According to the complaint, the event happened during a training session at a private facility, where Olympic gold medalist Charlotte Dujardin said to the student: ‘Your horse must lift up the legs more in the canter.’ She took the long whip and beat the horse more than 24 times in one minute. 'It was like an elephant in the circus.'
MIKE HEUER: A video of an English horsewoman beating a horse while training it four years ago has spurred PETA senior vice president Kathy Guillermo to demand the Olympics end equestrian competitions.
“The message to the International Olympic Committee should be clear by now: Remove equestrian events from the Olympic Games,” Guillermo said in an online statement Tuesday.
“Yet again, an Olympic rider has been caught on video abusing a horse to force the animal to behave in an entirely unnatural way, simply for her own glory,” Guillermo said. “Horses don’t volunteer — they can only submit to violence and coercion,” Guillermo said. “It’s time for the Olympics to move into the modern era.”
The rider in the video is Charlotte Dujardin, who was a member of the British Olympic equestrian team. The video footage shows Dujardin whipping a horse on its legs while someone else rides it… The International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) investigated the video and suspended Dujardin from its competitions for six months…
The FEI said it received a video “depicting Ms. Dujardin engaging in conduct contrary to the principles of horse welfare.” A lawyer representing the unidentified 19-year old complainant sent the video to the FEI and told The Guardian that the incident took place several years ago during a training session at a private facility.
“Charlotte Dujardin was in the middle of the arena,” the attorney, Stephan Wensing, told the UK-based publication. “She said to the student: ‘Your horse must lift up the legs more in the canter.’ She took the long whip and she was beating the horse more than 24 times in one minute. It was like an elephant in the circus”. SOURCE…
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