'I Can't Watch Anymore': The Case for Dropping Equestrian from the Olympic Games

Author’s Note

As this book was being sent off to print, news outlets worldwide reported that the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM) was set to drop the equestrian discipline from its programme. The ordeal suffered by the horse Saint Boy during the modern pentathlon equestrian event at the Tokyo Olympic Games, and the global outrage which followed, had sealed the deal. The UIPM could no longer afford to exploit horses as mere sports equipment if it wanted to survive as an Olympic sport. We were not able to wait for the final outcome, but whatever it is, the case of modern pentathlon has served to turn all eyes on the horses performing in the Olympics. The problems of welfare, fairness, and safety addressed in this book must be resolved, and the only way to do this now is to discontinue Equestrian from the Olympic Games.

Contents

Author’s Note

Preface

Chapter 1 Equestrian: a sport for all?

The myth of gender equality

Economic barriers to participation

More flags does not really mean more participation in equestrian events

Promoting grassroots take-up of equestrian sport?

Poverty-washing PR is demeaning and potentially harmful

Abuse of power in equestrian sport

Chapter 2 Animals in the Olympics are a liability, not an asset

Animal exploitation and the Olympic brand

No evidence horses want to compete

Chapter 3 Modern horse sport does not represent tradition

Traditional horsemanship and modern competition

Equestrian traditions and modern times

Chapter 4 Doping, cheating, and why equestrian sport can never be clean

The normalisation of drugs that enhance performance

Clean or corrupt, international horse sport and welfare don’t mix

Additional difficulties in avoiding prohibited substances in horses

Chapter 5 The stories of Anton and Never

Removal of the ban on de-nerved horses in competition

Implications of allowing de-nerved horses in competition

Chapter 6 Equestrian rules are unenforceable

A growing gap between rules and reality in dressage

Implications for fairness in judging

A welfare code incompatible with the reality of horse sport

Chapter 7 The impact of social media

The emergence of ‘rollkur’

YouTube and the impact of video

From ‘rollkur’ to ‘hyperflexion’ to ‘LDR’: plus ça change

Chapter 8 Equestrian sport and media repression

‘The riders don’t feel comfortable with the camera’

FEI World Reining Finals: well that was awkward

‘Take down that video!’

Intimidation of photographers at shows

Taking the fight to the courts

Chapter 9 The price of more flags is declining safety

Logistical barriers limit opportunities to qualify

Standards in Equestrian’s ‘new markets’ are still too low

Contrived universality may harm athlete safety and public opinion

Chapter 10 The equestrian fanbase is overstated

As the sport bleeds fans, the side-show becomes more and more undignified

Chapter 11 Equestrian will not meet modern standards. Will the IOC?

Fear of litigation limits officials’ ability to enforce the rules

Conflicting views among member countries

Equestrian may not meet modern legal codes

Public exposure of abuse will only increase

Over to you, IOC

About the Author

Bibliography

Preface

I am writing this for 102 people I have never met. You are the members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It is you who possess the power, and therefore the responsibility, to end the participation of horses in the Olympic Games by discontinuing all equestrian disciplines as well as modern pentathlon.

Why would the IOC do such a thing? It really makes more sense to ask, why not? The increasing cost of hosting the Olympic Games is always an issue, and equestrian events are expensive to host and don’t command a large audience. It is important to the future of the Games to include sports that appeal to a global, young audience, but despite efforts to make it more inclusive, Equestrian remains an elitist sport centred around wealthy people in Europe and North America. Income constraints and vital biosecurity measures prevent it from having any true potential for globality. Discontinuing Equestrian and modern pentathlon would free up eight events to include more relevant sports and disciplines at future Games.

The IOC is committed to ensuring the safety of athletes, and this is an important factor in maintaining public support. Equestrian is a dangerous sport, and some level of risk is accepted by all, but in recent years the efforts of the Fédération Équestre Internationale (FEI) to tailor its disciplines to conform to Olympic Agenda 2020 have seen riders and horses repeatedly endangered. A horse died in Tokyo from injuries sustained during competition, and others suffered predictable, preventable falls. Horses were seen bleeding and visibly distressed. Efforts to make Equestrian more accessible had led to some highly questionable qualification procedures, and young and inexperienced FEI riders were over-faced, humiliated and endangered on the altar of contrived universality. A modern pentathlon horse was flogged before the world. Seeing horses killed and riders over-faced is damaging to the public image and social license of the Olympic Games and is not something you should want to continue.

