Olympics and horses
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
in Purgatory
I was shattered by the revelations about Dujardin, the dressage rider, allegedly whipping a horse, to get it to perform one of the stepping routines. It's not only cruel, but arrogant, to subject animals in this way. Maybe all equestrian events should be dropped from the Olympics. Sorry, no link.
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/article/2024/jul/24/charlotte-dujardin-career-in-tatters-after-horse-whipping-costs-her-damehood-and-funding-video
Is horse-abuse such a natural aspect of dressage that the sport needs to be kicked out of the Olympics?
I am aware of a level of hypocrisy from me about this, as I am not a vegetarian. We do a lot worse things to animals in the name of food - is it a case of out of sight out of mind ?
Opinion varies. Defenders of dressage argue that there is no need for whipping, or any painful methods. Animal rights people say, of course its cruel, as you have to force horses. I guess the video is embarrassing as it shows cruelty. I'm not sure how else you get a horse to do the dancing manoeuvres.
Almost any criticism of animal-cruelty is bound to draw entirely subjective distinctions between the acceptable and the unacceptable(*). Someone like Peter Singer does seem to strive for absolute consistency, but implementation of his ideas in the policy-realm would lead to utter chaos.
(*) As someone who has happily eaten both rabbit and dog meat, I consider the former to be slightly more disquieting than the latter, but I'm pretty sure I'm a minority on that one.
It seems an odd argument that whipping horses is OK, because I eat meat.
Every year in the UK some horses die going over the jumps, or have to be put down. Of course, it's forgotten quickly.
There are other illogicalities, people were very upset about being tricked into eating horses - whilst being content to eat cows etc etc.
Likewise if you asked me if people training horses used whips, I think I would have assumed they do. I have no very clear idea of what acceptable whipping of a dressage horse would look like. I know jockeys hit horses and I know there are limits on it - I don’t know if those limits make any sense.
But I am only thinking about this issue because the news has put it front and centre - though I have background known about such things basically since I was about 11 (as in when I had riding lessons as a child,)
So aren’t there better ways to communicate with horses yet ?
Yeah, but we wouldn't tolerate similar inconsistencies in regards to humans. If I were to say "It's okay to eat children from Scotland, but not from Devonshire", nobody would buy that. But "It's okay to eat rabbits, but not dogs" would be a respectable opinion, based on little more(as far as I can tell) than one's subjective view on which animal has more worth, which usually comes down to dogs being cuter and/or friendlier than rabbits.
There have been cases of racehorses breaking their legs from galloping on the flat and having to be put down. They have been bred to the point where their legs are too thin to endure the stress of galloping flat out. This is a short summary of the issues: https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/horse/an-enduring-bond/protecting-racehorses
I don't see any inconsistency in being a meat eater and also being opposed to unnecessary cruelty to animals. I do wonder if this is an opportunity for dressage enthusiasts to consider how many of the traditional movements can be taught using humane training methods.
However, if we didn’t use or farm animals - we’d probably not invest in raising them in anything like the numbers we do.
I have no desire to whip horses, or cows or any other animal. But if you were a horse, would you prefer a human who whipped you sometimes or one who treated you really humanely for a few years and then killed you and ate you ?
I am just recognising that I am being wildly inconsistent.
The only horse owner I know well is such an arch-animal lover that I can no more imagine her whipping a horse than flying through the air.
I would like to hear/read a frank assessment from someone who knows horses well and trains them.
Maybe, though it looks as though one has to be pretty fit to manage a dancing horse...
Apologies to any enthusiasts, but dressage always seems to me to be a rather unnatural thing for a horse to be forced or trained to do. I accept that there's probably a great deal more to it than that, though.
without speculating about whether it should be an olympic sport or not, that's a bit like saying you don't have to be fit to be a formula one driver, because you're just sitting in and pointing a car.
to manage a horse at a top level (again regardless of any rights or wrongs), you need to be phenomenally fit - the one thing that I wouldn't accuse them of is not being athletic.
My version of it hadn’t updated to show your post!
Yes, it did seem a bit harsh, but presumably the chap who was convicted of rape has served his term (*paid his debt to society*), and is therefore free to continue on his merry way.
Is from one of the BBC stories - I agree with the principle of rehabilitating offenders, but that is not the same as placing them in positions where they will be seen as role models for others. Earlier in the article the Dutch team talked about the treatment he’s had, their risk assessment (which is also clearly wrong if some one has felt able to tell them there’s zero risk of recidivism as risk doesn’t work like that) and additional safeguarding measures. If his self-reflection was as significant as people say it is, one would hope he would realise that and take up a more mundane line of work with little or no access to children and young people.
The circumstances of the offence smack of grooming and picking him smacks of an attitude that says, well she did agree for him to come so it doesn’t really count.
Mind you there was a convicted terrorist at one of the paralympics games: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/22/spain.sport.
Athletes who take performance-enhancing drugs are summarily kicked out of the Olympics and often lose their entire future career. It is not clear to me why attempting to obtain a performance advantage through animal cruelty should be looked upon as any less cheating.
Convicted rapist Steven van de Velde was sentenced to four years in prison for having sex with a 12 year old girl in the UK when he was 19. At his defense, his lawyer said, in reference to his volleyball career, "Plainly it is a career end for him," which has not turned out to be true. He served one year of his four year sentence in his home country, and was then released. I don't know how his obligation to register as a sex offender translates to the Netherlands.
In public statements he has made since his return to international competition, van de Velde has tended to attempt to excuse his actions as the mistaken choices of his immature teen self. This isn't really a great look.
It is meaningful to talk about the risk of someone reoffending as being not significantly elevated above the background risk, which is the risk of some random person without a criminal record committing the same crime.
It's not unreasonable to colloquially paraphrase that as "zero risk".
In the case of people who committed a crime because of a very specific set of circumstances, if similar circumstances are unlikely to arise, then the risk of them committing a similar crime would seem to be small.
BroJames Purgatory Host
Not to put too fine a point on it, but PETA would say this regardless, and are … extremists, bluntly.
Agreed.