Charlotte Dujardin was eliminated from the European Championships after blood was found on her horse – years before she was forced to pull out of the Paris Olympics this week.
The six-time Olympic medalist, 39, was disqualified from the major tournament in 2019 after blood was found on her horse, Mount St John Freestyle.
Under FEI rules horses must be free from blood over the entire body and mouth both during and after the event.
It came years before the dressage star was banned from the sport just days before the Olympics this week after being accused of whipping a horse on its legs more than 24 times.
The International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) was sent video footage allegedly showing Dujardin mistreating the horse at a UK training venue. The star has now been suspended for six months by the sporting body.
Today a video of Dujardin showing off how to ‘correctly’ whip a horse has resurfaced – in which she ‘breaks down how to use the dressage whip correctly’ to ‘crank and spank’ the animal.
Footage aired on Good Morning Britain today showed Charlotte Dujardin seemingly hitting a horse repeatedly with a whip across the legs
Charlotte Dujardin with her Tokyo 2020 Olympic winning horse Gio (left) and former Olympic gold medal winner Valegro (right) in 2021. She has since been suspended following a horse whipping scandal
The clip, shared on the Dressage Hub YouTube account, shows Dujardin in the middle of a dressage arena describing how best to control a horse, as a rider circles her.
‘A whip is there just to help you, not to make the horse go,’ Dujardin is heard saying as the rider trots around her.
In an interview boasting about her previous steads, the Olympic medalist told Horse and Hound: ‘That’s a lot of horses, and it was only until someone pointed out to me how many top-level horses I’ve trained that I thought, ”Oh God, I have actually done a really good job”.’
At the time of Dujardin’s elimination in 2019, an FEI spokesperson said: ‘Blood was found on the left flank of the horse in the post-competition check.’
They added: ‘Elimination under this rule does not imply there was any intent to injure the horse, but the rules are in place to protect the welfare of all competing horses.’
Months after the elimination in January 2020, Dujardin said the decision was ‘soul destroying’ but claimed she did not blame the steward who ‘had to do her job’.
‘[…] For everybody there it was a very sad moment and really soul destroying , and obviously that steward felt very emotional about what she had to do. I was always, like, she had to do her job, at the end of the day, that’s what they are there for,’ she said.
‘There was a bit of blood on her side, so she had to eliminate me, I understood the rules, the rules are the rules so she had to do it.’
She added: ‘There was nothing there after. It was a shame, there was a slight mark and with the white tissue, there was a tiny spot of blood, and that’s that.
‘It’s amazing when you read things online and you see how they can make pictures look as if you have done some real damage. There was absolutely nothing, after she was washed and dried, you wouldn’t have even known there was anything there.
‘I rode her the next day and she was fine. She’s clipped now and I can ride her, it was just an absolute freak accident that happened. I can only put my hand up – it was there, the steward did her job and I had to take the consequences, and I did.’
Dujardin has withdrawn from the Paris Games over a video showing her making an ‘error of judgement’
Dujardin was hoping to become Britain’s most decorated Olympian but was forced to pull out of the games yesterday, just three days before Friday’s Opening Ceremony.
The FEI was sent video footage on Monday allegedly showing Dujardin mistreating a horse at a UK training venue.
The footage then aired on Good Morning Britain today. It shows Dujardin walking alongside the horse, which was being ridden by a 19-year-old girl, as she struck its legs with a whip.
Dutch lawyer Stephan Wensing, a lawyer for the whistleblower who shared the video, told GMB that his client had sponsored a lesson for the teen on the horse.
Mr Wensing claimed his client had seen the practice happen multiple times.
He said: ‘My client used to be a sponsor, and she was in the UK, and she sponsored a lesson for Charlotte to a student. It was a young girl of 19 years old riding her horse, and she got a lesson from Charlotte Dujardin in the UK.
‘Charlotte Dujardin was in the middle of the arena. She said to the student, ‘your horse must lift up the legs more in the canter’.
‘She took the long whip and she was beating the horse more than 24 times in one minute and really hard, really harsh, really tough.
‘This is not just one incident. My client has visited Charlotte Dujardin’s stable more times and she has seen it happen more times.’
Mr Wensing has previously compared the treatment to that of ‘an elephant in a circus’. He said the incident took place in 2022 – but Dujardin claims her ‘error of judgement’ happened four years ago.
Dujardin (pictured at the Olympic Games in 2012) was hoping to become Britain’s most decorated Olympian but was forced to pull out of the games yesterday
Footage resurfaced today of Dujardin showing how to ‘correctly’ whip a horse has (pictured is a grab from the video)
Dujardin with her fiance Dean Wyatt-Golding after winning the gold old medal at the Dressage in the 2016 Rio Olympics
The athlete is understood to have struck the horse on the legs as she tried to teach the horse the ‘piaffe’ – the slow-motion trotting technique associated with dressage.
Those giving instructions on piaffe typically do so whilst tapping the horse very lightly – just enough to encourage it to raise its legs.
The alleged whistleblower had filmed the lesson but had been warned against making an official complaint due to Dujardin’s previously sparkling reputation.
‘In the video she takes the long whip and beats the horse more than 24 times; (this is) the biggest star in dressage,’ Mr Wensing said last night.
‘This is a black day for dressage as well as Charlotte Dujardin. But in their statement my client says that if dressage is to survive, they must stop doing this to horses.’
‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ the lawyer added. ‘It has no goal. It is unbelievable. At that time, my client was thinking this must be normal. She is an Olympic winner. Who am I to doubt?’
‘My client asked around and was warned against speaking out in the UK. But last year my client saw others suspended in the UK and elsewhere.’
Alice Plunkett, a former eventer and current presenter on ITV Racing, said Dujardin’s career lay in ‘tatters’ with the release of the video footage.
‘It’s not a video that makes anyone feel comfortable. It is not appropriate and it is not something that I have ever seen in terms of the years that I have been working with horses,’ she said.
‘It’s not standard practice. She knows that and I just don’t understand how she got into that situation because she is somebody who has made her life from horses because she manages them in a way that they work for her.
‘Valegro [Dujardin’s horse] would not have performed in the way he did for her if he was treating her like that. In that video she is training someone else’s horse. She has made the wrong decision in how to solve a problem. It is not acceptable.