Clean sport and fair play are cornerstones of Olympism. As I will show, FEI horses necessarily run on drugs. So why aren’t there more doping scandals? In a gross parody of WADA’s Therapeutic Use Exemption rules, sick FEI horses can now compete on the same pain killers, sedatives and steroid hormones which cost Olympic medals and embarrassed the sport in the past. It would show true leadership and commitment to fair play for the IOC to vote to stop this charade from taking place in the name of the Olympic movement.

I have chosen to address the IOC in the form of an open letter, because the matter is very personal to me. It is personal to all of us who have been watching for decades while the values of the sport were abandoned, and its integrity eaten away. Former riders, coaches, veterinarians, officials, and most of all, former fans, now turn away in disgust and say or write the words: ‘I can’t watch anymore.’ You can read these words again and again in the comment threads on social media. Written by members of a rapidly growing demographic: former equestrian insiders transformed, by their horror at seeing what is allowed by the sport’s governing bodies, into informed and critical outsiders.

This letter is personal, but it is not just the private opinion of an individual lover of horses. I worked internationally as an equestrian journalist from 2005 to 2017. For most of those years, I worked closely with equine welfare and behaviour scientists to disseminate the latest evidence-based information about sustainable horse care. Much has changed for horses in recent years. Owners are more mindful of the needs of equines, and there is a growing trend internationally towards greater attention to the ethological needs of all domestic animals. Organisations that use animals to produce food or entertainment are increasingly obliged to improve animal welfare in order to maintain their social license, but at the elite, Olympic level, horse sport simply cannot conform to what are now understood to be the requirements of good horse care.

There was a time when I thought equestrian sport could get with the times and right its course. I thought the leaders of the FEI would make this happen, if only my colleagues and I showed them how badly the sport had strayed from its core values and how dire was the need to clean it up. Today, I know I was wrong. The FEI will never clean up equestrian sport because it is no longer possible to do so. All that is left for me to do is provide you with all the arguments you need to bring about its exit. Some of the documents I refer to have been removed from public access since I obtained them, but I have kept meticulous records, and all the evidence is available upon request.

All of the information in this book was already out in the world. What I have done is merely to compile, sort, and document what others and I have previously published. There is no way to ignore these facts or to wash one’s hands of them. Not in the long term. In the words of Maya Angelou, when you know better, you do better. I wrote this book to be certain the members of the IOC know better. Then it will be up to you whether you do better.

Chapter 1

Equestrian: a sport for all?

The promotion of equality, ‘sport for all’ and the spirit of fair play are part of the IOC mission, but the nature of Equestrian under the FEI falls far short of these ideals.

Part of the mission of the IOC is ‘to encourage and support the promotion and support of women in sport at all levels and in all structures with a view to implement the principle of equality of men and women’.¹ The FEI, too, markets itself to sponsors and the world in general as a leader in gender equality. One FEI promotion even claims ‘total gender equality’ in the sport.² This is because women have competed against men in Equestrian at the Olympic Games since 1952. It makes little sense to segregate events when the horses are the ones who supply the muscle power.

The myth of gender equality

However, slipping on a pair of riding boots does not—as advertised—cause patriarchal structures to melt away. If it were so, we should expect to see equestrian grassroots gender distribution reflected at the elite level. That isn’t the case. Whereas little boys are like hens’ teeth at the average equestrian centre or livery yard, male representation increases with the level of competition. In sports governance, 72 percent of National Equestrian Federation presidents and secretaries general are male.³ In Tokyo, the first Olympiad for which the IOC had achieved gender parity for athletes, I calculated that 35 percent of equestrians were female.

In dressage, the least popular of the three Olympic disciplines, women famously ‘dominate’. In equestrian terms, this means that right before the Tokyo Olympics, 12 of the 20 highest-ranked dressage riders in the world were women.⁴ In jumping, the most popular of the disciplines, 19 out of the 20 highest-ranking riders in the world at the same time were men.⁵ In eventing, which is more popular than dressage but less popular than jumping, fourteen of the twenty highest-ranking riders globally were men.⁶ In a sport where almost everyone at grassroots level is a woman or girl, that doesn’t look much like ‘total gender equality’.

