enough to get her a 6 month ban from the international governing body ?
She's not been banned, she's been suspended while the incident is investigated.
It appears she crossed the line and it's been caught on film. I'm more curious as to who and why it's been leaked right before her chance to break the female medal record.
Allegedly a Dutch lawyer submitted said video, not wanting her to be winning Medals whilst conducting herself in this manner... 4 years ago.
The video was taken during a lesson charlotte was teaching in the Netherlands.
The official complaint included a video which shows Dujardin "beating the horse excessively with a whip. This not only breaches FEI regulations, but can also be considered a very serious form of animal cruelty," the lawyer stated.
The video has not been made public.
The video is almost one minute in length and shows Dujardin on the ground, training a rider on a horse in canter. With a cracking lunge whip she is hitting the horse against its legs and hindquarters. Approximately 23 lashes can be counted within the time frame of the clip.
Just a momentary lapse in judgement...to allow her cruel nature to be captured on film.
Coming from a horse background myself (and my daughter works as a groom for an event rider) I’d be amazed if Dujardin was abusing a horse. It doesn’t sit with her style or the dressage world.
We've got two horses (rescue animals, not ridden these days, though my wife has in the past). Whipping a horse 24 times in a minute so that it'd lift it's legs up higher....yep no abuse there. It's the none horse folk that just don't understand.
As humans we control every animal we have domesticated and 600kg of pure muscle like a top horse takes a lot more to control than a Jack Russell.
As Princess Anne discovered to her cost, almost certainly smacked in the face by a horse suddenly swinging its head sideways - in a horse/human interaction of that nature, it’s guaranteed the human comes off second best!
ITV have got the video of the lovely woman whipping the horse.
I'm not sure she'll be going to any more Olympics, after that.
Just saw the video on ITV.
That's not the video that was shared previously.
Outright wrong.
Good riddance.
(Still disagree with the timing of this. Should have been dealt with at the time)
this comment aged well!Coming from a horse background myself (and my daughter works as a groom for an event rider) I’d be amazed if Dujardin was abusing a horse. It doesn’t sit with her style or the dressage world.
I don't believe for a second this was a one-off. Watch the video, she's super relaxed about it (you can hear laughter). This is standard practise.
yeah not sure equestrians should be in the olympics. completely uneven playing field, immensely privileged people due to a huge cost associated with entry.
But I've seen the video. It doesn't look like a momentary lack of judgement. That would suggest some kind of anger/frustration towards the horse but her behaviour was fairly calm while smashing the horse with the whip and suggests that it was fairly normal behaviour for her.
It's not really a surprise given some horse owners and dressage riders that we see.
beating the horse excessively with a whip
What's the acceptable amount of horse whipping?
It appears she crossed the line and it’s been caught on film. I’m more curious as to who and why it’s been leaked right before her chance to break the female medal record.
It's either tactical, or someones just pissed off hearing how great she is and generally having smoke blown up her arse. No doubt the outcome of the investigation will be the same as the one recently where the woman was caught punching her horse in the face ( and as in the response above - which was hopefully tongue in cheek )
Whipping a horse 24 times in a minute so that it’d lift it’s legs up higher….yep no abuse there. It’s the none horse folk that just don’t understand.
To clarify, yes tongue in cheek. Just seen the video. Let's not postulate on the motivations behind the timing of the perk. Let's challenge this 'momentary' lapse of judgement narrative. I call bollocks. No way is it the first time that she's acted like that, and it's safe to assume that it's widespread within equestrian events. Absolutely vile and blood sports should be removed from the Olympics.
Reminds me of that video from a couple of years back where the horsey toff was beating a horse with a tree branch, and all his horsey toff mates were standing around laughing and cheering. It's obvious that for a certain set, this is not only acceptable, but the [I]correct[/I] way to treat an animal.
Heard someone from Horse and Hound magazine on the radio earlier whose main concern seemed to be the motivations of the whistleblower and how they had ruined the Olympic team, and that the British public 'needed to be educated' on the training methods necessary for success in dressage.
I suspect that the British public being educated further on the training methods being used behind closed doors would have the opposite effect to the one she wants. I'd rather not have the medals, thanks.
I imagine giving our track and field team a damn good thrashing would up our medal tally significantly. I can't believe we haven't tried it, I mean there must be incremental gains to be had switching from plane whips to a cat' o Ninetails, and I don't even know anything about it
Hitting animals? Just no
and that the British public ‘needed to be educated’ on the training methods necessary for success in dressage.
The training methods necessary for success in dressage.
Dressage is a totally unnecessary pursuit in the first place so no "training methods" are necessary especially if these are indicative of the methods used.
To be honest, and I am certain everyone would agree, we swap out dressage for sheep dog trials.
As soon as you involve animals (or children, in the case of sports such as gymnastics and swimming, given the age at which training begins), the vulnerability means that training methods, physical and psychological, need to be monitored closely.
If you need to torment a horse or a child to achieve 'excellence', that sport should not exist.
I imagine giving our track and field team a damn good thrashing would up our medal tally significantly. I can’t believe we haven’t tried it
I believe the Chinese had similar training methods for their gymnasts. Allegedly ?
