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.

Maybe they are sick of reading your posts

I tried to watch the dressage on Discovery plus yesterday but was quite disgusted by the commentator (female) who seemed to be defending CD. I had to stop watching as although there were a couple of nice tests when some of the better tests came through I couldn't help but wonder how they got the results. A few of the horses head carriages looked very uncomfortable & behind the vertical.

I think the damage CD has done to the sport is huge after doing so much good to the sport before hand but, on the other hand, if it brings more riders & training methods under scrutiny it can only be a good thing

Agree, really unprofessional. Also very disrespectful to be discussing it through the Venezuelan horse and rider's test.

No need for rudeness please.

This thread is primarily about horse welfare.

The CJD debacle is bad enough without us falling out between ourselves.

DizzyBumble same here.

I enjoyed the eventing x country but swerved nearly all of the dressage this time except for end of Ros Canter’s test.

Too upsetting. And I say that as a supporter of dressage in particular and horse sports in general.

I take my hat off to the British equestrian teams for carrying on with such professionalism though in the light of all this controversy. Not that they had much choice but it can’t been at all easy!

Japan were amazing weren’t they?

Wendycoping a pp down thread provided a sample email and I suggested a format.

But I think we came to the conclusion that so many people hold different views on this thread about how to move forward; some want to ban horse sports or riding altogether and others support dressage but want a thorough reset … that we were all going to write individual emails which represent our own views.

It’s harvest time where I am so I haven’t written mine yet but it’s top of my to do list for this week.

I didn’t. Must look for it.

We definitely need to hear more from prominent dressage riders and prominent individuals within the governing bodies now.

This is the Sun's version but these quotes are elsewhere too.
""While we do not condone her behaviour, we must remember that there is also a human element to this – and, regardless of what has happened, she still deserves our understanding.
"Please be kind and bear in mind that we have a duty of care in our interactions with one another."

the head of the sporting body declared the complainant's grievance as "somewhat disingenuous".
He said: "I do find claims that this was done to 'save dressage' somewhat disingenuous, given that it was timed to cause maximum damage to our sport."

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/29486455/charlotte-dujardin-horse-whipping-timed-cause-maximum-damage/

@Freakwave897 yes - Japan were awesome getting their first medal was brilliant. I'm also a big eventing fan but found the eventing dressage to be fine to watch, much more natural

"think the problem with competitive dressage is that riders can feel so much pressure from owners, sponsors and trainers to get results quickly, And kinder, more horse-centred training techniques, take much longer and are more costly as a result."

That's true. One of the old Reiner Klimke clips I watched recently- it was post Ahlerich- he said something like "oh well maybe now it's time for me to go away into the background and other people will come forward and win. And maybe in the future I will find another horse who I can come back to the Olympic Games with". He seemed to calmly and cheerfully accept that he wouldn't have a neverending production line of top horses and was content to wait until he had one who could handle the top level.

As one of the few cruel people who has watched any of the actual dressage:

• I haven’t watched all of it by any means, but pleased to see lots of self-carriage, no prolonged tension or “squashed” frames. Those who hark back to a golden age of dressage should maybe watch as I don’t remember a time in the last 30 years that this was so universally the case.
• For all the “ear covers are cruel and stop horses moving their ears” - if you’d watched you’d also have seen they absolutely don’t.
• @DizzyBumble what do you find more “natural” about eventing dressage? Why is “natural” the welfare standard you aspire to? Riding horses is ancient but not “natural”. In that context, surely we want what is best for the horse in that context? Please point me to the evidence-based studies that show that natural - whatever that means - is best (not that I agree that the eventing dressage looks more natural - just more like it is being done by horses that are physiologically suited to doing that job. But what does natural mean anyway?)
• @godmum56 it is entirely possible both that CDJ has behaved appallingly and that the whistleblower was disingenuous in saying they released the video when they did to save the sport. If the latter is true it in no way minimises what was done by CDJ. Might alter people’s view of the whistleblower but that’s a sideshow and not the key issue (and not one I care about).
• @Freakwave897 not watching to me seems a bit like saying “I no longer see any of my friends who have children because I went for lunch with one friend and she smacked her son for dropping food on the floor. I can’t know if any of my other friends are also doing it behind closed doors so I’ll cut ties with all of them”. I think generally horse welfare is on a generally upward trajectory - but there are exceptions, CDJ being one. We cannot eliminate the risk of abuse entirely unless we ban riding and keeping horses. That seems an extreme reaction.
• I would take evidence-based convincing that any one horse sport is inherently crueler than another. Dressage puts more wear and tear on the hocks. Eventing greater chance of catastrophic, incompatible with life injury. Showjumping? I’m not sure - one I know the least about. Cruel, desperate “win at all costs” people unlikely to be more attracted to one than another, I would have thought.

