I don’t understand the Charlotte Dujardin furore….

[VivaLaSpag]

For transparency, I know absolutely nothing about horses but have seen this all blow up so am trying to understand the context and concern. In no way am I saying what she has done is right.

My question is, aren’t horses whipped to the finish line in horse races? If this is a routine practice then why is there such concern about what Dujardin has done?

who is she?

"...aren’t horses whipped to the finish line in horse races?"

Excessive use of the whip can get a jockey banned from racing.

Let’s have a think. Let’s think really hard

Disclaimer: I’m an equestrian who hates racing (the horses are raced and retired before most other horses are even sat on).

In racing they can be disqualified for using the whip too much. Often they are just waving it around. There's touching, hitting and whipping.

Apparently she whipped the horse 24 times in a minute. That’s beyond losing temper for a moment (not ok anyway, but everyone goes too far at some point - not referring to just this).

I suspect this is just the tip of a very large iceberg. I highly doubt she is the only person to do this.
Watch the floodgates open...

Didn’t know that! How do they qualify that though? When you see those horses running the jockeys look like they’re going hell for leather with the whips

She whipped the horse 24 times!!!

She's a gold medal winning dressage champion.

OP I haven't seen the video and I don't want to. I believe she's whipping a horse's legs during a training session. She says it was a lapse of judgement but I doubt it some trainers are very cruel to animals.

I doubt she's the only one to do it as well. The profession needs an overhaul.

Yes jockeys whip horses and horses are killed during races. Just because that's allowed doesn't make it acceptable.

Have you seen the video? It makes it very clear why it was the right decision

It’s almost like horses would rather be running free than forced to get their hair plaited and do weird fucking dances.

The video shows this was just normal behaviour for her, she hadn’t lost her control or temper.

The horse was in pain, it’s animal abuse.

What’s not to understand?

Totally agree it’s not acceptable and @Fullofpudding i hear you but the comparison with what i’ve seen from horse races (with a non equestrian brain) the same thing happens in races with the extent of whipping? And it’s horrible to see especially when you know horses have died as a result of racing.
Perhaps though as @SilkFloss says this is just the tip of the iceberg.

How on earth are you managing to post here when you have no access to the Internet?

🤔

I’m not understanding the uproar when horses are routinely being whipped in other circumstances that are very visible for all to see e.g horse racing.
Hopefully this incident will open up the wider conversation around the mistreatment of horses, but I’m curious as to why her and now.

I imagine it is the tip of the iceberg. Strange how people are allowed to treat horses so cruelly. If she was caught whipping a dog she'd be imprisoned.

I'm not pro-racing by any stretch of the imagination but the whips used are completely different. Padded and designed to spread the pressure over a wider area. There is also a limit on how many times the whip can make contact. A lot of the times you see them hit the horse it doesn't make contact so they don't go over the limit.

The whip CDJ used is a lunge whip and should NEVER make contact with a horse, especially not around its legs. It really bloody hurts when a lunge whip hits you as they're very narrow and travel faster than the speed of sound (creating a sonic boom when they move - the "crack"). The horse was obviously in pain and kicked out at her to tell her to stop hitting it.

Also a rider and I also hate racing.

I watched the footage and her use of the whip was far beyond anything acceptable. And clearly quite normal for her as she was quite relaxed and not losing her rag.

It's very disappointing.

Ah ok I didn’t know that-thanks for the info. I haven’t seen the video and tbh it hadn’t crossed my mind that there are different whips. I just thought a whip is a whip!

about a mumsnet thread?

nah, can’t be bothered

Lunge whip vs racing whip.

Just for information OP. In horse racing there are strict rules and a jockey will face a ban for disobeying. I do recall Sir Peter O'Sullevan (legendary commentator and owner) saying he would ban the whip.

www.britishhorseracing.com/regulation/the-whip-2-2-2/

No, all I can find is a short clip shown on breakfast tv, and shit loads of ads on everything else, please can you link.

I haven’t seen the video yet. It didn’t seem to be up yesterday. I would 'like' to see it. There's a lot of good in the horse world, but there are an awful lot of children being brought up thinking that there are ways to treat horses that are acceptable, which are not.

Whipping horses in any context should be banned.

Blimey