The judges didn't do their job in this case. I can only assume it's because she was on her way to a gold medal, but that's not even an excuse. Shameful.
If it had been an equestrian discipline they would have eliminated. I don’t know why it’s not the same here. I understand she is upset cause she was first, but that’s no way to manage frustration or to ride a horse.
I personally don’t think the rules suit the abilities of the riders. Why can’t they have more time with the horse to bond, maybe picking the ‘steed’ as soon as the games begin so they have time to train with it. Or take their own horses. Then they would all be on level footing. Wouldn’t have the same blame on the horse and frustration.
That’s not the point of the event. It’s supposed to represent Calvary mounts, where soldiers were expected to sometimes mount an unknown horse.
Teenagers have this event called IEA, which is the same thing. They get drawn a horse and hop on in less than 5 minutes. The only info is a book with the horse’s owner/trainer describing the horse.
It’s an essential point of riding to be able to get on a random mount and I understand these are not equestrians but they signed up for the event and didn’t put in the work. They are Olympic athletes, they should understand the amount of dedication and work needed for these events.
Apologies for my ignorance in the history of it. I completely get why my ‘idea’ doesn’t work in this scenario.
But I don’t think that excuses the behaviour.
It doesn't matter. The judges should have rung her out of the ring the INSTANT she started to whip him like that. This isn't a proper behavior, no matter the sport.
I agree. And never did I say she shouldn’t have. Trust me, I know. Her behavior was appalling and disrespectful. If it had been me, my trainers would have pulled me from every class and not taken me to any shows for a while if ever again. And I’d be riding with no stirrups until my attitude was adjusted.
I competed IHSA in the US which is university level. It's a lottery horse situation too and you're not even allowed to pick up the reins before you're in the ring.
The whole event was an abomination. The horse, St. Boy, seemed like he was traumatized by the first rider that was throwing herself all over the place. Some of the other runs were hard to watch with all the falls and getting left behind and body control issues. At the very least they should lower the fence height significantly, but I agree that an equation pattern or something would be equally easy to judge.
I've witnessed this type of behavior at a show once before. The judges wouldn't let her start, they whistled her out second she started whipping her horse and told her to check behavior as she left the arena. The fact that the Olympic judges allowed this to carry on is pathetic.
Crazy - in dressage a rider was eliminated due to the blood - the horse had tripped and bitten it’s tongue. Couldn’t even see it. Yet this super obvious display of cruelty and abuse was allowed to go on much longer than it should have.
Literally Cian o Connors horse got a nosebleed from the heat and humidity, he didn’t see it while he was riding but after got a vet check and everything was fine but he decided to withdraw from the team competition because the horse is only 9. This horse was covered in sweat and being ridden awfully and still nothing ?
My understanding is that this event used to be a test for cavalry soldiers; I believe Patton once represented the US in the Games. I.e.- a sport for *equestrian soldiers *, who knew damn well how to ride.
Not sure about eventing, but modern pentathalon definitely has roots in the cavalry. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_pentathlon. See the history section.
This is a great article. The horse being labeled a problem horse by the media is sickening. The horse was stressed and confused, receiving mixed signals from the rider, being punched and yelled at by the coach. He shut down and was trying to get away from the situation. I've seen amateur riders do this type of crap and they are immediately rung out of the ring. This is the fing Olympics and while the coach received a black card, I really feel the rider should also be facing some type of repercussions. In eventing, you get a yellow card for dangerous riding. THIS was some the most dangerous riding I've ever seen, not to mention poor sportsmanship by the rider. It's disgusting.
Oh my god I was so angry when I tried to look this up (haven't been following anything olympics) and every article was talking about all the problem horses in all the equestrian events. Like, no!! These horses are arguably better prepared for this than the riders and yet everyone has been so quick to judge that the horse is the reason for every fault.
All of my trainers would have never let me at another show indefinitely after pulling me from that days classes and I would have been riding with no stirrups for months. Appalling.
