In reality, it should be a wake-up call for everyone, showing how forcing horses to compete and be part of sporting events causes them suffering and death because trainers and riders do it for money, prestige, or status, and, despite what they may say, do not care about the animals’ wellbeing other than to ensure their welfare is good enough to outperform other horses.
Representative image from Shutterstock
Charlotte Dujardin, a British dressage rider who has won several
international competitions by forcing horses to behave unnaturally,
will no longer compete at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Video
footage showing her repeatedly whipping a horse during a training
session led to her suspension by the International Federation for
Equestrian Sports and the British Equestrian Federation on 23rd July
2024.
The video, which shows Dujardin repeatedly striking a horse being
ridden by another person as an onlooker laughs, was released by
Stephan Wensing, a Dutch lawyer, a day after Dujardin announced that
she was pulling out of the Paris Games. She said, “What happened was
completely out of character and does not reflect how I train my
horses or coach my pupils.”
Wensing said, “If you need to beat a horse like this to do sport
it’s not sport anymore.” He added that the video should be “a
wake-up call to the dressage world.” In reality, it should be a
wake-up call for everyone, showing how forcing horses to compete and
be part of sporting events causes them suffering and death because
trainers and riders do it for money, prestige, or status, and,
despite what they may say, do not care about the animals’ wellbeing
other than to ensure their welfare is good enough to outperform
other horses.
Horseracing in particular causes many horses’ deaths, as it is a
form of animal abuse in which horses are forced to run in fear with
a human harassing them on their backs. Even non-competitive horse
riding is something people should not support as it is a form of
animal exploitation which requires “breaking” the horses’ spirits,
who otherwise would not tolerate a human on their backs. This is why
vegans do not ride horses or support any sport using any animal.