Culture Society, Identity and Belonging
Six thousand years ago the human species gained super powers: speed, endurance, strength. Nothing was ever the same again. This world-changing event was the domestication of the horse, and it was celebrated yesterday at Versailles as Britain won the team eventing gold medal. Dressage is beauty, cross-country is courage, showjumping is accuracy: all equine life is here. After the ugly video featuring a whip and the disgraced dressage queen Charlotte Dujardin, here were horses jumping with confidence and willingness on the third day of intense competition. You can’t get half a ton of horse to do that by bullying. If they hate it they won’t jump.
The British team of Tom McEwen, Laura Collett and the nicely-named Ros Canter retained the medal the British team won three years ago in Tokyo. Canter was given 15 penalties after she knocked a flag with her knee on the cross-country course, and this was retained after a lengthy appeal. But the team completed three unruffled showjumping rounds to take the gold, and Collett took a bronze in the individual. Michael Jung of Germany took the individual gold.
Training a horse is not a simple business, and it has no simple answers. Crass brutality is not the magic ingredient for success. Organisations like Animal Rising believe no equestrian sport of any kind is possible without sadistic cruelty. Yesterday’s sport could be seen as an elegant refutation of that stance.