Even before this week’s dramatic turn of events, the sport of dressage was under the microscope.
A letter to governing body International Equestrian Federation (FEI) – sent just two months ago – could not have been clearer.
‘Our sport is in serious danger. The current scandals and the bad reputation threatens its existence and could mean the end of dressage and para-dressage as Olympic disciplines,’ read the letter, sent by riders, trainers and officials from the world of dressage following a string of scandals involving high profile athletes.
In November, Danish billionaire Andreas Helgstrand was banned from riding – and also from Paris 2024 – by his national dressage team until next year after an undercover documentary filmed at one of his riding schools showed horses bleeding from their mouths and flanks during training.
The footage also showed horses being trained in rollkur, which involves a rider pulling the horse’s mouth far down with the reins so that the animal almost bites its own chest and is banned by the FEI.
Charlotte Dujardin with her Tokyo 2020 Olympic winning horse Gio, left, and former Olympic gold medal winner Valegro, right
Denmark’s Andreas Helgstrand on his horse “Don Schufro” competes in the Equestrian Dressage Individual event of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on August 19, 2008
Animal rights activists from PETA stage a die-in outside the Hall of Justice office of Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey in Los Angeles, California on November 13, 2019
Then in February, top US dressage rider Cesar Parra was provisionally suspended for ‘abhorrent and abusive training techniques’ after a video showed him whipping a horse.
That the growing scandal has now also taken in Britain’s golden girl Charlotte Dujardin has shocked and saddened fans. Six-times Olympic medallist Dujardin is said to be well liked in equestrian circles – and admired around the world for her many achievements.
Her chosen discipline involves getting horses to perform a number of different movements while being judged against a strict criteria. The movements are generally unnatural and take years of dedicated training to master.
In recent years, the movements have also got more difficult and technical and the rewards greater – Dujardin is said to be worth as much as £28million thanks to lucrative sponsorship, and can charge hundreds for lessons.
The technique DuJardin is seen repeatedly whipping the horse in order to perform in the video is called ‘piaffe’, a slow-motion trot.
Those teaching the piaffe generally do so by tapping the horse lightly, to encourage it to lift its legs. And while experts say a whip is a useful training tool, they lined up yesterday to say Dujardin’s use went far and above what is acceptable.
Dujardin with her fiancée Dean Wyatt-Golding after winning the gold medal at Rio 2016
Dujardin with her fiancée Dean Wyatt-Golding after winning the gold medal at Rio 2016
‘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 yesterday.
‘You can certainly see that some of the whiplashes did hit the horse and the horse was stressed with it.’
The video certainly makes uncomfortable viewing: the swish of Dujardin’s whip can be heard cutting through the air before repeatedly striking the horse on the legs as whoever is filming giggles in the background.
Madeline Hall, former dressage correspondent at Horse and Hound magazine, said generally the whip is used to encourage the horse to lift its legs a bit higher but that overuse was something she had not witnessed before.
‘You can’t use the whip too harshly because horses are very sensitive and they will react badly – they will overreact. In dressage its used a training aid and quite cautiously,’ she said.
Germany were stripped of their team jumping gold medal at the Athens Olympics in 2004 after a horse ridden by Ludger Beerbaum (pictured) tested positive for betamethasone
The footage shows Dujardin striking the horse several times with the whip during the ‘piaffe’
Charlotte Dujardin riding Valegro celebrates with her gold medal at the London 2012 Olympics
Team GB’s Olympic dressage champion Charlotte Dujardin has withdrawn from Paris 2024
The rollkur technique involves drawing a horse’s neck round in a deep curve so its nose almost touches its chest. It was banned by governing body the FEI in 2010 (file photograph)
Hall said she feared the video would only add to calls from those critics who think ‘that all training of horses of horses in cruel and practically all riding of horses is cruel and all use of equipment is cruel’ and want it banned.
Animal rights organisation PETA yesterday renewed its call for equestrian events to be banned from the Olympics.
ITV Racing presenter and former eventer Alice Plunkett said the video was ‘shocking in the methods used to make the horse go forward but also it’s shocking because it involves a woman who is highly respected in Charlotte Dujardin who has a very measured and natural way of training her horses at home’.
She said: ‘That is not a standard way of training horses for top level dressage, and she knows that.’
In Versailles yesterday horses from 28 nations including Australia, Britain, China and Australia – some of them worth more than £800,000 – received their final medical checks ahead of the Olympic competitions, which start on Saturday.
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.
FEI has appointed a dedicated ‘Horse Welfare Coordinator’ for the first time, leading a team of stewards that monitor the horses throughout the Games, including at night, such is the scrutiny the sport is under.
