FILE PHOTO: Tokyo 2020 Olympics - Equestrian - Dressage - Individual - Grand Prix Freestyle - Equestrian Park - Tokyo, Japan - July 28, 2021. Isabell Werth of Germany on her horse Bella Rose II reacts REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis/File Photo
VERSAILLES, France (Reuters) - Equestrian sports need a cultural change, German seven-times Olympic champion Isabell Werth told Reuters on Saturday as a debate sparked by a video of a leading British rider whipping a horse in training rages on.
Six-times Olympic medallist Charlotte Dujardin was suspended on Tuesday after footage emerged showing her whipping a horse's legs multiple times during training.
"I am incredibly sad. This is an absolute catastrophe for us and nobody understands it," Werth said.
"We need to establish a culture of respecting the horse as a creature. Education is important, but this senseless violence must not happen, because otherwise, we'll have a hard time making our case to the rest of the world."
Werth, Germany's second-most decorated Olympian of all time who is set to compete in her seventh Games in Paris, said the video coming out ahead of the Olympics was a tragedy for the sport, but also for Dujardin, who she respects as one of her toughest rivals for many years.
Dujardin said the footage showed her making an error of judgement that was out of character and did not reflect how she trained her horses or coached her pupils.
The video, which was aired on global television programmes just days before the Olympics, sparked a new debate about equestrian sports and their future as Olympic disciplines.
"I am afraid this won't have been the last video," Werth said. " I just hope all these will come to the surface now and then we need a cut and a self-regulating process."
Animal rights groups urged the International Olympic Committee to ban Dressage from the Games programme, saying no horse could be forced to do some of the most sophisticated moves with non-violent means. Equestrian athletes say this claim is groundless.
But Werth, who won her first team gold medal in Barcelona in 1992, said there was a sense of alarm inside the sport's bubble.
"Our so-called social license, the future of our sport, that's something we've been discussing for ten years because regardless of such catastrophes, values have shifted," she said. Animals are occupying a whole different place in society now."
Asked about potential structural shortcomings, leading to a lack of oversight and compliance with official guidelines, Werth said governing bodies were doing their homework.
"We have control instances, we have our trainers, our stewards during tournaments, all of this is very safe, but we must get into everyone's mind, also during training at home behind closed doors, so that such incidents won't happen," she said.
(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel, editing by Ed Osmond)