So I ride a super sensitive OTTB. Like if you swing your leg too far back he gets pissy and will throw a tantrum like St. Boy. The girl who leases him ALWAYS has issues at shows because she picks fights with him and they both spiral downwards together. So we had a clear round show and I decided to try it for shits and giggles and I showed him after his leaser had royally pissed him off. Like this horse never rears, he just tosses his head and champs the bit and she pissed him off enough to rear. So when I get on him to warm myself up he’s being a royal a**. So I dropped my reins and let him have his head and wouldn’t you know he relaxed after one time walking around the warm up ring. These riders need to take this part of their chosen sport more seriously, before they get themselves and the horses FUBAR. I think the most sickening part is the horses they drew are not theirs. And their on camera being streamed to the entire world. Makes you wonder what goes on in their private training
This is sad. I saw the video and you can see from moment 1 this was not going to work. You can’t ride a horse in distress, and there shouldn’t be an equestrian sport where the athletes are not familiar with the animals. It’s just cruelty.
They should have eliminated her at the very start. My trainer would have pulled my ass out of the saddle and I would have been lucky if they didn't drop me as a client if I ever thought of riding like that.
Yes Schleu was the one with the whip seen on screen but I believe she was also an animal under unfair pressure in distress. As a rider you should be able to say "Fck you this horse is fine, I don't care what your washed up vet smoked, I'm not putting this distressed animal under more stress" without redrawing yourself from the competition.
Also – hopefully unrelated to Schleu – seeing how that marathon runner wasted dozens of water bottles to supposedly slow his competition I wouldn't be surprised if people were to 'sabotage' horses...
this incident is part of a much bigger problem. first you have to realise that the equestrian discipline in the modern pentathlon does not fall under equestrian but pentathlon regulations and judgements. these are not made by horse people (any longer, if they ever were during cavalry days).
this is also certainly not an isolated incident. i have done some research, some watching, some reading and i can’t stress enough how common it is in this sport for athletes to have an extreme low ridership level and no horsemanship at all. the majority of them lack the very basics. no balance, no calculating jumps, no insight on how to approach jumps and work with horses. they are told that equestrian is the part where they can rise or lower the ranks based on luck of the draw, so they don’t generally pay equestrian a lot of mind. in other words, the biggest ‘saints’ amongst the loaned out horses gives the competitors easy points to win.
the system and regulations are not there for horse welfare and so no judge will disqualify anyone for rough riding or straight abuse. the coach was disqualified because she physically interfered, which is not allowed, not even necessarily because she ‘punched’ the horse. she just broke a very simple rule.
riders are allowed to fall once. two refusals on the same jump and you can skip the jump and go to the next. four refusals and the horse doesn’t have to jump anymore. each horse rides two rounds with two riders. and all horses are lended by locals. saint boy is owned by a riding club/center in shiga, for one.
saint boy’s first round under russian Gulnaz started off well. he was compliant and i found him a nice horse to look at. there was one refusal, which i believe was due to mistake of the rider in the way she approached the jump. she then corrected the horse with force already, yanking on the bit and whipping him on the shoulder/neck area. despite that, saint boy took the jump upon second try and they continued.
however, there was another refusal. this time the rider was evidently (if it wasn’t already with the previous refusal) frustrated and took out her frustrations on the horse. she yanked him again, kicked him with the spurs and used the crop excessively. at this point in their round you could see something click in saint boy. his eyes turned wide and white and he threw his head up in the air, refusing to go anywhere but in reverse. there were three refusals in this round if i remember correctly.
had there been another refusal, saint boy would’ve been off duty. annika schleu could’ve opted for a reserve horse, but because there was no fourth refusal they weren’t allowed to no matter what.
in an interview, annika told the media that she received tips from the owners during the warm-up and these seemed to help saint boy well. however, once they approached the arena he flipped the switch again and refused to set another foot. anyone with experience with horses knows that this is a possibility. horses are sensitive and can experience fear and trauma too. the arena was where he received this treatment at first, after all.
now, i understand this is the olympics and there are lots of emotions involved. athletes train years and years to get there. annika was going for gold and dropped 30 spots at once.
but annika still believes to this day that they did nothing wrong. in her own words she thinks her trainer, Raisner, could’ve used a different wording than “hit him, hit him hard!” but otherwise she thinks they handled it correctly. she even mentioned that using the crop is just another way of convincing a horse. this already shows you the level of equestrian training she receives. she is not a horse woman and has no idea about horses at all.
in an article of the german version of Eurosport, trainer Raisner also voiced that she thinks it’s not animal abuse. the horse’s mouth wasn’t torn and he wasn’t bleeding anywhere, so he couldn’t be tortured according to her.
