Video emerges of Briton Dujardin whipping horse’s legs
The video footage that led to Britain’s joint-most decorated female Olympian Charlotte Dujardin pulling out of the Paris Games shows her whipping a horse’s legs multiple times.
Dujardin was provisionally suspended on Tuesday after equestrian’s governing body launched an investigation into her conduct.
The video, which was aired on the Good Morning Britain news programme on Wednesday, shows Dujardin walking beside the horse, which is carrying another rider, and whipping it along.
The International Equestrian Federation (FEI) said they were looking into a video where she had engaged in “conduct contrary to the principles of horse welfare”.
Djuardin 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.
The FEI received the video from a lawyer on Monday but the complainant was undisclosed.
Reuters has not verified the video.
The British Equestrian Federation did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
FEI veterinarian director Goran Akerstrom told Reuters that what the video showed was absolutely unacceptable.
“Charlotte Dujardin was seen whipping the horse numerous times. You can certainly see that some of the whiplashes hit the horse and the horse was stressed with it,” Akerstrom said.
“As this is an ongoing investigation on our side, I can’t tell you more than that, but it’s clearly a distressing picture.”
Akerstrom added that the FEI had put measures in place to address similar violations of equine welfare.
“I’m confident that the measures we are taking now with the FEI action plan for equine welfare are very strong and there are actions that address exactly this,” he said.
“It’s about making sure everyone involved in the sport doesn’t do anything so contradictory to welfare and so stupid in regards to the learning process of the horse.”
Equine abuse came into the spotlight at the modern pentathlon event at the Tokyo Olympics when a German coach struck a horse that refused to jump a fence.
The modern pentathlon will replace its equestrian element with obstacle racing after the Paris Games.
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 on Wednesday.
“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.
“Horses don’t volunteer — they can only submit to violence and coercion. It’s time for the Olympics to move into the modern era.”
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.
Dujardin’s teammate, Carl Hester, told Reuters earlier this month that all equine athletes needed to pay close attention to horse welfare.
“Trying to show how well we look after our horses, how fairly they’re treated, that sport is not unfair on the equine partners. I think we all have to pay attention to that,” he said.
“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.”