Charlotte Dujardin
Charlotte Dujardin has said that she "fully respects" the decision to suspend her for one year after a video showed the double individual Olympic dressage champion repeatedly hitting a student's horse with a whip. Dujardin was provisionally suspended by the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI) on July 23--the week that the Paris Olympics started--as it launched an investigation into a video from four years ago showing her making what she described as "an error of judgement" during a coaching session. The FEI announced on Thursday that Dujardin had admitted...
Scandals involving top equestrians have ignited fierce debates about animal welfare at the Olympics. As comparisons to horse racing's more controversial practices emerge, TTR AusNZ's Vicky Leonard discusses how all equestrian sports face mounting pressure to address these issues head-on, requiring strong leadership to ensure robust practices that can uphold public acceptance. It's the grand stage of the Olympics, where the thunderous applause for our elite equine athletes should be deafening, but instead, it's muffled by controversy. The recent removal of revered British dressage rider Charlotte Dujardin from the Olympics...
It's not easy to write a column while watching the Olympics, especially as Britain attempts to out-battle France for eventing gold at the Palace of Versailles, but here goes. It was France which had the upper hand at Ascot on Saturday or, correctly speaking, Francis-Henri Graffard, whose return from Chantilly to the Berkshire track with the rampaging Goliath (Ger) (Adlerflug {Ger}) should have been eye-popping enough to ensure that his runners are never again sent off at such generous odds in Britain. We can now savour the prospect of once...