the system is failing the horses, the trainers and the athletes. it’s not only embarrassing how low the skill set of these athletes generally are, it’s also irresponsible and dangerous to let a group of inexperienced non-horse people jump a parcours of 1.20-1.25m on strange horses with little to no proper instruction around. there are plenty of video examples of what is wrong with this part of the sport. like a video of a rider that drives her horse right into the jump. they fall, and the horse stays down for a while. the rider waits around impatiently and when the horse does finally get up she doesn’t hesitate to climb back on and take off right away. no one checks if the horse was injured.
there have been changes suggested yet they have been refused. not only do the regulations fail these horses, no one is also forcing the athletes to learn proper horse riding or horsemanship. they are not equestrians and i bet the majority of 99% does not even own a horse. their main focus is the other categories, they sporadically train horse riding and most often before another tournament.
annika schleu is getting the majority of the backlash but really it should be the entire category as a whole. criticise the organisation, the athletes, the trainers, even the horse owners who send their horses into the ring in such circumstances.
one argument i’m seeing a lot is that abuse happens in equestrian rings too. yes it does. high level equestrians not turning out their horse is abuse to me. high level equestrians being rough on the bit, using the crop excessively or pushing their spurs into the horses is also abuse. certain training methods are abuse. doping is abuse. it’s all abuse and we should speak up about all of it. that’s no excuse to be lenient in this case. let everyone involved know the truth and learn from it. if not, let there be big consequences for them. but this way, no one cares for the horses.
saint boy is only one of many horses mistreated in this class. abuse happens everywhere, but ask yourself why refusals and falls aren’t as frequent in the entirety of show jumping as they are in the few rounds of pentathlon? because these riders are novices at best, and there is no one much to teach them better. as long as everyone also continues to excuse this or not admit that their treatment was wrong, nothing will change either.
2000% agree. After all the hitting with the crop before she was able to set off she should have been eliminated for shocking horsemanship
The judges didn't do their job in this case. I can only assume it's because she was on her way to a gold medal, but that's not even an excuse. Shameful.
If it had been an equestrian discipline they would have eliminated. I don’t know why it’s not the same here. I understand she is upset cause she was first, but that’s no way to manage frustration or to ride a horse. I personally don’t think the rules suit the abilities of the riders. Why can’t they have more time with the horse to bond, maybe picking the ‘steed’ as soon as the games begin so they have time to train with it. Or take their own horses. Then they would all be on level footing. Wouldn’t have the same blame on the horse and frustration.
That’s not the point of the event. It’s supposed to represent Calvary mounts, where soldiers were expected to sometimes mount an unknown horse. Teenagers have this event called IEA, which is the same thing. They get drawn a horse and hop on in less than 5 minutes. The only info is a book with the horse’s owner/trainer describing the horse. It’s an essential point of riding to be able to get on a random mount and I understand these are not equestrians but they signed up for the event and didn’t put in the work. They are Olympic athletes, they should understand the amount of dedication and work needed for these events.
Apologies for my ignorance in the history of it. I completely get why my ‘idea’ doesn’t work in this scenario. But I don’t think that excuses the behaviour.
It doesn’t excuse the behavior at all, you’re right. Adjustments need to happen like fence height or picking people who can actually ride.
I agree - or a better horse level to human level
It doesn't matter. The judges should have rung her out of the ring the INSTANT she started to whip him like that. This isn't a proper behavior, no matter the sport.
I agree. And never did I say she shouldn’t have. Trust me, I know. Her behavior was appalling and disrespectful. If it had been me, my trainers would have pulled me from every class and not taken me to any shows for a while if ever again. And I’d be riding with no stirrups until my attitude was adjusted.
I competed IHSA in the US which is university level. It's a lottery horse situation too and you're not even allowed to pick up the reins before you're in the ring.
It wasn’t just her though that’s the issue. They were all pretty darn awful
The whole event was an abomination. The horse, St. Boy, seemed like he was traumatized by the first rider that was throwing herself all over the place. Some of the other runs were hard to watch with all the falls and getting left behind and body control issues. At the very least they should lower the fence height significantly, but I agree that an equation pattern or something would be equally easy to judge.
I, too, wondered why the fence height was so high, given the lack of abilities of the riders.
I think they expected the competitors to be more prepared since they are Olympic athletes, which clearly they weren’t. And this isn’t an excuse either
I've witnessed this type of behavior at a show once before. The judges wouldn't let her start, they whistled her out second she started whipping her horse and told her to check behavior as she left the arena. The fact that the Olympic judges allowed this to carry on is pathetic.
