Stickland resigns from HSI committees

BRITISH dressage statistician David Stickland has resigned from his position as advisor to Horse Sport Ireland’s dressage High Performance committee and para dressage High Performance committees.

Stickland, a senior research physicist with Princeton University working at CERN, is co-founder of Global Dressage Analytics which brings together detailed dressage result information with analytics to give an insights into the performance of riders, horses and judges. He is also a consultant for the FEI on dressage judging analysis.

Tokyo disappointment

Stickland joined the HSI committees as an advisor in 2019. He openly disapproved of the decision by Horse Sport Ireland not to send a dressage team to Tokyo after a historic first time qualification.

In a statement to Eurodressage. Stickland said: “I was very disappointed that having earned a first ever team place in Tokyo and having riders qualified to form a team, no team was sent and the resulting message to athletes was very negative. By contrast it was very special to have a para-dressage team in Tokyo just a few weeks later. I wish the Irish riders the very best on their route to achieving, and this time attending, a team participation in Paris 2024!”

He thanked the Irish dressage community, and added: “While I was, and am, more than happy to work with those riders, I found the environment in the High Performance committee to be counterproductive.”