Really there was no need for Reiner Klimke to talk to a publication from a country on the other side of the world, but he was always happy to take the time to answer questions and spread his message of civilised correct dressage. It was a tragedy that we lost this exceptional man so young, doubly a loss for the world of dressage because Reiner had just been elected to the FEI judging sub-committee and he was intent on ‘taking a blow torch to their backsides…”
Twenty years on, the problems that Dr Klimke was setting out to resolve, still endanger the future of dressage…
Dr Klimke judging dressage at the Gawler 3DE
Reiner Klimke has always been a leader, a winner, a champion, and at the end of his career as a competitive rider, he had started out on a whole new phase in the extraordinary life of this extraordinary man… at the time of this interview, Dr Klimke had recently been elected to the FEI Dressage Committee. In this explosive interview with Chris Hector, Dr Klimke gave notice that he intended to make his presence felt. He was someone whose expertise in equestrian sport – as an Olympic level eventer, and a World Champion of Dressage – could not be questioned, and freed from any competitive involvements, Dr Klimke was ready to put his knowledge to help build the equestrian sport that he loved so much…
Five Olympic Gold Medals – photo Werner Ernst
In the world of dressage dressage at the moment, there is an atmosphere of angry controversy…
“To judge in ‘real’ dressage is difficult because there is more jealousy than say eventing. So it is more difficult to judge real dressage competitions, but the judges have a real responsibility to the sport – their responsibility is not that their own ideas become reality. Exactly what we have in our dressage rules, everything is described there, and if you want to change the rules, then the changes have to be recorded.”
“For instance, now the piaffe may have the idea to go forward, before it had to be exactly on the spot. The moment the rule is changed, then the judge is forced to look at the matter. The judges must train themselves very seriously, more than they did in the past, because our FEI ‘O’ judges, mostly think they know it now – but only for this moment and life goes on. You always have to work in your life, every day you learn – I hope every day, I learn. It is this way of thinking that judges should see as their role.”
“I don’t like one judge talking about another judge, saying I thought he was wrong, that doesn’t help – they must talk to each other. I really watched Mr Lette at Atlanta – because I wrote a book about the event – and he did a really good job. Before the competition he talked about the responsibility, and warned the other judges not to just look through their own national glasses, look to the rules, and after the tests, they discussed together, were we right were we wrong. If you judge 30 horses, there is always one that if you could do it again, you would give a different mark, that is human. But if you make a philosophy of your different view, that is not right.”
Ahlerich and Dr Klimke in piaffe – photo Werner Ernst
Is the problem in dressage right now, that never before have we had two horses so equal at the top as Anky and Bonfire and Isabell and Gigolo?
“No no no – in the sixties, with Neckermann, Günther, Schultheis, in this one group there was not an outstanding horse, there we were all very close. At the first World Dressage Championships in 1966, they counted the Grand Prix and the Grand Prix Special – Neckermann won by one point against Harry Boldt and by three points against me. So we added up the scores of five judges in the Grand Prix and Grand Prix Special, one between first and second and three points between first and third. Where was the difference?”
But it was not a nationalistic competition – the three of you were all German…
“Yes, there, but then came Chammartin from Switzerland. Look at Tokyo, one point between gold and silver. Chammartin won with Woerman, Harry with Remus was second, that was tight.”
Chammartin and Woerman at the Tokyo Games
But there wasn’t the sort of tension and bitterness that we now have between Anky and Isabell…
“More friendship, we were all friends. We always had some difficult people, and there will always be difficult people, that is part of horse sport, in showjumping it is the same, but we shouldn’t care too much about this, we should look to the performance. But it is not true that we never had horses so close together, right now we have it, then we have had times when one horse was on top.”
Is there a problem at the top of the sport at the moment?
“It is not bad, in the past we had winners with only one point more than the second horse, with a smaller difference than we had at the European Championships at Verden where the difference was clear. There were two good performances, but you are forced as a judge to say – he is first and he is second. Gigolo was first and Bonfire second. When they are close this is not a mistake of the judges, this is the performance of the riders. If it is a hundred metre run, and one has his nose in front – he is the winner and everybody talks about it!”
Gigolo and Isabell versus
Anky and Bonfire
But wasn’t there some disagreement at Verden about the amount a mistake in the flying changes could be penalised, with a different view being put forward by Mr Schutte and Mr Lette?
“This could be, but you must also know that Mr Pieters always has Anky in front therefore they shouldn’t complain. I like Mr Pieters, he is a top man. But if you look at the results in all three competitions, Mr Pieters had Anky in front – yet Bonfire had a bad freestyle because he did not want to walk in Atlanta. In all three competitions, Mr Pieters had Bonfire first and in Verden, in all three competitions, he had him first, they should not complain. Maybe in Verden, Mr Lette in one competition, was a little too severe, but even then it is not sure Anky would have won, because one thing is true, the best freestyle was Isabell because Anky was de-moralised and had lost the freestyle before it started. The way she entered the ring, she had lost already before she started because she felt bad; if you are a king you can’t do this. So I don’t criticise the decision from Verden.”
“What we must do is use the top judges in Europe and teach, teach, teach the judges. Call meetings, like the big seminar we had in Warendorf for the retirement of Uwe Mechlem, we had eighty judges discuss and look, and we saw always different opinions. And we lacked a little the strong hand to say ‘this is wrong’. This is how we develop, that the boss says this is right and this is wrong.”
Is this your new job on the FEI Committee?
“No. I tell them the problems, and I will insist that they solve the problems. I am only a little member of this committee but I know the sport and I have the right to talk, and now, officially. I can officially say to Mr Lette ‘this is my opinion, you are our boss’, I have no problems with him, and when we make him strong, he is strong. We must make the dressage committee strong. With authority, so that everybody says, ‘okay, they are the experts, when they say this is it, we must accept.’ And there it goes.”
