PARIS ‘24 HORSE WELFARE CAMPAIGN

The vast majority of riders and professionals in the show jumping world strongly wish that, in the interest of horse welfare, the Paris 2024 Olympic Games returns to teams of 4 rider-horse pairs with a “drop score”.

Indeed, for Tokyo, a new event format had been set up with three horse-rider combinations in order to allow a greater number of nations to participate, some of which do not have a sufficient number of high-level riders.

In addition, previously, only the 3 best scores of the 4 combinations counted in the classification and this drop-score system allowed riders not to finish the course if their horse was in poor shape.

This is no longer the case since Tokyo, where the scores of all horse-rider pairs count and are added together to form the overall team score. Where a team rider withdraws, their score is also counted, and the resulting pressure pushes the rider to finish the course even if the horse is in poor shape.

This format was again chosen for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, perhaps also because it increases the suspense since the placings can change up to the last participant.

During the Tokyo games, Sophie Dubourg, national technical director of the France CSO team declared:

“We are very happy! The French team is qualified and will be in the final tomorrow. Nevertheless, we clearly doubt the validity of this new Olympic format imposed by the FEI. So many points and penalties earned just for qualifying! Certainly, the course was difficult but usually, the drop score does its work since there are 4 couples in the team. This Olympic format even worries us. Mainly because many countries end up with only 2 team members, not to mention that it is far from favouring animal welfare. Finally, I do not see how emerging nations can imagine doing well in a competition imagined more for the media than for sport. I hope that real balance sheets will be drawn after all that happened in Tokyo.“

On November 15, at the FEI General Assembly, Steve Guerdat also spoke as the riders’ representative and, in a sincere and alarming speech, did not fail to point out the issues and dangers of such a format, particularly concerning animal welfare:

“We have seen too many images of riders who simply did not have the level to compete in the Olympic Games. Moreover, I am firmly convinced that no rider should ever find himself in the obligation to finish his course whatever the cost. This new format requires us to finish our turn so as not to eliminate our team. It goes without saying that a team of four couples and a “drop score” is much fairer for the sport”.

Unfortunately, these arguments were not heard by the FEI who voted and made the decision to maintain the Tokyo format.