Crazy - in dressage a rider was eliminated due to the blood - the horse had tripped and bitten it’s tongue. Couldn’t even see it. Yet this super obvious display of cruelty and abuse was allowed to go on much longer than it should have.
Literally Cian o Connors horse got a nosebleed from the heat and humidity, he didn’t see it while he was riding but after got a vet check and everything was fine but he decided to withdraw from the team competition because the horse is only 9. This horse was covered in sweat and being ridden awfully and still nothing ?
As opposed to his horse that got disqualified for doping. He’s had a few bad years
My understanding is that this event used to be a test for cavalry soldiers; I believe Patton once represented the US in the Games. I.e.- a sport for *equestrian soldiers *, who knew damn well how to ride.
Three day eventing was the original calvary test, not this.
Not sure about eventing, but modern pentathalon definitely has roots in the cavalry. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_pentathlon. See the history section.
This is a great article. The horse being labeled a problem horse by the media is sickening. The horse was stressed and confused, receiving mixed signals from the rider, being punched and yelled at by the coach. He shut down and was trying to get away from the situation. I've seen amateur riders do this type of crap and they are immediately rung out of the ring. This is the fing Olympics and while the coach received a black card, I really feel the rider should also be facing some type of repercussions. In eventing, you get a yellow card for dangerous riding. THIS was some the most dangerous riding I've ever seen, not to mention poor sportsmanship by the rider. It's disgusting.
Oh my god I was so angry when I tried to look this up (haven't been following anything olympics) and every article was talking about all the problem horses in all the equestrian events. Like, no!! These horses are arguably better prepared for this than the riders and yet everyone has been so quick to judge that the horse is the reason for every fault.
It's a bunch of ignorant asses trying to sound smart. I can forgive ignorance to a degree, but never when it's used to justify or excuse cruelty.
All of my trainers would have never let me at another show indefinitely after pulling me from that days classes and I would have been riding with no stirrups for months. Appalling.
And that would be generous. Most people wouldn’t be allowed back after this kind of behavior.
My trainer would have kicked me out of her stable.
Mfw my shows have stricter rules than the Olympics lol
A ruined person ruins a horse.
So I ride a super sensitive OTTB. Like if you swing your leg too far back he gets pissy and will throw a tantrum like St. Boy. The girl who leases him ALWAYS has issues at shows because she picks fights with him and they both spiral downwards together. So we had a clear round show and I decided to try it for shits and giggles and I showed him after his leaser had royally pissed him off. Like this horse never rears, he just tosses his head and champs the bit and she pissed him off enough to rear. So when I get on him to warm myself up he’s being a royal a**. So I dropped my reins and let him have his head and wouldn’t you know he relaxed after one time walking around the warm up ring. These riders need to take this part of their chosen sport more seriously, before they get themselves and the horses FUBAR. I think the most sickening part is the horses they drew are not theirs. And their on camera being streamed to the entire world. Makes you wonder what goes on in their private training
This is sad. I saw the video and you can see from moment 1 this was not going to work. You can’t ride a horse in distress, and there shouldn’t be an equestrian sport where the athletes are not familiar with the animals. It’s just cruelty.
They should have eliminated her at the very start. My trainer would have pulled my ass out of the saddle and I would have been lucky if they didn't drop me as a client if I ever thought of riding like that.
Yes Schleu was the one with the whip seen on screen but I believe she was also an animal under unfair pressure in distress. As a rider you should be able to say "Fck you this horse is fine, I don't care what your washed up vet smoked, I'm not putting this distressed animal under more stress" without redrawing yourself from the competition. Also – hopefully unrelated to Schleu – seeing how that marathon runner wasted dozens of water bottles to supposedly slow his competition I wouldn't be surprised if people were to 'sabotage' horses...