“You will always have problems in a discipline where you just cannot measure, but judges must look to the rules. There is only one opinion that is right and this is the opinion described in the rules. We all have to follow the rules. The rules say exactly how you should judge, but you must know the rules, and know what the rules mean – and the rules mean classical riding.”
Ahlerich’s successor, Pascal
“Classical riding starts with correct movement, we want to build up the strength of the horse and build up the movements – make them more brilliant more expressive, more light, more supple, and if you do not understand this, then you do not follow the rules. When halt at A is asked, if the horse is not standing exactly at A, then this horse is worse than the horse that is standing exactly at A. That is the difference but you cannot make a philosophy of it.”
What if we get a beautiful trot across the diagonal, but the horse has one break of stride, and on the other hand we have a horse that makes no mistake but nothing expansive or big moving?
“Here the rules say the better moving horse earns more points. With the good moving horse, you start from ten and deduct, with the other horse, you start from six because of the quality of the movement – the horse with the limited movement cannot get better than the six. The horse with more potential, he is sitting on an eight and he makes a little mistake to go to seven. Still he is better than the other one but this is in the rules. I hate to think judges have different philosophies, we should speak with one voice, good is good, bad is bad.”
Working at home with Biotop
How do you control the promotion of judges in the individual countries – in our country, we’ve seen judges go to a major competition, judge next to a senior international judge – be way off in their marks from that judge, and next month they are promoted by the national federation! Surely it should be established if a top international judge visits a country, and the local judge is way off in the scores, then they should be demoted not promoted…
“We are just at the beginning in this field, the FEI must do much more. The trouble is the FEI hasn’t any money to invest in this and they say, the sport goes on, we have other problems… but this is an area we have to work on. I will bring my whole influence on the FEI committee now, and push for change. We must always think, is this exactly what the rules say? If that is what the rules say, fine. Then 6 or 7 are close together, or 7 and 8 are close together. I look for a friendly point of view, which is allowed, and start with 7. My fellow judge starts with 6. If he holds his relation, and I hold my relation, we have the same winner, there is no problem.”
“When the top judges travel, then they must give them some more money so they can spend some extra days, and have a dressage clinic with the local judges. But I heard with the Samsung competition, that the national judges didn’t go to watch the competition because they were jealous that they didn’t get invited to judge. But the national judges of a country where such an event is held should be obliged to go to the event, and the event should be combined with a judges clinic.”
Nearly 20 years after this interview, Ingrid Klimke shows us classical correct movement making the horse, in this case her event mare Escada, more brilliant, more light, more supple…
Reiner never lost his love for his first equestrian sport, eventing, and he was looking to help ‘fix’ the judging there too…
At every major 3DE in the world, judged by the elite group of the world’s eventing judges, we see dramatically different rankings…
“This is because the judges are wrong, not the rules. The judges are wrong. Every judge has to work on himself, so he exactly follows the rules. He has no right to say ‘but I have a different opinion’. If he wants to do that then he should not judge – because the ‘opinion’ is described in the rules. I am very strict on this matter because I am now a member of the dressage committee of the FEI.”
After Badminton 1996, where there was such a big difference in the scores between Mr Le Goff, Lord Carew and General Grignolo, a special committee of the FEI was supposed to resolve the problem yet the problem is still there…
“I have an invitation from the British to go there for two days to discuss with the judges, how we should judge the dressage. I am still on the international eventing judges list, I will go two days in the next two months, and have a meeting with the judges in England… to find a line. Then I will have different horses and I’ll tell the riders secretly what to do, and then ask the judges, ‘what do you give? And why?’”
But we have some very top international eventing judges who still can’t see a late flying change…
“The judges must be criticised and they must accept it. Because the judge has the same responsibility as the rider, and that responsibility is to learn, for your whole life. If a judge doesn’t want to do that we should dismiss him. They are not kings, they are responsible for the sport the same as everyone else is responsible. If the judge has a wrong opinion, and doesn’t want to change, then we should throw him out.”
Reiner cross country at the Rome Olympics with Winzerin
Who is going to have the power to do that?
“The FEI.”
And you think the FEI will be strong enough to do that?
“I don’t know, but the FEI committee is there, with Hugh Thomas as the head. If he decided to use his power, then no-one would discuss it, because this is what the rule says, and if you don’t follow the rule – out. Every year the judges should do at least one training course. Why? That they 100% follow the rules. Is dressage something else? No, it is part of it.”
Do you think it would help if the judges who were appointed for eventing dressage were dressage experts and not required to act as the control body for the whole event?
“No, no. I don’t think this is necessary. We have in the three-day eventing world, enough horse people who know how dressage should look. What we need is courses, so they meet and learn once or twice a year. At the beginning of the season, and the end of the season, the top judges, should meet each other but not just in theory – take some horses, and the best riders, or the worst riders, it does not matter, look for a real expert who knows the sport, then on the performances, train your eye. Then you get the right answer.”
Breed yourself a dressage star – breed to Quatensprung, find out more, and see the range of dressage stallions – and jumping stallions available in Australia – www.ihb.com.au
I would like to thank you Mr Hector, for all the wonderful articles and interviews you have published over the years. I have been an avid reader of them since you first started THM and have saved a great number. It is very special to have all these conversations with such great people recorded for prosperity. We the horse community are very grateful to you.
This article is relevant today. Often when watching Dressage I notice horses with incorrect rhythm such as: 4. Beat Canter or disunited trot where the diagonals are not parallel , hence the rhythm is incorrect. Rhythm is the first rung on the training scale and must never change. However I have seen horses win with this serious fault. Perhaps judges just do not see how it should be? Perhaps the do not know the rules?