Charlotte duJardin

[niemeyjt]

(Sponsorship) money talks, perhaps?

[niemeyjt]

And now the plot thickens . . .

New equestrian abuse scandal as Olympics rider accused of hitting horse with bar

The Paris Olympics have been hit by fresh claims of equine abuse, with show jumping medal contender Max Kuehner of Austria subject to criminal proceedings in Germany for allegedly hitting his horse’s legs with a bar to make it jump higher.

Kuehner, the world No 3 in jumping, stands accused by the Munich II public prosecutor’s office of violating the German Animal Welfare Act by engaging in “active bar jumping” or “barring”. The technique is more commonly known as “rapping”, where a pole is used to smack the horse’s legs over a practice jump, forcing it to lift. It has been banned in Germany since May 2023.

According to the Austrian Equestrian Federation, Kuehner, 50, who is scheduled to compete in Versailles in both the individual and team jumping competitions, denies wrongdoing. “We can confirm, based on everything we have observed during the years of working with Max, that the way his horses are kept, trained and presented is of the highest quality,” the governing body told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

“Due to his impeccable attitude towards his horse as a sports partner, there is no reason whatsoever to assume that he uses methods in training that are contrary to animal welfare, or that he has used them in the past”.

It also insisted that Kuehner would participate at the Olympics as planned.

Ingmar De Vos, president of the FEI, equestrianism’s global governing body, said in Paris that the Austrian federation had been asked to provide further information.

Kuehner, who runs a tournament and training stable in the Bavarian town of Starnberg, has previously competed in Nations Cups with the Germany team but switched to representing the Alpine nation in 2015 “for sporting reasons”, a team spokesperson said.

Kuehner has faced allegations of animal cruelty before, in 2008. In an anonymous letter, the show jumper was accused of using a wire to make his horse jump more carefully. While the Bavarian Riding and Driving Association criticised the training method used by Kuehner, the disciplinary commission was unable to establish behaviour that contravened animal welfare laws. The case was discontinued with a ruling that was described as “minor guilt”.

The incident comes just a day after three-time British Olympic champion Charlotte Dujardin was given a provisional six-month ban over horse welfare allegations. A video showing the London 2012 gold medallist whipping a horse allegedly 24 times emerged on Wednesday morning, just one day after she announced her shock withdrawal from Paris 2024.

The six-time dressage Olympic medallist said she was “deeply ashamed” by her actions in the video and withdrew from competition before she was suspended, with an investigation by the FEI ongoing.

She has also seen her UK Sport funding scrapped pending the result of the investigation, and been dropped by a horse and donkey charity and two equestrian sponsors in a scandal that has raised questions around the future of the sport at the Olympic Games.

source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/olympics/20 ... din-paris/

[Headers]

I was only talking about this cruel training method yesterday. A very famous German rider was found guilty of this many years ago but I can’t remember his name.

[Veem]

Show jumpers have always been rumoured to have awful training methods; namely barbed wire on the poles with some of the top riders being highly suspect. As far as I know, it's conjecture, but it wouldn't surprise me for all the rumours to be true.

[Headers]

It was Paul Schockemoele in 1990 but another rider has been suspended in the U.K. recently for suspect training methods.

[Blaze]

Show jumpers have always been rumoured to have awful training methods

Yes, rapping has been done for years and I've also heard about putting barbed wire or hedgehog skins on bars. Horrible practices..

The black horses of the Horse Guards sometimes had problems (hardly surprising perhaps as their living conditions are quite difficult) and some would be sent to Sandhurst, Camberley to be re-schooled. I remember working with one that had been rapped before he joined the Army and he wouldn't walk over a pole on the ground without leaping 4 feet into the air. It took a lot of time and patience to persuade him that it would never happen to him again.

[Bayleaf]

All quite grim, and the anti-horseriding brigade are going to use it to their full advantage. Can't blame them for that! There are some awful practices used for horses around the world, because humans want something more out of the animals and they're easy to manipulate and abuse. It's heart breaking.

Where is it that they attach bloody great blocks to their hooves to "improve their gait"? Really? Then they're all ridden by very overweight men, trotting around the arena to the cheers of the ignorant crowd. Abhorrent.

[Blaze]

Where is it that they attach bloody great blocks to their hooves to "improve their gait"?

In the US and it's the Tennessee Walking Horse. This breed has gaits that are a bit different to other breeds : some but not all have the ability to do an incredibly fast walk (a bit like the natural Icelandic Tölt) which is very smooth. Others have a way of slightly lifting their legs which has now been abused by adding weights to make them lift yet higher. It's called the Rack. It's appalling.

Why people want to force horses to do unnatural gaits beats me. The American Paint horse went through a time when it was made to walk in a particular way, as if it walked slowly on eggshells. This was stopped because it was considered unnatural though I don't know whether the horses suffered in the practice.