Flossy is well known to many on the British Dressage Forum as a teller of interesting stories and perhaps the odd joke or two. We have selected a few tales for your pleasure.

Governing body / FEI

Every sport needs a governing body to run and control its activities, with out an effective body the sport will not function in an organized fair manner and will become an un organized conflict not a sport.
The governing body in most cases will reflect the community it represents, and this is where I have a problem with the body that run my second favourite sport , Dressage.
Living in a modern democratic society with human rights given even to the most notorious criminals and terrorists some of the FEI actions in recent years leaves me confused and baffled.
Not in chronicle order the following incidents make me think that the FEI is like the Greek government that excelled itself in creating jobs and prosperity for those that are in her direct employment but forgot about all the rest of the population.
The first on my radar was the FEI dressage board idea that the riders representative will not be nominated by the riders but by the board itself, that may be the political strategy in modern China but not very common or accepted in old Europa.
The next issue that left me wondering if those in Head Quarters think they own the company, was the Olympic saga involving the south American representative to the Olympics and the court of arbitration decision,
When all obvious logical avenues failed to resolve the situation the FEI should have referred the matter to the commercial department, in the past they did very well on auctioning a participation slot, the same could have been done again, as I said on a different occasion (when it earned me a 4 weeks suspension from BD forum), if you run out of ring side tickets you can always sell tickets to be in the ring , what was the problem of letting both contestants have their own private CDIs . Even the CAS report was only released after the Olympics in order not to spoil the party.
I know from a well respected journalist that when he requested from the FEI the transcripts of the tribunal findings (several month later) his request was declined on the pretext that the ink is not dry yet .
The only happy out come of it all is that in Brazil the FEI Dressage committee members are regarded as the national team selectors with a life time free subscription to the Rio carnival .
It is only fair to say that the FEI will not miss an opportunity to explain their case to the members, and during the Global Forum, the high flying head of the dressage department took the stand and out lined the FEI position on many issues, unlike a real politician that give you an answer before the question he never answered any question, he was more like a sea gull , he flew in high ,made a noise , left a mess from above and flew out.
The AGM in Istanbul again highlighted how international minded the FEI is, this time the Putin doctoring was deployed (or was it Stalin's method) the out come is the same, ejection of those that has to be present , the riders club and other associates members.
For years it was blamed on some Dutch trainer, riders or judges for bringing the sport into disrepute, the FEI even set up an integrity unit to spy and grass on members, when all along it actually was the management board with the questionable integrity, the only way I can think of it all is like a drunken man with a bad bout of wind complaining the place smells.
The riders club request to see the Tribunal report (when the ink dried up) only confirms the suspicion that the riders representative place was taken by a KGB agent .(Putin again)
The answer may be much simpler and closer to home, as the FEI unlike British Dressage don't have a forum for members to raise concerns and voice opinions they have to exclude and remove free thinking members because they cant just suspend them, a privilege enjoyed by BD office staff.
Well there an idea for the FEI set up a forum in order to find out what members think, If you don't like what you read BAN THEM.
This action of the FEI reminds me of the old Roman empire, which employed the well documented tactic of “DIVIDE AND RULE “ (and they thought they fooled us, but we all know our history lessons)
My local vicar who is a keen dressage rider commented ,after he read the AGM report , “even God would not assume he is head of the FEI”
All these issues and others made me believe that the FEI dressage committee are not to be trusted, they are just like BANKERS , I was corrected by a friend “not a B but a W a big one”