Charlotte withdrawing from Olympics?

[GraceLikeRain]

@fivestrideline

To all those saying “we are human, we make mistakes” - sure. I have absolutely lost perspective with a horse and been unfair, but nothing like this. More importantly - those once-in-a-while OOPS mistakes do not happen in front of paying customers with smartphones . If someone does things like what’s shown in the video in a lesson to someone else’s horse - with such detachment - what the heck is going on when no one is watching?

Exactly.

To suggest that someone has the discipline, self-control, and emotional regulation to perform and win at the internal level, but is completely undone by teaching a lesson to a child is beyond absurd to me.

Charlotte is capable of handling far more pressure than I imagine anyone on this board worker or not could ever fathom. If teaching a basic lesson works her up into such a tizzy she can’t think of anything other than double hand smack with a whip…what happens when she gets frustrated with a personal horse behind closed doors? What’s happening to that young horse who keeps blowing through the change or the seasoned horse that is falling out of a piaffe?

To me the video is less about what it specifically shows and rather the insight it provides into the behavior of someone when they think they are in a safe and judgment free zone.

The reality that this behavior and worse occurs at top barns across disciplines doesn’t justify it. We should be able to hold the top of a sport to higher standards. The know better.

[FrittSkritt]

@FitToBeTied

They are getting to expensive to host and very few cities are even bidding on them. Salt Lake City was awarded the 2034(?) winter games and they were the only bidder.

To be fair, it’s much harder to host the winter Olympics than summer due to the special venues needed. Salt Lake already has the facilities (they’ve remained in use since the 2002 games - most countries just abandon everything) and it was actually a huge economic boom for the area. In the 20 years since, they’ve improved the infrastructure even more. But that’s a very rare case of the Olympics actually benefitting a city rather than ruining it.

[eightpondfarm]

i was sickened watching that video. Shame on those people…the rider, that Charlotte, and whoever the laughing person was. They need to switch to bicycles, they don’t deserve horses.
Whenever animals are used for a human’s fame and glory, the animals suffer.

[Knights_Mom]

We all knew people of the top top level of dressage are sometimes abusive to their horses. Helgstrand, Kittel, Werth, Anky, Charlotte, Parra, the other lady who just got suspended. Other Olympic equestrian sport likewise.

We failed as an industry to stop them. We all KNEW this was going on. So now we, as an industry will pay the price.
.
Thanks, Top Sport.

This was inevitable. The equestrian world earned it.

[McGurk]

I have no doubt at all that Charlotte knows how to get a horse in front of the leg without abusive techniques from the saddle. That is very different from teaching a rider how to do it; let alone fixing it in a single session.

What I see in the video is a horse that has been allowed to be behind the leg for some time and is stuck and sour, and a rider who doesn’t know how to correct it and is passive and ineffective. I suspect CDJ felt a lot of pressure to “fix” this horse in one session; as @Guyot mentioned in their excellent post, this is just not a one session fix. (In fact, IME, once fixed, the horse will revert almost immediately under a passive rider.)

Does that make the video any less cringeful or the training any more effective? No, absolutely not. It’s clearly abusive.

But once I got over my initial shock, I was reminded of all the gifted riders and trainers that I have known in my life that are simply incapable of teaching someone to ride at their level. Talented rider/trainer /=/ talented instructor. It’s one of the persistent myths of our sport. It’s also a standard career trajectory; if you’re a successful rider, you’re expecting to teach, even if no one has ever taught you how to teach. It’s entirely possible to have an Olympic medal and have no idea how to articulate what you know to a student.

Please don’t get me wrong; I am in no way excusing the abuse. But I do think the video shows someone who was frustrated at their inability to get through to the student and make a positive change in the horse.

I also think, absent any other evidence, that it’s a mistake to assume this is the way Charlotte trains her own horses, or that she regularly takes them behind the barn for a beating. Given the way her horses go for her, I doubt that’s the case.

[MsM]

Yes! After recovering from the shock of the video, my next thought was that she was not a “teacher” and had been thrust into that role due to her success as a rider. (of course she could have declined!) She apparently had no tools to deal with the problems this horse and rider presented and resorted to ineffective violence.

[Impractical_Horsewoman]

I think you’ve hit the nail 100% on the head. Many other people including myself have noted how the rider is completely clamped down and almost immobile in the saddle. Her leg is sliding back, presumably to give an aid, but it doesn’t seem to be applying any pressure at all. (I want to note I am not blaming the rider, I’ve definitely been “that rider” not applying the aids effectively and frustrating the instructor and horse.)

I have also had instructors go after the horse when I knew they should have been going after me–or more preferably, asking me why I didn’t feel comfortable doing what they were asking me to do (for example, a horse that had bucked in the past when more leg was applied or not understanding the instructor’s communication)–which is why IMHO a good instructor dealing with a “frozen” student usually will do one lap of walk on a long rein or suggest a few easy, achievable moves as a “win” rather than sticking with dogged determination to achieve that single move. That attitude might be okay if you’re working on your personal horse, but when there is a student in the mix, it can be frustrating for a determined athlete to deal with that “middleperson.”

