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?

Thanks for this-will have a read

I'm sure this is the tip of the iceberg. I haven't seen the video because I don't want to. Can't bear to.

In racing jockeys often flap the whip in the air rather than actually hitting the horse. They can see it in their peripheral vision and they run faster. Not that all jockeys do this, obviously.

This is an awful story and I'm glad this woman is gone.

She whipped a horse 24 times with a lunge whip for not understanding what she wanted it to do for fucks sake. How are you comparing that to getting hit once with a crop? So if you’re allowed to slap your child for misbehaving, then punching it 24 times is the same is it?

I kind of assumed that all horses doing dressage and those Spanish dancing horses had their legs whipped to force them to learn how to prance about. Doesn’t make it right but I assumed all trainers did that.

Yes! Someone on the other thread was banging on about how the moves were natural moves for a horse and how beautiful it was when the horse and rider were in unison. Yeah cos they're often seen prancing around doing sideways steps in the wild.

Call my cynical but I find it hard to believe the FEI were not aware of how some (?) , many (?) trainers treat their horses in the name of competitive sport

. I suspect they realised pretty fast that suspending DuJardin was the only thing they could do, but she won’t be the only potential Olympian, who has seen or even done this. Allegedly.

Because I don’t understand-which is why I’m asking. It’s ok to ask questions and by asking here i’ve learnt the difference between a lunge whip and a the whip that is using in racing. I had no idea about this, and I hadn’t even read that a lunge whip was used. Just that she was whipping the horse.
Asking questions doesn’t mean I condone behaviour and as I said I have no knowledge of the equestrian world so that’s probably why my comparison seems off to you.

You can be bothered asking a question that can be answered on a 2 second Google but can't be bothered Googling? And you can bebothered coming back to tell people up you can't be bothered to look something up thereby still taking longer than just Google would?

That's really quite odd.

Yes, but whips don’t need to be used to whip. A dressage whip has a string on the end that can be used to touch the horse (tickle).

As with anything, it's down to the person using it.

Not whipped. Touched with (like an extension of the arm) or used in a way that the horse thinks he has to lift his leg over an obstacle (that isn’t really there). Should be an extension of the arm or leg. That can be used to touch the body where the heel might when someone isn’t actually riding it etc.

She's an absolute prick and I hope she is banned from competing forever and from keeping horses

My DSis is a high level dressage rider. She thinks Dujardin should be banned for life. It is perfectly possible to teach a horse the moves without pain or cruelty, it just takes patience and hard work. If the horse doesn't get it, they aren't a dressage horse so you stop. End of.

This.

I know next to nothing about horses but even I know that it's wrong to whip a horse in the way she is said to have done, or any animal for that matter.

On a previous horse cruelty thread I was astonished at how widespread cruelty is in the horse fraternity - this was reported by rural members and horse owners, not city-dwellers who might be ill-informed or have an axe to grind.

@pointythings exactly -

Horse racing is a multi billion pound betting industry, no need to let animal cruelty to get in the way of making money is there.

Heard on Radio5 Live this morning that the video is about four years old and that it has been made public now by a Dutch lawyer. Why wait until now? The timing is very suspect, just a few days before the Olympics. I think it is an attempt to sabotage UK equestrian team's chances.

I find it very difficult to believe that horses are not whipped regularly in training whether that be for racing or dressage. The trained response to run faster or perform steps based on a command seems to indicate a fear response which can only logically have come from physical abuse.

Thats rather irrelevant.

I don't think the motive for releasing the video makes any difference to her guilt or otherwise.

Dont think you can train horses in dressage by gentle verbal persuation.

So does not surprise me and doubt she is the only one.

The videographer is clearly not a horse lover else they would have released it earlier to stop it happening sooner.

In the main, they aren't touching the horse. The swish noise made just by moving it will spur a horse on ("it's a noise, I am only half a ton of animal, it might be bigger than me..")

they are not being whipped
Get your facts straight

Why her - because she did it.
Why now - because the person who'd felt scared to come forward finally realised they were brave enough to do so (in part because other countries have faced the same issue and taken action).

Then let's talk about the mistreatment of many other animals as I mentioned in a previous post
You haven't answered that have you?