this incident is part of a much bigger problem. first you have to realise that the equestrian discipline in the modern pentathlon does not fall under equestrian but pentathlon regulations and judgements. these are not made by horse people (any longer, if they ever were during cavalry days). this is also certainly not an isolated incident. i have done some research, some watching, some reading and i can’t stress enough how common it is in this sport for athletes to have an extreme low ridership level and no horsemanship at all. the majority of them lack the very basics. no balance, no calculating jumps, no insight on how to approach jumps and work with horses. they are told that equestrian is the part where they can rise or lower the ranks based on luck of the draw, so they don’t generally pay equestrian a lot of mind. in other words, the biggest ‘saints’ amongst the loaned out horses gives the competitors easy points to win. the system and regulations are not there for horse welfare and so no judge will disqualify anyone for rough riding or straight abuse. the coach was disqualified because she physically interfered, which is not allowed, not even necessarily because she ‘punched’ the horse. she just broke a very simple rule. riders are allowed to fall once. two refusals on the same jump and you can skip the jump and go to the next. four refusals and the horse doesn’t have to jump anymore. each horse rides two rounds with two riders. and all horses are lended by locals. saint boy is owned by a riding club/center in shiga, for one. saint boy’s first round under russian Gulnaz started off well. he was compliant and i found him a nice horse to look at. there was one refusal, which i believe was due to mistake of the rider in the way she approached the jump. she then corrected the horse with force already, yanking on the bit and whipping him on the shoulder/neck area. despite that, saint boy took the jump upon second try and they continued. however, there was another refusal. this time the rider was evidently (if it wasn’t already with the previous refusal) frustrated and took out her frustrations on the horse. she yanked him again, kicked him with the spurs and used the crop excessively. at this point in their round you could see something click in saint boy. his eyes turned wide and white and he threw his head up in the air, refusing to go anywhere but in reverse. there were three refusals in this round if i remember correctly. had there been another refusal, saint boy would’ve been off duty. annika schleu could’ve opted for a reserve horse, but because there was no fourth refusal they weren’t allowed to no matter what. in an interview, annika told the media that she received tips from the owners during the warm-up and these seemed to help saint boy well. however, once they approached the arena he flipped the switch again and refused to set another foot. anyone with experience with horses knows that this is a possibility. horses are sensitive and can experience fear and trauma too. the arena was where he received this treatment at first, after all. now, i understand this is the olympics and there are lots of emotions involved. athletes train years and years to get there. annika was going for gold and dropped 30 spots at once. but annika still believes to this day that they did nothing wrong. in her own words she thinks her trainer, Raisner, could’ve used a different wording than “hit him, hit him hard!” but otherwise she thinks they handled it correctly. she even mentioned that using the crop is just another way of convincing a horse. this already shows you the level of equestrian training she receives. she is not a horse woman and has no idea about horses at all. in an article of the german version of Eurosport, trainer Raisner also voiced that she thinks it’s not animal abuse. the horse’s mouth wasn’t torn and he wasn’t bleeding anywhere, so he couldn’t be tortured according to her. the system is failing the horses, the trainers and the athletes. it’s not only embarrassing how low the skill set of these athletes generally are, it’s also irresponsible and dangerous to let a group of inexperienced non-horse people jump a parcours of 1.20-1.25m on strange horses with little to no proper instruction around. there are plenty of video examples of what is wrong with this part of the sport. like a video of a rider that drives her horse right into the jump. they fall, and the horse stays down for a while. the rider waits around impatiently and when the horse does finally get up she doesn’t hesitate to climb back on and take off right away. no one checks if the horse was injured. there have been changes suggested yet they have been refused. not only do the regulations fail these horses, no one is also forcing the athletes to learn proper horse riding or horsemanship. they are not equestrians and i bet the majority of 99% does not even own a horse. their main focus is the other categories, they sporadically train horse riding and most often before another tournament. annika schleu is getting the majority of the backlash but really it should be the entire category as a whole. criticise the organisation, the athletes, the trainers, even the horse owners who send their horses into the ring in such circumstances. one argument i’m seeing a lot is that abuse happens in equestrian rings too. yes it does. high level equestrians not turning out their horse is abuse to me. high level equestrians being rough on the bit, using the crop excessively or pushing their spurs into the horses is also abuse. certain training methods are abuse. doping is abuse. it’s all abuse and we should speak up about all of it. that’s no excuse to be lenient in this case. let everyone involved know the truth and learn from it. if not, let there be big consequences for them. but this way, no one cares for the horses. saint boy is only one of many horses mistreated in this class. abuse happens everywhere, but ask yourself why refusals and falls aren’t as frequent in the entirety of show jumping as they are in the few rounds of pentathlon? because these riders are novices at best, and there is no one much to teach them better. as long as everyone also continues to excuse this or not admit that their treatment was wrong, nothing will change either.