Saddle Fitting and The World Cup (not Saddle Fitting AT the World Cup!)

I had the immense good fortune to be in South Africa with two friends for much of the world cup soccer finals – a week in Johannesburg and a week in Capetown. I’m glad I had the sense to wear earplugs, because otherwise I would have been deaf by now from the combined noise of the vuvuzelas and the crowds!

It was really an interesting trip – the absolute friendliness of everyone that we came into contact with, and yet the immense divide between the really really poor and just even the ‘middle class’. It was also interesting because one of my friends who accompanied me was actually ‘coloured’ - originally from South Africa and it was his first trip back in over 30 years. Much had changed for him, but he was still not considered ‘first class’ (ie. White). Really weird because this had never been a conscious issue for any of us.

You might ask, so what does all of this have to do with saddles or even riding? Well, what was really frustrating for us (especially the German game that they lost to Serbia because of the selective refereeing comes to mind!) was the arbitrary and sometimes totally subjective calls of the refs. The analogy here I thought of could be comparing this to the selective nature of some of the judging that occurs in the dressage ring. Obviously, the audience is not privy to the individual comments or marks for a certain move, but they may have seen the warm-up (sometimes with the use of the very controversial hyperflexion or rollkur method of training) and then seeing a rider rewarded (or penalized) unjustly in the ring for a move that is the result of this, shall we say, ‘unorthodox’ training. They will see a very high score rewarded to a rider who may not really deserve it – for political, favouritism, celebrity, or whatever reason. It is this commonality which I just wanted to comment on and relate to in these two sports – not to start any discussion necessarily on the rightness or wrongness; just that it is what it is – and seems to be there in many sports which have an element of subjective judging or refereeing as part of the final determination of placing. And maybe I was just really mad that Germany lost – not only this one game but of course the much more crucial semi-final, which in the end was more important and cannot really be blamed on anything except bad playing! Onwards and upwards to 2014!!

Jochen Schleese, CMS, CSFT, CEE

www.schleese.com, www.femalesaddles.com