The Charlotte Dujardin video has exposed the dark side of dressage

A clip of the Olympian whipping a horse threatens to undo a lifetime of achievement, but it’s not the first equestrian welfare controversy

The footage makes for grim viewing. A young woman is riding a horse around the edge of a practice arena. Standing on the floor nearby, a blonde woman holds a long whip. It’s a lunge whip, used to encourage a horse with its presence but not to hit it. She uses it to strike the horse, which pushes itself against the edge of the arena and jostles its legs to get out of the way. The woman whips it again, and again, again, over 20 times in total. You can hear the whip crack. Watch it and wince.
It would be shocking behaviour from anyone, so it is jaw-dropping that the woman holding the whip is Britain’s joint-most decorated female Olympian, Charlotte Dujardin. The short clip threatens to undo a lifetime of sporting excellence. Hours before it was released, the 39-year-old issued a statement announcing that she would not be competing at the Paris Olympics, which begin this weekend. 
“A video has emerged from four years ago which shows me making an error of judgment during a coaching session,” she said. “Understandably, the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) is investigating and I have made the decision to withdraw from all competition – including the Paris Olympics – while this process takes place.
“What happened was completely out of character and does not reflect how I train my horses or coach my pupils, however there is no excuse,” she added. “I am deeply ashamed and should have set a better example in that moment. I am sincerely sorry for my actions and devastated that I have let everyone down.”  
Dujardin had been hoping to win a medal and supersede the cyclist Laura Kenny to become Britain’s outright greatest female Olympian. Instead, her career is in ruins. Social media erupted with calls not only for Dujardin to be banned from competing, but for the whole sport to be reconsidered, perhaps even cancelled. Jason Brautigam, the chief executive of British Dressage, said his organisation took “a zero-tolerance approach to any breach of our equine welfare policies”, adding that “these historic allegations are deeply upsetting for everyone involved in our sport, but we fully support the FEI investigation and will take any appropriate disciplinary action when this process is complete.”
UK Sport responded saying that they had suspended Dujardin’s lottery funding, while Whitehall sources told The Guardian that a damehood, which she would have been in line for, was off the table. 
Having previously shown a seemingly telepathic relationship with her mounts, the footage makes us wonder whether perhaps she just beat the horses into submission. To critics, the video is a reminder of the price animals pay for our entertainment. She claims it was out of character, but her whip hand seems practised. Stephan Wensing, the Dutch lawyer representing the whistleblower, said it was typical of her methods.
No sooner had the footage been aired than the timing was questioned. If the footage was four years old, why wait until four days before the Olympic Games to release it? Wensing said the leaker was remaining anonymous to protect themselves from possible backlash from Dujardin’s fans, but the timing remains suspicious. There had been no inkling that this was coming. 
Interviewed outside the couple’s home in Gloucestershire last night, Dujardin’s fiancée, Dean Wyatt Golding, said the video had “come out of the blue”. There were even rumours of a plot to unsettle the GB team, or that this might possibly be part of a simmering rivalry between British and Dutch teams going all the way to London 2012.
“It’s obviously the wrong way to train, but there’s clearly a vendetta right now with the timing,” says another top rider. “If [the student] was concerned about their horse at the time they should have stopped it and not waited until now to show it.” They add that few riders would go on the record to discuss their colleague, for fear of their own techniques being exposed .
“A lot of riders won’t say a word as they probably know there are videos like that, if not worse, of them. Everyone trains piaffe [a dressage movement] with a whip.” 
Their comments speak to the gulf the incident has revealed between the world of equestrianism, where training techniques are better understood, and the average fan, who turns on the TV once every four years to marvel at the mastery on display at the Olympics. 
Derived from a military technique used to keep cavalry warmed up before a charge, the piaffe involves the horse trotting on the spot. Those inside the field say that while uncommon, the whip is not unknown, especially for the piaffe, one of the sport’s most complicated manoeuvres. 
