Is it true about Charlotte Dujardin withdrawing from the Olympics?

[Freakwave897]

Or is it fake news?

It’s so disappointing if true…

I am a huge fan and can’t quite believe what I am hearing.

👏👏👏

Great that more abusive practices will be called out. Good luck 👍

The video is out there. She had a lunge whip and was whipping the horses back legs. You could hear the whip noise. It wasn't tapping. The horse was getting distressed, bucking and kicking out at it and trying to turn its back end away and she carried on. Apparently to make it pick its legs up more in the canter.
It was absolutely unnecessary and unacceptable. I've ridden horses all my life and mainly dressage. I've been trained to train horses how to do Grand Prix moves: passage, piaffe etc. Neither myself or the trainer ever had or used a whip. It isn't needed if you train correctly. It may not be as quick as some would like it but the horse is happy and willing to learn.

Does it matter what the motivation is if it exposes animal abuse?

Report them to The British Horse Society

To me? No.

To the many, many people bickering about the timing of the complaint, apparently so.

I am increasingly disgusted by a subset of my fellow equestrians. From fixating on the timing of this, to now banging on about “#bekind” to sweep the situation under the carpet, the apologists have been out in force.

It’s inexcusable behaviour - but it’s not isolated, from CDJ, or in equestrian sport in general. We need a complete re-think of how (and whether) horses are used in sport going forward.

This isn’t about one person’s crappy behaviour any more. It has to go so much further.

WELL well well.

Mark Todd this time. People were laughing in this as well {longer video}

Following on from my original comment, I have now seen the video, she should be prosecuted, her behaviour is disgusting.

yeah thats old. Git.

Horse abuse seems so ingrained. It's depressing.

Has the SJer who’s been accused of rapping horses today been mentioned upthread? Or Vittoria Pannizon’s unexplained 4 year suspension? The photos of hyperflexed event horses in the arena at Versailles that a high profile stud put up on their Facebook account today?

There is so much shit going down right now, and we absolutely deserve it…

You have to keep shoving the rock. Eventually it rolls. No one thought dog tail docking would be banned but it has been.

The video is absolutely abhorrent. What she does to that poor horse as the person filming it laughs. Despicable woman who I’m sure many would like to see whipped the hell out of. I know I would love to see her get a taste of her own medicine. What a pathetic creature she is.

That is a very good point.

Bearing reins, too, back in the day.

Edward Fordham Flower railed tirelessly against the use of the bearing rein in carriage horses - It was he who gave Anna Sewell the impetus to use ''Poor Ginger'' to speak out about the bearing rein in her 'Black Beauty' book.

How dare she position herself as an ambassador to a horse welfare charity whilst abusing that poor horse.

I’m so glad they’ve got rid. They must be feeling so betrayed right now.

https://www.thebrooke.org/news/charlotte-dujardin-no-longer-brooke-ambassador

The casual abuse (very clearly not a one-off) in the CDJ video is absolutely horrendous but as we‘ve seen from other cases in the past, she‘s far from the only one.
I‘m in Germany and have a friend who rides at a high level and is fairly well-connected in German dressage circles. Let‘s just say that there are other big names who are rumoured to not treat their horses as well as you would hope. While I‘m not at all suggesting wrongdoing comparable to the CDJ video, my friend says she wouldn‘t want Isabell Werth and her training methods anywhere near her horses.
On a positive note, I‘ve never heard a single bad word about Ingrid Klimke. An acquaintance has had lessons with her and won‘t stop going on about how lovely she is.

I've already said this, but after an entire life of horses and showing, we (as a whole family) have been becoming more and more disillusioned with the horse community and competition, especially over the last five years or so. There are far too many issues to bring up here (far too boring and long) but witnessing cruelty and poor treatment has been a big part of it, particularly at competition. Far too many people compete for the result NOT because they love their horse or pony. The horses are seen as a red rosette machine, not a living, breathing, thinking animal. I've seen one family traipse (over one bank holiday weekend) from one end of the country to the other for qualifiers, meaning the ponies were stood on a box for hours on end. They do this every single weekend without fail. I went to a breed show a few years back on a hot day and saw multiple ponies tied to the box in full sun with no water, no shade. Reported to the secretary who did an announcement, but still, who the fuck does that?! There's so many more stories, but it's become depressing telling them and I've lost count of the amount of times I've complained about various things. The RSPCA are beyond useless, show societies are rarely interested or don't act. Depressing. Sadly, I wasn't even surprised when this came out.

my friend says she wouldn‘t want Isabell Werth and her training methods anywhere near her horses.

Werth is the President of the International Dressage Riders Club and she also signed the same letter that Carl Hester has signed.

The RSPCA only deal with the worst cases of neglect. They are a charity and cannot monitor every little show. They won’t see anything wrong at big shows either. Mostly their work isn’t about well looked after horses who don’t have sympathetic owners. They are trying to eliminate owners who starve horses and don’t get ailments treated.

The RSPCA comment was actually not to do with shows (societies deal with those complaints) but due to a neglect case. I'd post the photos of what they deemed acceptable, but they are very outing.

Actually, I've managed to crop one right down to show just a bit. The rest is worse. I won't go into the background, but there was absolutely no reason for this horse to be in this condition. Not medical or age or poverty.

Make of that what you will. Like pp I find it hard to believe that Carl Hester knew nothing about Charlotte Dujardin‘s training methods. When Andreas Helgstrand was suspended, Isabell Werth also feigned surprise and said she had never witnessed anything untoward during her visits to his yard (she had also previously bought several horses from him). A bit embarrassing and quite unfortunate, really, that neither of them saw any of it coming. I wonder why that might be.

No dressage rider can compete now without being under a cloud of suspicion.

Well that's just silly.

Some parents are shit to their kids. Doesn't mean all are.

I'm really looking forward to the eventing and showjumping at the Olympics

Exactly.

Anyone who even thinks of minimising or defending this is complicit in the abuse of innocent horses. And a fuckwit.

@Wendycoping

Why is it 'just silly'. The President of the IDRC has condemned DuJardin as has Carl Hester. They are as complicit in the abuse of horses as she is. Is anyone watching dressage at the Olympics going to believe the riders are as pure as driven snow?