Equestrian scandal leaves niche sport flat-footed in addressing it at Olympics
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VERSAILLES, France – The pack of British tabloid journalists were standing to the side, waiting for the writers from publications like Horse & Hound or The Chronicle of the Horse to finish getting the rundown of how JL Dublin – or "Dubs," as rider Tom McEwen calls him – performed in his first Olympic dressage test.
The reporters had little use for this conversation, some of them even silently making faces to each other, mocking the softness of the questions. They were merely biding their time until McEwen, part of Great Britain's gold medal-winning team in Tokyo, took two steps to his left so that they could get what they came for.
Tom, congratulations on your performance today. For those of us that don’t watch the sport every week, can you reassure us that what we see out there – the beauty of it – is matched behind the scenes?
Of all the scenes that unfolded Saturday at the equestrian complex they have built here just beyond the famous gardens of Versailles Palace, this one was the most instructive about the moment this sport finds itself in.
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Unlike Thoroughbred racing, which was once among the biggest sports in America but now has to fight tooth-and-nail for its survival amidst an avalanche of cynicism about how horses are treated, eventing was never really meant for large-scale audiences.
It is really more of a hobby than a sport – a niche within a niche – and those who participate in it or follow it regularly only do so because they really love horses.
Which is what makes the cascading scandal that ensnared Britain’s six-time Olympic medalist Charlotte Dujardin so hard to process – and why people involved in the post are so flat-footed in addressing it.
They’ve never really had to defend what they do and how they do it to the outside world. But now at the 2024 Paris Olympics, after a 2-year old video surfaced of Dujardin using a long whip during a teaching session as a frightened horse tried to run away from getting lashed, the outside world has arrived and they’re not quite sure what to do about it.
"I would invite every single one of you to come round and have a look at the yard, an hour, a week, a day, whatever it took – and you can see actually what you see, the beauty of here is what happens every single day at home," McEwen said. "These horses are looked after as kings and queens. Obviously it’s come as a massive shock to all of us what’s come to light. But actually I think it’s really important for the rest of us to put a shining light on our amazing sport."
There’s little doubt McEwen believes this; believes in the good of the sport, believes that Dujardin’s videotaped transgression was a one-off rather than a systemic problem. But there’s just one major problem that dressage will probably learn the hard way, much like horse racing over the last decade.
You can talk about how well the horses are treated all day long. You can blame the media for focusing on the outliers rather than the bigger picture. You can tell the people with no skin in the game that they don’t really understand.
It doesn’t matter.
When cynicism takes hold about how human beings treat animals in pursuit of money or Olympic medals, good luck trying to change the narrative. We’ve seen it in horse racing every time there’s a catastrophic breakdown on national television: Just because it’s part of the game does not mean it will be acceptable to the public.
And once that cycle of denial and bargaining begins while more horrors come to light – rare as they may be − it only leads to one place: Reputational ruin that might take generations to recover.
"I live off the sport," said Germany’s Julia Krajewski, who won the individual eventing gold in Tokyo. "I’m a coach, I bring up young people, and I try in whatever we do to put the horse first. You have to work every day, give everything, want to go for everything − but you have to give absolutely no care for the medal if you feel that it’s too much for the horse. That’s different from other sports where you can push yourself to the limit. We have to say we push ourselves, but we’d never push the horse. I think we all want to show the world that it’s possible. But we all have to do it together."
It's an uncomfortable thing to talk about here, especially in light of Dujardin’s prominence. But avoiding the conversation isn’t the answer.
It starts with honesty: Is this happening? How widespread is the problem? What actually goes on in the stable when nobody’s watching? How often do you hear about the kinds of horrifying incidents that are now popping up with semi-regularity around equestrian eventing?
But it’s not a conversation a lot of people here want to have. To McEwen’s credit, he as willing to stand in front of reporters and engage – at least until the press agent for Great Britain’s team stepped in.
"We are here 110% behind horse welfare, and these horses are looked after incredibly," he said. "I definitely don’t condone at all Charlotte’s behavior, but she has put her hand up to it and she’s owned it and realistically it’s not really for me to say. It’s for the course, the process and the people to decide what punishment she should be getting for her actions and she’s a human being as well so we have to respect her rights as well.
"I think that’s enough on that," the press agent said. "I think that’s enough on that now. Any more questions on the test today?"
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No, there weren’t. Because in the big picture, the test for McEwen and JL Dublin doesn’t really matter. If things keep going the way they’re going – three major, big-deal figures in dressage over the last eight months have now been suspended due to videos of horse abuse being turned in – there may not be many more Olympics left for these people.
"We just have to keep doing a good job by our horses and showing that we look after them well and that they enjoy their job," said American Liz Halliday, who made her Olympic debut Saturday. "I think that’s what the public needs to know, and I try and push that on my own social media, that these horses that don’t do it unless they love it. There’s no horse here that will go out of that start box unless they love it. It just simply doesn’t happen."
Sorry, but that’s not going to be good enough. Horse racing trotted out the same lines for years, and it didn’t make a dent of difference. Now, instead of reveling in the beauty of the sport, too many people have to hold their breath every time that 20-horse field goes around the first turn on Derby Day worrying that something catastrophic might happen.
Horse racing can hang on and limp along because it still makes a lot of money for a lot of people. Equestrian, by comparison, is an eminently replaceable sport that would do well to understand how few people would miss it if it went away from the Olympics. That's how thin the margin is.
They need to figure out a way to talk about this mushrooming problem. They need to figure out how to root out and severely punish anyone who hurts animals so that the public can have the same confidence these elite competitors do in the value of their competition. They need to stop the abuse. And they need to do it now.