“Everyone would like to think training methods like that are not regularly employed,” says Tania Grantham, a Grand Prix rider, trainer, author and host of the Poles, Piaffe and Prosecco podcast. “But in any sport, there are things that go on behind closed doors that you don’t know about. The whole ethos behind horse training is supposed to be about working with the horse kindly. 
“But training horses is a bit like training a dog: it works on pressure, release and reward. If you want your dog to sit, you might push down on them a bit. You’re not hitting them, but you are applying pressure. It’s the same with horses: there’s appropriate pressure and inappropriate pressure. Unfortunately, in that video clip, it is quite clear to see it is inappropriate pressure.”
According to the British Dressage website, the practice has its origins in Ancient Greece, and Xenophon’s manual on horsemanship, but it wasn’t until the 19th century that dressage became a sport. 
Competitors must complete a series of artistic manoeuvres on horseback, often set to music. Riders have competed at the Olympics since the 1912 Games in Stockholm. Traditionally the rankings have been dominated by Northern Europe, particularly Britain and Germany, and also the US. Its prohibitive cost – a top horse can be anything up to £200,000 – mean dressage, like equestrianism more generally, has been associated in the public eye with aristocrats, royals and celebrities.
Princess Anne competed at the 1976 Olympics in the equestrian three-day event, while Michael Owen’s daughter, Gemma, has represented Wales at senior level. In this rarefied, Jilly Cooper-ish world, Dujardin stood out, a state-school girl who emerged as one of the brightest talents of her generation. She won two golds at London 2012 and a third in Tokyo, among six medals in total.
The whipping story is all the more surprising because Dujardin is thought of as a role model trainer and competitor. With a lighter tournament schedule than other disciplines, many dressage competitors are coaches, too. 
“There’s an absolute shock, because Charlotte has been such a well-regarded rider for a long time,” says Lucy Higginson, former editor of Horse & Hound magazine. “Everybody’s worst fear is that this really damages the long-term credibility of the sport. It’s a dire example and a big mistake from someone who ought to know better. A lot of people have their jaws on the floor watching it, because this is a tiny minority of issues tarnishing an entire sport that does an enormous amount of good.” 
This is hardly the first controversy over horse welfare in equestrianism. A decade ago, the FEI banned a controversial technique called Rollkur, in which the horse’s head is pulled down hard by the reins. At the Tokyo Olympics, modern pentathlon coach Kim Raisner was suspended for punching a horse. As a result, Paris will be the last Olympic games in which showjumping is part of the event. Two years ago, Sir Mark Todd apologised after a video surfaced showing him beating a horse with a branch. Earlier this year, videos surfaced of the American dressage rider Cesar Parra whipping and kicking horses. This latest debate is ammunition to a growing and vocal group who believe that horses are not safe in a sporting context.
In a statement, the RSPCA said: “This video is difficult to watch and we don’t condone any kind of training that causes distress to animals, including the use of a whip in any way which inflicts pain and distress.
“Animals – including those used in sport – must always be treated with kindness and respect, and their welfare should be the highest priority.” 
“It’s a deeply tragic day for the whole sport,” says Roly Owers, chief executive of World Horse Welfare. “It’s very distressing to see that video. It’s completely unacceptable in the way we train horses in this day and age. It’s very sad. People recognise that we need the trust of the public that when we involve horses in sport we do it in an ethical manner. It means treating the horses with respect. There’s an increasing expectation of that, but this case has fallen far, far below that standard.” 
As the FEI continues with its investigation, the fallout from the Dujardin case is only just beginning. It seems certain to cast a pall over these Olympics and beyond. If the timing of the video was calculated to cause maximum damage to British medal hopes, its effects will be felt throughout the sport. 
Late on Wednesday, Wensing said that his client had released the whipping video not as part of some Dutch plot, but rather to “save dressage”. To judge by the pessimism echoing around the equestrian world, they may have doomed it instead.