TV Undercover Documentary “Operation X” About Helgstrand Dressage Sparks Outpouring of Criticism
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Nov. 22, 2023
The television documentary “Operation X” showing operations of Helgstrand Dressage’s training and sales center in Denmark on Wednesday sparked an outpouring of criticism and reports of complaints by animal welfare organizations to police seeking charges of animal cruelty against Andreas Helgstrand and other trainers.
The 90-minute documentary created from video shot by a reporter posing as a groom was shown on Denmark’s TV2 Wednesday night after the failure of two court attempts by Helgstrand Dressage to prevent its screening.
The video shows riding by trainers wearing spurs kicking hard at horses’ flanks, discussions of polish to cover marks on horses, blood on both sides and mouths of horses in training and other aspects that were described by veterinarians and other trainers as animal cruelty.
Dyrenes Beskyttelse, Denmark’s animal protection organization, said it was “appalled” at “grossly irresponsibly” scenes and had filed complaints with the police under the country’s animal welfare laws that provide for penalties including prison sentences.
Andreas admitted in an interview with TV2 he was shocked by what was televised.
“I completely understand what the experts say about them criticizing hard riding and so on, I should have done that too,” he said.
As many as 350 horses a month are ridden at Helgstrand, he said, but “the culture we see there is not the culture I want to see.”
He said, “We have gone through the whole thing quite a lot of times in the last 10 months. And tried to say, ‘what have we done wrong?’ Because we knew it was something wrong. And especially when I see it here, there is more to reflect on how we can do better.”
The documentary reported that Andreas had earned more than one billion Danish kroner (US$146 million) from horse sales.
This was the second major scandal involving horse training and sales in Denmark this year.
The other involved John Byrialsen, a part-owner of Calecto V Tina Konyot that was competed for the United States at the 2012 Olympics in London.
