Wayne Channon's latest guest column.
The string of opions started with the Editorial Love's Labour's Lost and prompted reactions from Michael Klimke, Stephen Clarke, Angelika Fromming, David Stickland and Wayne Channon.
Asmyr sent Eurodressage the following statement:
FEI follows with interest the discussion in Eurodressage about various ideas for improving the judging of dressage. As we are preparing an extensive review of what we have today and proposals for the future, we will not participate in the discussion in media at this stage when it comes to evaluating the ideas we see coming up. This will be part of our process.
However, there are a couple of issues in Wayne Channon’s (IDRC Secretary General) article we would like to clarify.
He is a describing the new so called “6 percent rule” as “Stephen’s current rule” and calling this “not just a poor solution, but a disaster waiting to happen”.
First of all this is not “Stephen’s rule”, it is a rule proposed by the FEI Dressage committee (where the IDRC President was a member when the proposal was made), and which has gone through a long process of consultation before it was finally approved by the FEI General Assembly in December last year. The proposal was sent to IDRC (and the other stakeholder clubs) 06 August last year, for their consideration and feedback. The clubs had the period till 16 September to come with their feedback to the proposed changes, before FEI prepared the final proposals to the General Assembly.
IDRC did not have any objections to this rules change, and it is therefore highly surprising that their Secretary General now calls it a disaster waiting to happen. It goes without saying that we do not agree with his conclusion.
He is also mentioning a so called “Code of Points” as the holy grail for the future. FEI is very interested in studying this more in detail, and we have therefore asked Wayne / IDRC for a description of what they mean, but unfortunately we have been informed that it will take some months before we can have this description.
Trond Asmyr
FEI Director Dressage and Para-Equestrian Dressage
Photo © Astrid Appels
Related Links
David Stickland: Moving Towards a Stable Score Future
Angelika Fromming: Open Scoring and Expert Commentary to Popularize Dressage
FEI Dressage Committee Members Campanella and Lucio Issue Short Statement
Michael Klimke: Shorten the Grand Prix Test, Endanger the Sport
Editorial: Love's Labour's Lost