@HornungTheHelpful I didn't watch any of the Olympics so far, not for any other reason than being very busy. i do agree with your points. My thing about the Brautigam response is that he is the spokesperson for the DA and was faced with irrefutable evidence of cruelty from one of the most well known members. In those circs, what do you do? Well I will tell you what you don't do if you want to look like someone the public can trust to deal with the situation. You don't start off by impugning the motives of the whistleblower and you don't talk about duty of care and kindness to the person filmed beating a horse. No you don't have to get out the pitchforks and scream "burn the witch" but you do nothing to make the general public think you are defending her. Social Licence to Operate and all that.

if anyone is interested in horse welfare trotters being ragged up the road carrying travellers would be a good place to start along with the ragwort filled places the majority seem to occupy

*HornungTheHelpful *

I agree with so much of what you say; especially points three and four and really great to read point one! Also, agree with point five and think there are issues in show-jumping too.

I am not sure that the parenting analogy works though because it is not a close knit elite sport, involving millions of pounds of sponsorship - last time I looked anyway 😄 - maybe it is on Instagram nowadays with people exploiting their dc?

To continue the comparison, when my dc were young, my mum friends and I were in and out of each others homes, putting things in the fridge, going upstairs to use their bathroom, putting babies to nap in bedrooms. It was all open and transparent. It was not a closed world involving NDAs.

I didn’t watch the dressage because I couldn’t stop myself wondering who knew or didn’t know. That’s different to condemning them
all.

To put it bluntly, I now have much stronger doubts than before and want to know how widespread this is.

I am sure that many of the top dressage riders are in the clear but those of us who follow dressage know how inter-connected that world is. There are too many incidents coming to light right now to not at least question some complicity over this.

And sorry but the way that so many prominent riders have gone to ground doesn’t exactly inspire confidence!

I also didn’t watch it I because I felt such crushing disappointment about CDJ’s actions. It took the shine off the whole event for me. That doesn’t mean that I don’t support dressage as a sport but I think the framework of it needs to change radically.

Some prominent rider or someone prominent in the governing body needs to speak up now. And a thorough review needs to be instigated at all levels before more horses are hurt, not in six months time!

yes If I was one (or hopefully more) of the non abusing riders I'd be reacting with a "Not In MY Name" type campaign. I'd be kicking off my own "open house" visiting scheme. I'd be doing my best to put clear blue water between myself and the abusers and their complicit sponsors. I'd be talking about Social Licence sponsorship..and yes, I'd be seeking to join together with other people in equine sports.

@Freakwave897 fair enough - not my experience of parenthood - so to me not dissimilar, but I take your point. I would say that even at the elite level there appear to be "silos" - so I don't think it is the case that every elite rider will be intimate with every others training method. Being far from elite myself, I could well be wrong 🤣
@godmum56 and they may well do that. But maybe a bit unfair to expect that to have happened already when many are competing at what they may regard to be the most important competition of their careers.

True, but surely they aren't all there?

@godmum56 very true. But initiating that sort of campaign probably isn't the work of nine days - which shockingly is all the time that has passed since CDJ withdrew.

I'm sure they won't all (maybe none will) but hopefully we will see some real change - at least in transparency. I work in an industry where we are heavily regulated and transparency has been a watchword for about a decade now. It's expensive and time-consuming but I think it improves standards.

I really disagree with pointing out traveller behaviour individually as where we should start on welfare. How is it acceptable to stereotype a whole community. In my life I have watched 3 riders in person in the school training who were head an shoulders above all others I have seen in decades of experience. Not in clinics of anything just at home. They demonstrated an ability and sensitivity that has stayed with me for life. One was a past Olympian, one was a rider for a national showjumping family and one was a traveller man starting a young welsh pony. Travellers have given us an amazing and very valued breed. Last summer near my house they tethered their happy horses by our quiet roads with fly masks on looking much better than most of the under exercised leisure horses I see including mine. Also they are not the golden child of British riding so it isn't exactly the same thing. With great power comes great responsibility.

While some travellers may mistreat their horses, many don’t. They don’t treat them how I treat my horse but then Id be called a pony patter and it doesn’t mean either of us is wrong.

I think the real point is that you could step into almost any riding school and see children and beginners kicking and hitting horses to make them go. Attend any show and see children yanking their pony’s back teeth out and “pony club kicking”, sometimes kicking with spurs. Grossly overweight show horses. Horses with unnecessarily harsh tack on. If you can’t control your horse you just stick a harsher bit in its mouth instead of training it more before you out it in those situations.

Theres cruelty everywhere you look so while it’s wrong to single out travellers, it is visible at every single level of horse riding from beginners who don’t know any better, to GP dressage riders who definitely should

Milestone Equestrian's montage of photos on FB of the high scoring horses and riders was interesting. Nothing changes.

just been and looked. Sad, very sad.

@godmum56
Same.
It's a cess pit.

Do the FEI judge the Olympics? I genuinely don't know.

@@HornungTheHelpful- natural as in they clearly don't use methods such as Rollkur

I don't believe anyone has said you are cruel for watching it, seems a nerve has been hit somewhere