British Olympian Charlotte Dujardin pulling out of the Paris Games over a video clip showing her whipping a horse’s legs multiple times, has sparked a broader debate about the equestrian sports just before the Olympics starts.
The FEI International Equestrian Foundation suspended the six-times Olympic medallist Dujardin – Britain’s joint-most decorated female Olympian – over inappropriate training methods.
“What is shown in this video is first of all completely unacceptable at any point, any time in a horse’s training,” FEI Veterinarian Director Goran Akerstrom said.
“You can certainly see that some of the of the whiplashes hit did hit the horse and the horse was stressed with it,” he said, describing the whiplashes as “stupid” for the horse’s learning process.
The FEI brutally woke up to the challenge of improving horse welfare after the Tokyo Olympics severely harmed its image.
In 2021, one horse died in a cross-country accident while another one suffered from severe nose bleeding from jumping and spectators were shocked by scenes of abuse in a modern pentathlon competition.
FEI chief veterinarian Akerstrom said the FEI recently released an action plan with 37 measures to protect horses, including rules for the tightness of nosebands and flexible cross-country obstacles designed to prevent severe accidents.
The Dujardin video, which was aired on the Good Morning Britain news programme on Wednesday, puts equestrianism in the spotlight again.
“It’s necessary that we have a change and the actions that we are taking will lead to that change”, Akerstrom said.
Meanwhile, eventing horses arrived at the Versailles chateau for Olympic equestrian competitions which are meant to set new standards for horse welfare.
The stakes are high. Animal rights organisation PETA renewed its call for equestrian events to be banned from the Olympics.
“The message to the International Olympic Committee should be clear by now: Remove equestrian events from the Olympic Games,” PETA said in a statement.
“I’m confident that this will help us to continue be a part of the Olympic Games”, said Akerstrom.
In Versailles, horses from 28 nations, including Australia, Britain, China and Australia – some of them worth more than one million euros ($1.08 million) – passed the compound’s gates from dawn, where they received final medical checks.
They were brought into climate-regulated stables with extra large boxes and round-the-clock surveillance as the sport’s governing body seeks to display its efforts to put animal welfare first.
The FEI also appointed a dedicated “Horse Welfare Coordinator” for the first time, leading a team of stewards that monitor every horses movements throughout the games, including at night.
“My job is to be strict,” said Richard Corde, the retired French veterinarian who was appointed for the job. “We will make sure that the horse is always in the most comfortable conditions, that there are no constraints and that there are no abnormal movements.”
The FEI launched an investigation in Dujardin’s case, it said on Wednesday. Officials of the body in Versailles and the British equestrian team declined to make any further comments, citing the ongoing probe.
Dujardin said in a video statement announcing her Olympic withdrawal on Instagram on Tuesday that footage showed her making an error of judgement that was out of character and did not reflect how she trained her horses or coached her pupils.
“Yet again, an Olympic rider has been caught on video abusing a horse to force the animal to behave in an entirely unnatural way, simply for her own glory”, campaign group PETA said.
Dujardin’s teammate, Carl Hester, told Reuters earlier this month that all equine athletes needed to pay close attention to horse welfare.
“They got rid of animals in circuses, didn’t they, because that was unfair and we’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen in equestrian sport.”
Dujardin won three golds, a silver and two bronze medals at the London, Rio and Tokyo Games in individual and team dressage. With six medals, she is Britain’s joint-most decorated female Olympian alongside cyclist Laura Kenny.
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