To think that equestrian events are ridiculous

The Olympics should be reserved for elite athletes only.
Have you any clue how fit you need to be to ride at that level? I used to share a dressage lesson with a friend and I'd be knackered by the end, despite the fact that I'd spent half the hour sitting there watching huffing round the manege. It's much, much harder work than just hacking out, which I can do for hours.

As for cost, I rode weekly as a teenager and we were a very long way from wealthy: we were scraping along the bottom. Our local hairdresser is married to a handyman and they keep two horses. There are routes for pursuing an equestrian career if you're not wealthy: I know someone who joined the army to do exactly that.

And the horses get so little credit that while I could remember Valegro's name, I had to read this thread to be reminded of his rider's...

If you want to see some athletes of, er, “mixed” equestrian talent showjumping on horses they’ve never ridden before, then watch the jumping phase of the modern pentathlon on 6 and 7 August. The results tend to be exactly what you might expect...

Part of the scoring in dressage is the score for "Harmony" between that particular horse and rider pairing. It's an understated term, but has a coefficient of at least 2 (which means whatever score the judge gives the combination is multiplied by 2 when calculating the final score.) A horse has to trust the rider to walk into the arena at all, let alone listen to the rider's aids over instinct -- this is why the particular partnership between a specific horse and their specific rider is important and why horses aren't interchangeable. Though CJ/CH could probably sit on any horse and produce amazing results, those results are best on the horses they work with, day after day.

Dressage, from Xenophon onwards, is about creating a movement from the smallest possible rider input. The quieter the "aid", the better. This is why the best riders look like they're sitting still. This is the heart of the sport. Charlotte Dujardin can lift a seatbone and move her outside leg back a fraction and there will be a beautiful canter depart, and that is what is glorious about her partnership with her horses (be it Valegro, or Pumpkin.)

To get to that point, the rider has to know the horse, to feel when they are even in a position to ask for something. It would be no use even asking for a horse to canter if you couldn't feel that their muscles were loose and they were moving with their hind legs properly -- you wouldn't get the result you wanted AND it would annoy the horse.

And to get to THAT point, there is a lot of grunt work. My Apple watch estimates my average heart rate during a ride to be between 160-180. You have to warm up properly both yourself and your horse and be flexible and receptive enough to work on those aids. Sometimes getting a steady warmup with all three gaits in their right place is a challenge! You have to be so receptive to your horse's state of mind and physical preparation, both on the ground and under saddle, to do this even remotely successfully.

As far as the idea this is the sport of the privileged, it's just not. Some people have privilege. We have an impressive array of PSG & GP riders at my yard. Some of them are wealthy. Others are working students, showing and competing the owners' horses for them while the owners come up the levels. That is how I started out, as a broke student shovelling poo & doing yard work for 10 hours per day in exchange for lessons. Many openings for working students exist, across all equestrian disciplines, and it provides learning in return for work.

And as far as thinking you're "too old" to start -- you're not! Go and give it a try!

It’s interesting that ‘horsey people’ are largely deriding people who don’t agree that horses should be travelled to the other side of the world to compete in high heat, high stress environments. When actually it is more the none horsey people, who acting on the instinct, that are probably more correct and show a better understanding for what is good and not good for horses!

Maybe because we've followed footage of the horses, before during and after their journeys and have seen the horses arriving in to top class facilities looking calm, relaxed and happy. Your instincts are wrong!

Fond memories of Hugo Simon on Gladstone.

My favourite was Nick Skeletons horse Apollo. I still remember in detail what he looked like with his big white face. I even remember the bridle he wore with the rope noseband. On the other had I couldn't pick Nick Skelton out of a line up. It's definitely the horses who are the stars. Equestrian sports are far less publicised now though. As a child I remember watching Hickstead, horse of the year show, olympia, Olympics all on terrestrial TV and the horses and riders were far more of a household name.

The horses not getting credit is simply not true. It’s a partnership. On the leaderboards both the rider and the horse’s name are shown.
The horses are at the awards ceremony too.

Lelliebellieboo I once met Cancara at a county show, it was the highlight of my day out!

Keeping horses with no or very limited / solo turnout is terribly cruel for animals which are designed to live in herds and walk miles a day. Just recently an international competitor stated she never let her horses have any turnout

I agree with you and so do most UK equestrians. The first thing that happened when Gio returned from the games was for him to be turned out in his paddock. I've seen the video.

About 10 years ago, my husband bought me a toy replica of Milton which my 6yo now has to play with, using her barbies. Only a few weeks ago, she asked me about him and we ended up down a YouTube vortex watching 1980s showjumping!

