Does anybody really feel connected to show jumping anymore?
When I was young, we looked up to the top riders in show jumping. We followed the events on the tele, and the great tamale was when one could actually go to one of the big international competitions to watch them live.
Today my generation basically lost all respect for the international showjumpers. To us they have gone from super heroes to total zeros.
Zeros as in most of them in all honesty ride like shit. Yes, you read that correctly. They ride like shit, and in several cases these riders also act like total divas.
A simple fact that has made show jumping turn into the Kylie Jenner of equestrian sport. Which in itself is quite impressive. Not even horse polo, the sport of royals as well as the rich and famous, feels this detached from the real world as show jumping does in the year of 2025!
If you don’t know Jenner, she is one of those Kardasians who built a huge social media following, founded a make up business, but still managed to disconnect herself completely not only from the real world but also from her original crowd of followers.
Same with show jumpers. I don’t know anybody who feel connected to the sport of show jumping of today!
Did you for instance see the so not flattering clip of the Olympic Champion Christian Kukuk’s training session from the other week?
It is a painful session of pulling in the draw reins on a horse that when going down to trot is obviously lame. The rider himself talked to a German magazine or such and basically don’t see a problem.
Cause no steward told him anything, and the horse went through the vet check without any issues.
Which evidently means that the rider is not to blame.
Kukuk is not only Olympic Champion but also currently ranked number 4 on the world ranking. Let that one sink in.
Still he seems to lack of common basic riding horse skills which would include to know when ones horse is lame, and to not ride a lame horse what so ever.
Remember the horse in Tokyo that finished a round with blood spraying all over the body? Even so the duo, Cian O’Connor and Kilkenny, could continue like nothing happened.
Louise Parkes
In dressage that would never EVER happen.
Something the now disgraced former Queen of Dressage Charlotte Dujardin found out the hard way at the European Championships in Rotterdam 2019 where she was disqualified because of the dressage blood rule.
The difference in between her and the show jumpers is she did not stir up heaven nor hell for this, but just accepted it as it was.
So all respect on her, at least on this particular matter.
But now in show jumping the IJRC now feel offended for what they consider to be unfair reporting on their stance on the blood rule which was up for discussion at the FEI General Assembly recently!
www.ijrc.org, IJRC
In all show jumping more and more come out as a sport for internal admiration more than anything else. The worst ones actually being the members of the IJRC...
