Honestly I’ve watched it a few times. I’m not saying any of it looks good. But there are only 2-3 that I’d take her to task over when she showed force born out of frustration. The rest was flicking the long lunge whip across his heels to get him to pick his hind legs up higher. Probably just irritating rather than painful.
The media were always going to jump all over it and is already being misreported. She quit all forms of competition with immediate effect in her statement and yet it’s being claimed that she was thrown out.
I’m not defending her at all. But what she’s done and the over reaction by the media is way out of proportion. Because actually the amount of pain inflicted on the horse is probably no different to what a jockey hands out on a daily basis. However you dress it up, it’s an animal being made to do something for our benefit.
And on the video, the person taking it (who presumably leaked it FOUR years later to the convenience of the GB dressage opponents) is actually heard laughing in the background so they were clearly concerned for the horses welfare at the time. If this isn’t a deliberate act of timed malice...wasn’t the lawyer Dutch so possibly the complainant is and aren’t the main rivals to the GB dressage team the Dutch?