Olympics equestrian scandal sparks public backlash and industry introspection

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Horse welfare has been a major topic of conversation around the equestrian competition at the Olympics. The scandal involving champion rider Charlotte Dujardin has attracted the attention of leaders in a related sport.

Prominent members of the horse racing community consider the situation another lesson for an industry that has made significant changes in recent years in the name of safety and still has work to do to regain the public’s trust.

«If you are involved in a horse sport – be it polo, dressage, show jumping or horse racing – the priority has to be the welfare of the horse,” says Lisa Lazarus, CEO of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority that oversees the sport in the US.

“If that isn’t the priority and if it isn’t clear to the public and to regulators that the horse is being prioritised and its welfare is being prioritised, the sport will be in jeopardy.”

What is the Olympic equestrian scandal?

A video of Dujardin repeatedly striking a horse caused the three-time Olympic gold medalist to withdraw from the Paris Games and led to a provisional suspension from the International Federation for Equestrian Sports, or FEI.

And it did not stop there: Carlos Parro was issued a warning after an animal rights group sent the FEI’s president photos and evidence of the Brazil rider hyper-flexing a horse’s neck in a prohibited move known as ‘Rollkur’ that can compromise breathing.

The public backlash comes three years after a Germany coach was suspended from the Tokyo Olympics for striking an uncooperative horse. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which has long protested horse racing, called for equestrian events to be removed from the Olympics, and horses will not be part of the modern pentathlon beginning in Los Angeles in 2028.

‘We’re living in a different time when it comes to equine sports’

Horse racing has endured similar reckonings, most prominently a spate of deaths around the Kentucky Derby last year that led Churchill Downs to suspend racing and spurred an investigation into the causes. And while the implementation of HISA and other reforms have succeeded at reducing fatalities, this is another reminder of how controversial incidents threaten the existence of animal sports in the 21st century.

“We’re all living in a different time when it comes to equine sports, and I think because of that we all have to be a lot more careful,” says thoroughbred trainer Graham Motion. “Most of us are all about the welfare of the animals, but we can’t take it for granted. We have to show that that’s what we’re about.”

Lazarus, who worked for FEI for six years from 2009-15 as general counsel and then chief of business strategy and development, says people in horse racing have learned it is not enough just to say they love horses and care about them.

“Being really transparent about everything that you’re doing is important,” Lazarus says.

Britain equestrian rider Carl Hester, who says he was shocked by the video of Dujardin, has an open training yard in Gloucester, England, with the goal of being transparent about his daily training.

“Everybody is welcome to my yard,” Hester says. “People come in my yard every day. I have pride [in] the fact that our yard shows horse welfare to be its highest by the way I keep my horses.»

How are equine sports being made safer for humans and horses?

Motion is quick to praise HISA for making the sport safer for horses and jockeys. The Equine Injury Database reported there were 1.23 deaths per 1,000 starts at HISA-regulated tracks last year, down from 2.00 when they started being tracked in 2009.

«We have to be showing to be doing our utmost to decrease them,” Motion says. “What makes life as a trainer so difficult is that we’re dealing with athletes that can’t tell us what’s wrong with them or can’t tell us what their problems are… I think with horses we have to be so careful to be seen not to be making bad decisions.”

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One of the decisions rendered by HISA when it launched in 2022 was to limit how many times a jockey can whip a horse during the course of a race. Leonard specifically pointed to the riding crop as part of the sport that will never be widely accepted.

“The fact that it’s illegal to hit another person, the fact that you never apply that same treatment to any other animal means it can never be acceptable to the public and nor probably should it be,” Leonard says, noting jockeys use it for steering but acknowledging there is no evidence proving the whip’s value. “It’s a perception challenge that can never be overcome, and we should just be carrying it for safety reasons.”

Motion, who trained 2011 Derby winner Animal Kingdom and has four Breeders’ Cup victories, used to cringe at the sight of excessive whipping and thinks horse racing has reached a happy medium under HISA. Equestrian officials announced before the Olympics a series of welfare changes already underway and spelled them out last week in the wake of all the negative publicity stemming from Dujardin’s incident.

Is a culture change underway in equine sports?

Vicky Leonard, who founded a marketing company that helps thoroughbred racing shape its future, wrote an op-ed saying the equestrian welfare neglect at the Olympics should raise alarms about horse racing’s continuing challenges and stress the importance of being proactive about problems.

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She thinks one way to build support is for people around barns at racetracks to shoot mobile phone video of their daily routines to show how much time and effort is put into caring for horses.

“What goes on behind the scenes to care for those horses is absolutely fascinating to the common person,” says Leonard. “People trust individuals now more than ever, and that’s where the industry community has the power to make that change happen when they share their story.»

Horse racing seems further ahead in the process of embracing change, and Lazarus has noticed more buy-in from her constituents over the past year among those who were skeptical of HISA or wanted to wait and see. But that is an ongoing process, and Leonard sees the beginnings of a positive culture change around horse racing.

“There’s definitely huge conversations that are very common now that weren’t common five years ago where welfare is at the forefront,” she says. “A culture of welfare is being pushed and being prioritised.”

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