Charlotte Dujardin

She's (reportedly) already been outed from the Olympic Games, dropped by the (horse-centric!) charity she supported, and likely won't be allowed near a horse again that she doesn't actually own. I doubt if she has marketing/advertising contracts, but no doubt they'll be gone, too, if she has.
 
I note that she has apologised “for an error of judgement”- not for cruelty, which seems rather more appropriate when you watch the video of her whipping the poor horse’s legs over 20 times. She’s a disgrace, unfortunately I doubt she’s alone.
 
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?
 
It does highlight how horses are trained to win. I had learned that some trainers added spikes to the fences to their training to make sure the horses skipped fences.
 
Oh there are plenty of unpleasant practices within the Equine world that would appall if made public.

In the old day’s hedgehog skins were placed prickle side down under bandages when a horse was jumping so if it hit a fence it would soon pick its legs up. And rapping was common place (lifting the pole as the horse jumps to rap the leg). Horses would also be tied with very short reins to get them to develop muscles in the “right” place and left to stand for hours.

I’m sure many things of a similar nature do still go on in various places in every discipline though.
 
Interestingly, the replacement has also been known to use similar training techniques - the only difference being that she’s never been filmed doing it.
Look at how you teach piaffe - to make the horse pick its legs up, you “tap” its legs with a stick - I’d rather have the lunge whip coming at me than a schooling whip, that’s for sure.
I’m not a fan of top level dressage at the best of times ( I think they ask way too much from young horses, same with showjumping) but this isn’t a good look at all.

I do, however, feel that if this opens up the entire equine world to scrutiny of training practices it could be a good thing - there’s far worse going on in the horse world than what charlotte did in that video.
 
I suppose that it’s far quicker to get a horse to do something by making it frightened of being hurt than by gradually instilling an understanding of what to do. Stick vs carrot.

For me, it’s carrot all the way - naive or not.
 
jinnyj said:
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?
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The horse was heavily bandaged; I assume dressage horses are bandaged because dressage puts a lot of strain on their tendons ( at least that’s what I was once told). I don’t know if I’m just in denial because I was so looking forward to seeing them perform but I just feel it smacks of jealousy or spite or something that PETA would be involved with. I feel sorry for the horse who has been trained to the minute for this.
 
Trouble is, depending what she was trying to achieve within that section of the lesson - it’s not always as simple as carrot vs stick. I’d quite like to see the rest of that lesson to see what else went on before and after.

The other thing I am interested in ( since googling to double check I’m thinking of the right movement before I posted anything yesterday !) is why you don’t see anything about how to teach piaffe while on top of the horse - videos all over showing it in hand ( with some interesting commentary about the sticks used) but nowhere does it show you how to go from in had to ridden….
 
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edgt said:
We live in an era when a "first responder " is the one who gets their camera phone recording first; their primary objective is questionable at best.
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Does it matter, if it outs behaviour like this?
Alice Plunkett called it for what it was. Incredibly shocking what we saw with the methods used, and hugely damaging.

The statement Dujardin put out with her error of judgement was laughable.
 
In no way do I condone how Charlotte Dujardin in the words of the gutter press “abused” her horse but they are not called gutter press without reason.
However there are some questions that need to be asked:
1 It is reported that the rider of the horse was one of the videographer's children ! So in the intervening 4 years did the child ride any horses trained by CD ?
2 Why did it take 4 years to leak coincidentally the week before the Olympic Games.
3 Why was it brought to public attention by someone from Holland (who are probably now favourites to take the Gold Medal)………were they paid for the footage ?
4 Why has the videographer not been named ? Are they ashamed of what they have started ?
 
And also it’s been leaked by a Dutch lawyer and anyone shocked by this should google Rollkhur methods which the Dutch openly used as a method of training dressage horses.
 
How many 'trainers' are actually innocent of any 'wrongful' means of getting the most out of their charges in any sport?

The idea of never crossing any lines is entirely utopian and unrealistic.

That is not to condone anything any trainer has done but 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone' in my opinion.

Some of the methods my parents used on me would see them jailed nowadays. I grew up watching families who had dogs beat the shit out of their 'pets' in order to 'train' them to be obedient.

Ted Walsh once said on TV he'd want to see his jockey 'tear rashers off' his horse in order to win a race.

There's no doubt some calculated malice in this situation but, as Andy Garcia's character Terry Benedict in Oceans Eleven put it, 'in my hotel there's always somebody watching'.
 
I would wager a tidy amount that many others involved in Equestrianism are currently s&#t@£# themselves that CD does not reveal how many others use the same practice…….or worse 🙈 but one thing is for sure is that “gutter press” are certainly digging 😉
 
A horse has been eliminated from dressage at Olympics because it has blood in its mouth ………..reports suggest that it had bitten its tongue 🙈🙈🙈🙈
 
That’s a standard rule - no matter what the reason, no blood in their mouths or from the spurs, or basically anywhere - for whatever reason :)
 
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Well we managed a bronze in the Team and also a bronze for Lottie Fry in the Individual so well done her. However one place further ahead of Lottie in silver was Isabell Werth, Germany's most decorated Olympian. Who widely used Rollkhur in her training methods. It is a pretty barbaric way of training imo whereby you "train" the horse by pulling its head so tight into its chest to develop the muscles and create extreme hyperflexion. Can we really say this isn't worse than Charlotte? I do agree that on three or four of the "hits" Charlotte inflicted they were too harsh. But the rest were flicks and cracks from the lunge whip which sounded worse than they actually were. The horse actually only reacted once in a "Eff off" way. And probably wasn't emotionally affected as the Wokerati would have you believe. But Rollkhur can do significant physical damaage long term to a horse and yet Isabell is warmly welcomed to the Olympics.

And to all those equestrians who have come out so publicly condemning Charlotte - you'd better hope there are no videos sitting on someone's phone showing you slapping a horse (we have all done it) and then leaking it to the public domain.
 
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