About five minutes into the eight-minute cross-country course, the oldest horse ever to compete at the Olympics, the 21-year-old Forever Young Wundermaske, popped his rider out of the saddle going into the second water obstacle and loped off. Watching at home from my house in Australia, I laughed when a soggy Ronald Zabala-Goetschel, the Ecuadorian rider who has owned the horse he calls “Patchito” for nine years, got up and stared after him. Being dumped in the water by an old horse who then heads home for the stables is a canon event: every equestrian has experienced it at least once.
Patchito has a relaxed schedule. Goetschel told the Chronicle of the Horse that after two failed attempts at retirement Patchito is ridden once a week, and jumps maybe once a month. “He knows what to do,” he says.
I felt, as I always do watching the eventing at the Olympics, a rush of joy at the partnership and trust between horse and rider to compete at such a high level in such a difficult and dangerous sport. Two riders – the Australian-born US rider Boyd Martin and France’s Stephane Landois – were riding the horses of friends who had died in riding accidents. Martin took over the ride on Fedarman B (Bruno) after his previous rider, Annie Goodwin, died in a training accident on Bruno in 2021; and Landois rode Chaman Dumontceau in memory of the gelding’s 22-year-old previous rider, Thaïs Meheust, who died in a fall while riding Chaman Dumontceau at a national eventing competition in 2019. The Australian rider Shane Rose, who broke 18 bones in a riding accident just a few months ago, began crying when asked by a reporter how much his 19-year-old horse, Virgil, meant to him. “He looked after me on my road to recovery,” he said.
This is what it is all about. The partnership between a human of equal parts stubbornness, patience and skill and a 600kg horse trying very hard to please.
It has not been an easy 12 months for fans of equestrian sports. Problems that have been bubbling away for decades are coming to the surface. This latest crisis is one of many, but we are at least talking about it now.
The scandal that has grabbed the headlines is the suspension of British gold medal dressage rider Charlotte Dujardin from international competition pending investigation over a video from four years ago, which has since been released, showing what the governing body of equestrian sports, the FEI, described as “conduct contrary to the principles of horse welfare”. In plainer terms, she can be seen in the video flicking the legs of a horse with a lunge whip 24 times in less than a minute. Dujardin, who voluntarily withdrew from all competition including the Paris games before the suspension was confirmed by the FEI, released a statement describing the incident as an “error of judgement” which she said “does not reflect how I train my horses or coach my pupils,” for which she was “deeply ashamed”.
The news was described as shocking, though I think a more appropriate word was disappointing. I wasn’t shocked, just as I wasn’t shocked when Danish TV last year aired a documentary alleging abuse at the top training facility Helgstrand Dressage, which resulted in a 12-month suspension for the top Danish rider Andreas Helgstrand. That particular story did not get much attention outside the horse world, though it is, I think, more significant in terms of the challenge of long-term change in the sport. A Helgstrand horse, Wendy, is a favourite to win at least one gold medal in the dressage this Olympics with German rider Isabell Werth, the most successful Olympic equestrian of all time. Werth has had the ride of Wendy since January, and just a few weeks ago they won everything – and I do mean everything, Grand Prix, Grand Prix special and Grand Prix freestyle – at the Aachen CDIO5* in Germany. Results that good can quickly overshadow criticism.
The FEI’s strong response to the allegations against Dujardin is to be praised, as are the strict standards they appear to be applying to competitors in Paris. The top US rider Marcus Orlob was eliminated from the team dressage on Tuesday due to a nick on his horse Jane’s right hind leg, which started to bleed during the test. It was a by-the-letter application of the blood rule: deeply disappointing to Orlob and team US but a welcome sign for anyone who has been hoping for the FEI to rigorously police its own welfare standards.
As I have watched from my couch, with three horses eating their way through my paycheck in the paddock, I have been closely examining my own reactions. The horse world is very prone to falling into cliques, to the detriment of evidence and reasoned thinking on all sides. There’s a certain amount of glee at top riders getting their comeuppance, as well as scorn from those who say only people who have ridden at the highest level should cast any stones. There’s a stubborn ignorance on all sides that as we bicker among ourselves, the social licence of equestrian sports is rapidly fading. It has been argued, by some who have tried for decades to change things, that the sport is beyond saving.
But then, there was the huge grin on the face of Moroccan rider Noor Slaoui as she and her horse Cash in Hand crossed the finish line at the cross-country and again after the showjumping. The extraordinarily kind and skilled riding of South Africa’s Alexander Peternell, who celebrated every success of his nine-year-old Figaro Des Premices. The immediate decision of Australian rider Kevin McNab to stop on cross-country when he felt his horse Don Quidam had an injury. There are dozens of quiet achievements, of riders overjoyed with personal bests, supporting their horses through missteps, and praising their successes.
There was good horsemanship on show; far more good than bad. It would be a shame if we viewed this as a moment to declare international equestrian sports as beyond redemption. It could be the moment that we finally decide to fix it.
• Calla Wahlquist is Guardian Australia’s rural and regional editor. She owns horses and sometimes rides them, though never very well