When I started riding, at barns (looking back) were honestly $%@^% barns, I had instructors chase after sour horses with lunge whips or tap them with crops to get them forward. I felt awful, and it taught me nothing, and it scared me as a student. It was a mix of the instructor’s frustration with me and at the horse and wanting to “get it done” but not knowing how to teach.

I think that’s exactly what we saw in the Mark Todd video as well, dealing with a student who absolutely insisted her horse did not “do water jumps.” Sometimes I think instructors whack the horse when they’d really rather whack the student. Neither approaches are effective in the long run.

This isn’t something I could say on FB and be understood but I also agree I don’t think this is how CD trains her personal horses. As well as being in favor of a good yeehaw when needed, she has also said she prefers hotter horses (like most UL riders). Dealing with an underpowered horse and a timid rider is just not in her skill set.

Again, this does not justify at all what was done.

[mvp]

What were they trying to get the horse to do?

Were they working on the canter piaffe and trying to get him to stay quick with his hind legs?

If so, I (only kinda/sorta)** see why Dujardin’s standard “go for a yeehaw” gallop to get the horse back ahead of the leg wasn’t what they did.

Watching horses do canter pirouettes, I think they can seem to “get stuck” and squat too long. That, to me, always looks like a strength issue. And/or it looks like someone who prioritized putting the hind end on one spot over keeping the canter, even the pirouette had to be.

Maybe Dujardin’s timing was off and that is part of my confusion.

In any case, in the history of horse training I have seen (in the US, in dressage and in other disciplines) this is not the worst I have seen or heard. It’s also not the first time I have seen others-- rider, railbirds, co-sign that or at least not speak up for the horse and stop it.

** FWIW, the relative docility and obedience of the horse and the idea that there’s not a solution that involves teaching the horse to be lighter to the leg, and then having the rider convey the notion of cantering quicker in the canter pirouette to the horse-- those are the things that bother me most. I think dressage’s with the horse fully pushing into the bridle all the time risks training horses to stay behind the leg. And that horse looks like one who is kind and accustomed to continuing to try with or without being able to see a reward he could earn.

[FjordBCRF]

@Impractical_Horsewoman

Sometimes I think instructors whack the horse when they’d really rather whack the student.

When I watched the video the thought crossed my mind of what if one of those whip lashes actually hit the rider. Probably would have been a much bigger deal sooner.

[SillyHorse]

@Impractical_Horsewoman

Many other people including myself have noted how the rider is completely clamped down and almost immobile in the saddle. Her leg is sliding back, presumably to give an aid, but it doesn’t seem to be applying any pressure at all. (I want to note I am not blaming the rider, I’ve definitely been “that rider” not applying the aids effectively and frustrating the instructor and horse.)

It’s possible that by the point the video starts, this young rider was scared to the point of immobility and had clamped down in an effort to stay on while Dujardin whipped the horse into a state of confusion, fright, and anger.

[Silverbridge]

@McGurk

What I see in the video is a horse that has been allowed to be behind the leg for some time and is stuck and sour, and a rider who doesn’t know how to correct it and is passive and ineffective. I suspect CDJ felt a lot of pressure to “fix” this horse in one session; as @Guyot mentioned in their excellent post, this is just not a one session fix. (In fact, IME, once fixed, the horse will revert almost immediately under a passive rider.)

Does that make the video any less cringeful or the training any more effective? No, absolutely not. It’s clearly abusive.

I agree with all of this, and would add: for one minute.

If the brevity of the episode doesn’t matter to a viewer when weighed against her overall career, other recent cases of video documentation of abuse, and their own experiences with in-hand motivation while riding, I can understand that. But to me, it’s a key factor in the personal jury deliberation inside my head.

[McGurk]

Yes, of course.

If I were the person on the horse, I’d probably be frozen too.

But I am making my judgement of the rider’s passivity and ineffectiveness based on how the horse is going. The horse didn’t get that way in one session, the problem had to have been developing for a while.

I can also see someone deciding that surely a multi-Olympian would be able to help.

The comparison to the Mark Todd video is sound - ineffective, tentative rider, frustrated clinician just trying to get something done and resorting to crude methods.

It’s as if you went to the one of the world’s best surgeons and he chose to operate on you with a kitchen knife and pliers.

ETA: I have seen another VERY BNT and Olympian chase a ineffective minor student with a lunge whip and was horrified. And yes, I am sure they wanted to use it on the rider, not the horse. The parents were in attendance and were fine with it.