Heard someone from Horse and Hound magazine on the radio earlier
I think that was the same interview that I listened to, and I had a similar reaction. What she also said is that the FEI ‘ should have sat on it till after the olympics’ or word to that effect because of the timing. Hmmm
Not ruining the planet through climate change and biodiversity loss is always a good ball park!
On that basis there will never be a green anything. This Olympics maybe less harmful as I understand they are using a much higher proportion of existing venues rather than building everything new. Even in the narrow assessment of the games it will be heavily populated
I think that was the same interview that I listened to, and I had a similar reaction.
Were you shouting '**** off!' at the radio too?
the British public ‘needed to be educated’ on the training methods being used behind closed doors
People that mistreat animals, in normal life or in the pursuit of 'sporting excellence' could probably do with a bit of behind closed doors education of their own.
In the words of the late Brian Clough*
* slight tenuous given he used to whack his players with a squash racket and make them run around in the nettles for getting things wrong.
So I have just seen the video – it seems excessive compared to how I have ever seen a horse being trained (daughter has a horse and does a bit of dressage, jumping, cross country etc with weekly lessons), but, to be honest, it wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be given the outcry – even after stricter controls were brought in over excessive whipping in horse racing, the way jockeys whip their horses is often far, far worse.
even after stricter controls were brought in over excessive whipping in horse racing, the way jockeys whip their horses is often far, far worse.
Apparently the dressage whips are thinner and are designed cause more pain than the whips the jockeys are still (inexplicably) allowed to use.
I'm interested in what is seen as 'normal practice' in training, if 20+ strikes with a whip in a minute is excessive.
Apparently the dressage whips are thinner and are designed
I did wonder about that - are they essentially the same as lunge whips or are they different? From what I can see, it looks like a lunge whip but I am by no means an expert. TBF, I don't recall any dressage tutors using a whip of any kind when watching my daughter in training.
Thinking about it more, the whip in the video was being used on the legs (which I have *never* seen) rather than the rump as is the case with horse racing so I guess it must hurt more.
No that's not normal at all.
The dressage whip normally used whilst on the horse should be used to touch rather than whip. It's a reminder tool rather than a punish tool. Negative reinforcement is a very out dated practice.
I did wonder about that – are they essentially the same as lunge whips or are they different? From what I can see, it looks like a lunge whip but I am by no means an expert
Someone on the radio earlier, who appeared to be knowledgeable, said it was a lunge whip
Personally, I'd like to see her prosecuted for animal cruelty. Like others have said, I'm extremely sceptical that this was a one off "lapse of judgement"
In case anyone's interested in cycling - the TT and RR courses are on Strava:
https://stories.strava.com/articles/paris-2024-road-cycling-routes-strava
The dressage whip normally used whilst on the horse should be used to touch rather than whip.
Yeah – that's how we usually use the (lunge) whip (when lunging our horse) – I can imagine there will be quite a bit of force through one of those – they are about 1.5m long. But I have seen some tutors encourage some pretty hard whipping (ie, telling the person on the horse to whip the rump, not beating the horse with a lunge whip) if horses aren't doing as they are being told (usually this is when they are refusing a jump).
yeah not sure equestrians should be in the olympics. completely uneven playing field, immensely privileged people due to a huge cost associated with entry.
Doesn't this apply to pretty much any sport that relies on equipment? Boats, bikes, bows and arrows (I'm guessing that they aren't cheap)? But anyone can run, so that must be fine, although can poorer nations afford the expensive footwear that rich nations can? That's without thinking about nutrition, training regimes, the cost of good coaching, the huge amounts of drugs necessary ( 😀 ).
You know, I'm not sure that the Olympics, as a whole, is an even playing field.
Having said that, very tongue in cheek, I've watched a bunch of Kenyan Olympic-standard runners go past me in a marathon at twice my speed. Barefoot. They didn't need any equipment!
if horses aren’t doing as they are being told
Do you speak horse?
I'm confident that nobody gets into horse riding because they hate animals, but surely by the time you get to the point where you're hitting them to achieve whatever it is you're after perhaps the overall activity should be questioned?
I guess it's just been fully normalised though. I bet you don't get dog owners whipping their animals through Crufts or whatever their local equivalent is.
It’s high time that whips were removed entirely from all horse related sports. The name kind of gives away what it is used for.
If you can’t get them to learn without punishment then don’t bother in my opinion. You can’t describe anything that is part of our leisure activities as completely necessary. There are other ways.
Do you speak horse?
Not really but I know the basics, however riders generally do. How else do you think a horse knows what to do?
Don't watch much of the Olympics usually, just some of the cycling and the athletics. This year I'll be looking forward to the para Olympics as my mates son is running in the 1500m. He's the world champ, and a nice lad, so I've got my fingers crossed he smashes it..
How else do you think a horse knows what to do?
Well by hitting it with something apparently.
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Just sneaked away from work to watch the rugby 7s.
My dog used to lift his paw in exchange for a biscuit. The other paw for another biscuit
It's a bit difficult to feed carrots to a horse whilst you are training it to dance.
Yep, modern dog training is about positive reinforcement, not punishment.
Most people use positive reinforcement but others use punishment.
Horse training apparently isn’t.
See above.
Genuine question...how do you train a horse to dance using positive reinforcement?