The OP seems obsessed with the horses not getting credit and refuses to agree with anyone who says that they do. When I was growing up, my bedroom wall was covered in posters of the horses, not the riders. I had Milton, Mon Santa, even Downlands Cancara (the old TSB horse). For many equestrians, we become fans of the horses more than the riders. That's why when Charlotte rides, there's so many people talking about how much they loved Blueberry (Valegro) or Pumpkin (Gio) because they recognise what those horses are physically capable of.

The horse's name was Kibah TikTok, and he was a legend. He died of old age a few years ago.

He died in 2014 at the ripe old age of 36.

It seems a tad unfair that the competitors aren't using the same 'equipment', ie the horse.
Bruce Springsteen has spent gazillions supplying his showjumping daughter with the best horses money can buy.

I'm sure Milton was still competing til a ripe old age too. It takes a lot of care to have a horse able to still perform to the best of their ability in their more senior years and they'd have to still enjoy it. A horse will soon let you know if they have had enough.

There are some awful practices and training techniques in equine sport, including dressage but these are abhorred by riders such as Charlotte, Carl and other top riders and it's good to see these are the riders and horses that are winning the medals.

So many posters of Milton on my wall when I was little

[quote BFrazzled]@1990s
Well what happens is that when you look at any sport entirely as an outsider and are not preconditioned to accept it as something normal you are prone to see strange things about it with a fresh eye so to say.

For me the strange thing is that the horse is at least as active a participant as the rider but one: is clearly exploited and two: the rider somehow gets all the credit. Of course it would also be ridiculous to credit the horse with things it didn’t want to do to begin with…[/quote]
This is the thing, you keep on saying that the horse is exploited and uncredited, but both these remarks are patently untrue and can be evidenced as such.

I don’t ride (in fact I’m the child who constantly badgered for a pony and never got one) although I love horses and thoroughly enjoy watching competitors like Charlotte Dujardin and Carl Hester and their horses. I can see how much the horses are adored and how happy and well cared for they are. I can, despite being a non-rider, see that the horses movements are linked to their natural paces and also the astounding level of skill involved from the riders, as well as the trusting relationship between them both.

There have been practices, and there have been riders, who deserved criticism and everyone should be open to discussing welfare issues and concerns. But to continually bang on about happy, healthy, much loved horses being “exploited” is not going to receive a positive response as such concerns in this case are groundless.

Do they really let those horses die of old age?

I can't speak for every country but in the UK, Olympic dressage horses retire from top level competition once they start to find the movements too hard work. At that point, there are a number of routes they may go: if they're a mare or stallion, they will be retired to stud and have foals. If they're a gelding, they may stop competing but carry on being ridden by up-and-coming riders who want to learn how certain movements should feel on a horse trained to the highest level, so they can in turn train their own horses. Sometimes they just become pleasure horses who are hacked around the lanes occasionally. Or they may retire completely to the field and never be ridden again.

It does most horses good to be kept in some form of light work for as long as they're physically and mentally capable of it, just as we do better for carrying on some form of exercise into later life. But if and when the time comes, when they're too stiff or old or ill or suffer an injury they can't recover from and are no longer enjoying life, they will be put to sleep.

A couple of examples: Charlotte Dujardin's triple gold medalling winning horse Valegro (known as Blueberry at home) retired a couple of years ago. He still lives on her yard, is hacked out to keep him supple and fit, and is occasionally used for lessons for other riders. There was a lovely clip on social media just before Covid hit of a young girl who visited the yard and got to ride him as a special treat, and he behaved impeccably with her.

Example 2: the horse Carl Hester rode at the 2004 Olympics, Escapado, went to a younger rider in the Netherlands a year or so later to teach him the ropes. When he was retired from competition altogether in 2011, he came home to Carl and lived a happy retirement. He was eventually PTS peacefully in 2019, aged 26.

I said I EARN 9k a year. Yes I get a tax credit top up like many working parents. My rent isn't taken care of, I get a contribution. I pay around 2/3. I pay full council tax minus the single person discount that any sole adult gets regardless of income. I don't qualify for anything else like FSM or uniform grants as I earn just over the cut off. My dc ride approx 3 times a week. I'm not making it up:

Just because you don't understand something doesn't make it ridiculous.

Exactly.
It's such a narrow minded attitude

Do they really let those horses die of old age?

Yes. Mark Todd’s Charisma lived to 30. John Whittaker’s Milton lived out his retirement on their farm, as did Ginny Lang’s Priceless.

Horses due to their size and structure, they are quite a poor design really, tend to develop conditions in later life that mean they tend to be pts when it affects their quality of life rather than actually dying of old age. The horse used in the 90's will indeed be dead, but the one used in London will be living a charmed life somewhere