[Impractical_Horsewoman]

It’s possible, or even that she was abrupt with the student, and the student just shut down more and more responding to her directions, which frustrated CD even more. Some trainers are so obsessed with the idea of a horse getting “untrained” with a rider they don’t think is effective they go into “any means possible” mode with the horse. Again, it almost reminded me of bad up-and-down instructors, who, when a kid on a pony can’t get the sour lesson pony to canter just give the pony a whack with a crop on the butt a few times when the horse passes them on the rail, rather than putting the kid on the lunge line or getting a more experienced person to school the pony (both of which are more time-consuming) so they can tell the parent that the kid finally learned to canter.

[FitzE]

Again, I’m going to say: the casualness of CDJ abuse of this horse, her calm and rather. upbeat demeanour, suggest this is business as usual, not frustration or a ‘last straw’ situation.

@Trekkie

And while horse welfare is well-intended and always something we all should be very very mindful of, if riding horses and equestrian sport becomes a thing of the past we all would lose.

This is backwards thinking to me. First, horse welfare should not be something that is ‘well-intended’, it should be THE fundamental of everything gyou do with horses.

Second, we shouldn’t be very, very mindful of it; it should be the foundation of EVERYTHING EVERY DAY.

Third, framing it this way - that horse welfare is a ‘best practices’ option but if horse sports lose their social license due to this kind of thing we all lose - is exactly the inverse of what we should be doing.

Instead: horse welfare must the foundation of everything we do with horses. If we don’t make it the #1 (not something the well-intentioned do, not something very very important) principal of horse sport without exception, THAT’S how we lose horse sport and THAT’S when we all lose.

Horse welfare is not a well-intentioned nice to have, it is an absolute must have, even for those who see nothing wrong with what CDJ did or with other harsh training methods and devices. If those people don’t change, it is they who will ruin the sport, not the people who catch it on film and expose it.

The person doing the abuse is ALWAYS the one in the wrong, ALWAYS the one harming the horse and the sport, and ALWAYS 100% responsible for their behaviour.

PETA wouldn’t have stuff like this to put on their website if these people weren’t doing it.

[FitzE]

@McGurk

It’s as if you went to the one of the world’s best surgeons and he chose to operate on you with a kitchen knife and pliers.

After which they’d lose their license and never operate again. So, if that’s what becomes of this incident for CDJ, it wouldn’t be out of proportion.

I don’t think the length of time matters at all. I wouldn’t think someone beat a person (adult or child) for a full minute would be okay. It absolutely would outweigh all else I knew about them. Abuse of another living thing is a bright line rule for me. There is something fundamentally not right there about a person who can beat another living thing. Hard pass.

[LiberalSnowflake]

@FitToBeTied

I have said for a long time that Eventing should get out of the Olympics. The Olympics are slowly destroying eventing. Not to mention that dealing with a corrupt organization like the IOC is never good. I think in my lifetime the Olympics will disappear anyway. They are getting to expensive to host and very few cities are even bidding on them. Salt Lake City was awarded the 2034(?) winter games and they were the only bidder.

I was at the last Commonwealth Games in the UK (no equestrian in Comm Games) and I do wonder if it’ll be the last one ever. The next winner of the Games has pulled out and no-one seems to want to take over. Putting on these things is a HUGE expense for the winning country, and requires astonishing amounts of manpower (paid and unpaid - see if you can find 12,000 volunteers and then get full uniforms for them, it’s NOT easy).

Things are changing and maybe the Olympics will be next?

[Xanthoria]

@Sedona

The interesting part to me in the video is that she not only cracks the whip in a backhand motion then an overhand motion. It could be considered encouraging forward motion cracking the whip behind the horse moving forward. But the overhanded strikes aren’t in the same vein. They are just striking the horse.

Yes, and it’s worth noting that the sharp crack sound a long lashed whip makes is the sound of the lash breaking the sound barrier, and this is usually achieved when the lash changes direction so that a loop runs down to the popper at the end, flicking it. (One throws the lash forward then snaps it back before it completes its path)

That cracking sound doesn’t generally happen when the lash hits something (a horse, the ground/wall), if the whip is a thicker, low quality whip, or if the whip is just flailed overhand (as at the beginning of the video when you hear a “whoosh” whip sound instead)

So in this awful video I hear a lot of cracking and I think the horse is reacting to that, as well as being actually hit.

[TimeForAHorse]

THANK YOU, holy cow… 10000% agree with everything in your post!!!

[SMF11]

Me too.

[AnastasiaBeaverhousen]

I saw the video on Inside Edition.
Interesting to me, because I don’t remember the story on the Dutch rider, or the Lithuanian rider who was disqualified from eventing, making the main stream media.
Granted they weren’t previous medal winners, or
in contention for a medal

I’m not sure that CDJ will lose too much in the long run.
Certainly right now, she’s lost face and big time
sponsors.

But if she can’t get a job in GB there will be plenty of clients in the US who will be happy to have her teach.
Some of the most vile and disgusting horse trainers still get clients .

Disclaimer: She was completely wrong in what she did. End of.
Haven’t decided yet if it should be career ending.