March 13, 2025 
For more than 40 years, Danish stud Blue Hors has been one of the leading dressage breeding programs in Europe. But that’s just the cornerstone of its efforts.
On its website, Blue Hors describes its mission to “…create a dressage [Mekka] which equips the equestrian world with an optimal environment for both the daily training of top horses and [riders]….” As of this week, that ethos is taking a significant and controversial step forward to reevaluate horse welfare in Denmark and beyond.
“As long as there is uncertainty about what the ethical use of horses in our sport is, we have decided to temporarily pause Blue Hors’ participation in dressage competitions,” the stud announced on Instagram.
“We believe that dressage sport and horse welfare should go hand in hand, with horse welfare always being the top priority. The pause will initially last for three months, after which we will assess if there has been a greater shared understanding of horse ethics and the sports guidelines.”
The announcement comes on the heels of the Danish Equestrian Federation’s 2025 campaign, “Together for Horse Welfare,” which aims to create a common foundation and understanding for the ethical use of horses in sport.
With that in mind, Together for Horse Welfare is working to draft initiatives that it hopes will result in operational, evidence-based guidelines for dressage and other disciplines. The organization specified that it will address aspects such as strengthening education, updating competition assessments, and creating a more clear framework for sanctions.
“In the Sports Plan for 2025, the Danish Equestrian Federation has set out stricter expectations and guidelines for the use of horses in sports,” the Danish Equestrian Federation’s new chairman, Kimi Gerd Nielsen, said in a statement. “Since the new board was elected in December, we have been working to organize the process, which we can now start. The new guidelines will guide how we train and evaluate our horses in sports in the future.”
Dressage high performance, in particular, is a likely catalyst for the new campaign, having long been plagued by questions surrounding commonly accepted equipment (think: double bridles) and practices (think: rolkur, or hyper-flexion of the horse’s neck). According to Equine Ethologist Renate Larssen, that reevaluation is long overdue.
“There is robust and growing evidence highlighting the detrimental effects of things such as tight nosebands and overbent necks. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of head and neck positions showed that riding with the horse’s head even slightly behind the vertical risks negatively impacting their welfare,” Larssen told Horse Network last month.
Larssen—whose work involves the scientific study of animal behavior in order to better understand how animals think, feel, and perceive the world—was responding to the FEI’s own, newly launched Working Group charged with carrying out a full review of the current state of dressage. “This is something that needs to be addressed both by the riders, themselves, in their daily practice, but also by the governing bodies through the scoring system,” Larssen said.
Dressage’s current feeling of palpable uncertainty surrounding that question of scoring, in particular, was on full display at CDI Herning last week. There, Blue Hors rider and Olympic team silver medalist Nanna Skodborg Merrald put in a winning performance aboard Blue Hors Znickers in the CDI3* on a score of 69.804%, despite a significant 7% scoring differential among the judges.
One low score (65.11%) came from Danish five-star judge and veterinarian Hans-Christian Matthiesen, a noted advocate for change in the sport. Matthiesen has previously recommended new guidelines for aspects of the sport including scoring, the optional use double bridles and spurs, and a marked assessment of each rider’s warm-up practices.
Founded by Danish Lego Group billionaire Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, Blue Hors has helped to launch the careers of top dressage riders including Skodborg Merrald, but also Danish Olympian Andreas Helgstrand.
Helgstrand, for his part, has received multiple FEI and Danish Federation sanctions and suspensions over the years, including various horse welfare charges stemming from training sessions during 2023-2024. Some of these came to a light following the release of an undercover Helgstrand Dressage documentary titled, Operation X.
While Blue Hors says their competition suspension will not affect their daily stud farm activities, including a planned stallion show and open house, the three-month window would impact Skodborg Merrald’s participation at 2025 FEI Dressage World Cup™ Finals.
Currently ranked 6th in the Western European League standings with mounts including Blue Hors Zepter, Blue Hors St. Schufro, and Blue Hors Don Olymbrio, Skodborg Merrald—who took back-to-back silver medals at FEI World Cup Finals in 2023 and 2024—would have qualified again as one of the top 10 riders in the Western European League.
It appears that sitting out, however, is a sacrifice that both Skodborg Merrald and her employer are prepared to make. “We fully support the [Danish] Federation’s work to create clearer and better guidelines for the future together,” Blue Hors wrote in their announcement, “for the sake of the horses, the riders, and the sport.”