Economic barriers to participation

Gender equality isn’t the only kind of equality. The IOC also aims to encourage and support ‘sport for all’; let us now examine how well the structures of the FEI accord with that goal. Equestrian has a reputation for being an elitist sport populated by minor royals and their Hooray Henry hangers-on, an image which is not entirely undeserved. It’s a sticky wicket for the FEI. On the one hand, the sport must be seen to be inclusive if it wants to remain relevant at the Olympic Games. On the other hand, its primary strength when selling to sponsors is its affluent fanbase. When national federations attend FEI briefings on how to market the sport to sponsors, they are advised to target luxury brands and to remind sponsors that equestrian fans tend to be rich and live in more affluent countries.

Dressage, jumping, and eventing are all capital-intensive events where success is inextricable, not just from the personal finances of each athlete, but also from the per-capita GDP of their country. Talented middle-class riders from affluent nations can do well at the Olympics aboard horses owned by syndicates or rich sponsors. In equestrian circles, this is often presented as proof that making it as an equestrian isn’t all about money. The message seems to be that in addition to being rich—or knowing someone who is—successful athletes must also be better riders than all the other rich people. However, there is no getting around the fact that money is a major factor. In this way, hopeful equestrians are far from equal, and everyone in the sport knows this and tries not to talk about it too much, because everyone also knows that the IOC would like to see more diversity in Olympic sports. In the world of horse sport, stories of white middle-class riders winning medals at the Olympic Games are billed as rags to riches fairy tales, which underpin the narrative that Equestrian is for everyone. This Eurocentric fantasy rests on a highly exclusive definition of ‘everyone.’

The comparative politics scholar Professor Danyel Reiche points out that 86.2 percent of Olympic Equestrian medals until and including 2016 had been taken by nations with a current per-capita GDP of above USD 20,000.⁷ These statistics become even more striking if you disregard outlier Olympics like London 1948, when riders had not had the best opportunity to prepare their horses because of WWII, and requirements were therefore eased. In addition to the reduced difficulty of the events, Germany was absent for obvious reasons. This led to unusual results. Many athletes also stayed away from Moscow 1980 in protest against the Soviet–Afghan war, again leaving others with increased chances of success.

The main beneficiary of the Moscow boycott from an equestrian perspective was the USSR, which won eight medals. Bulgaria and Romania also made rare appearances on the podium. Mexico won three of its total of seven equestrian medals in Moscow. The other four, it won in London in 1948. Without the results from 1948 and 1980, and including the medal statistics from Tokyo 2020, the share of dressage team medals won by nations with a current per-capita GDP of less than USD 20,000 is less than 6 percent. For eventing, it is 0 percent. For jumping, it is just over 6 percent. In the individual events, jumping looks the most inclusive, with five of 69 medals (about 7 percent) won by riders from poor nations. All but one of these medals were won before 1960. The most recent was taken by Brazil’s Rodrigo Pessoa in Athens 2004. Pessoa, although representing Brazil, was born in Paris and grew up in Europe, where his father ran a successful training stable. He never lived in Brazil.

In individual dressage, athletes from poor nations have won four medals out of a total of 69: under 6 percent. Each of these medals was taken by an athlete representing the Soviet Union, and since 1980, only riders from rich nations have won dressage medals at the Olympic Games. Argentina’s silver medal for individual eventing in 1964 brings the share of medals in this event for the less affluent countries to 1.5 percent. Out of a total of 380 medals won in over a century of Olympic Equestrian competitions since 1912 (excluding 1948 and 1980), only 15 (less than 4 percent) have been won by nations with a current per-capita GDP of under USD 20,000.

More flags does not really mean more participation in equestrian events

The FEI will likely point out that it is working very hard to include more flags at the Olympic Games, and that it now consists of no less than 136 affiliated national federations all over the world. This does not actually translate into more participation in equestrian events. The Ethiopian Equestrian Association, for example, has been affiliated with the FEI since 1997, but according to the FEI database as of July 2021, has never registered a single FEI athlete. Or a single horse. Even North Korea has an equestrian