The Public Execution of Charlotte Dujardin (Episode 218) - Herm Gailey: A Lifetime with Horses

[Music] so for anyone who for any reason isn't aware this is the beginning as I make this video of the Olympics in Paris and those Olympics will be going forward without a young woman who was tied to be the most Olympic medaled female athlete in British history Charlotte dardan who was remarkably enough a dressage Rider she's tied I believe with a cyclist she was widely expected to medal again in these Olympics which might well have catapulted her to the top of that Heap instead literally days before the opening ceremonies of the Olympics a Dutch lawyer comes forward with a video that shows Charlotte dardan no question who it is in a training session doing some things that go beyond questionable which are frankly clearly abusive improper and worthy of censure now it may be that you haven't seen that video rather than me to Simply talk about it let's put that video up so you can decide for yourselves what's going on here the entire clip is about a minute long by some counts there were 24 strikes with a whip in that one minute period and we we're going to put that up and then very shortly after that I'm going to answer a couple of questions that came up about just how physically harmful this might be and it might be surprising what you see when we do that so here we go with the clip C yeah when you watch so you've seen the video perhaps most troubling in some ways we left the sound of that video in place and you can hear people chuckling like this is amusing that she's you know interacting with this horse in this way in fact there's nothing funny about it and it's very troubling that it would be viewed as amusing cuz that suggests perhaps and it was not an isolated incident be that as it may it's clear then stand alone this was bad behavior bad horsemanship and worthy of punishment however the Dutch lawyer who came forward with this and another athlete who was weighing in on this both said that they were concerned with the pain that was inflicted on the horse now I'm not taken away from the impropriety of this training technique if you can call it that but rather I would like to demonstrate that in terms of physical pain or damage this whole episode was negligible there's very little pain involved and virtually no chance even for physical damage and I'm going to do that graphically I am going to step out of the of the barn here and subject myself to a small whipping this isn't a joke I just think it would be worthwhile to show in real life real time real experience that a lunge whip does not inflict irreparable harm or really any harm physically important physically at all so here we go here we are for this demonstration now I'm going to apologize in advance not to make light of this at all but my daughter is not a particularly dedicated whip wielder so if she misses or if she does a less than perfect job with the whip let that just be testimony to the fact we don't do a lot of this but I think we'll be able to get the uh the the the idea across and we've actually practiced a little bit so that she could work on her Aim so here we go I'm just going to move around kind of like the horse was moving around a little bit harder like like they were doing in the there you go so tiny sting no real pain certainly no harm and in no way am I suggesting that that takes away from the overall picture here but I think it puts to rest the idea that this horse was physically injured and we're going to move on and talk about the much larger implications right now so after what was admittedly a somewhat light-hearted interlude uh we're we're back to the more serious business and appropriately enough I have some help here uh my two biggest and perhaps only fans Bonnie and Belinda and and to me this is the way you want to be living with your horses but I'm not going to go there and I'm not going to I'm not going to volunteer for sainthood it's just nice to see them wanting to take part in this and be here with us so what we see here is no physical harm being done to the horse and that is a distinction that we need to take into account but it was abusive offensive ill-conceived training and what was to me probably the most offensive was how downright stupid it was as a training strategy this horse was not physically hurt but was he distressed was he confused was he frustrated was he understandably a bit angry yeah all of those things and all of that to accomplish nothing cuz we all hear that a horse learns when they get a release instead for 60 seconds which is a lifetime if you're getting whipped believe me 60 seconds this horse is getting chased around with a whip with not one bit of relief I don't think a horse can process things at that level of stress over that period of time to any good end get in get out give the release teach the lesson this was an example of really bad horsemanship from a really allegedly highlevel Horseman which is just stunning in its stupidity frankly so this action in and of itself is worthy of censure and because of the timing the FEI the internet National governing body of drage and other International Ean sports did what I think was the right and probably the only thing and that is pending a more complete investigation and due process Charlotte duard was suspended and is not participating in the Olympics what is more important than this single episode with this single IND individual in this particular horse as important as it is is the message that this sends about the need for accountability the need for change because folks as fellow horsee competitive horse sports are under siege and there are systemic problems that are calling out for a solution and if we don't act from within it is going to be imposed on us from the outside so is there a message in the pretty severe penalty this woman is paid yes but I can picture people in other disciplines saying well that was Charlotte duard now high-profile it was drage we're not Dr this isn't us it isn't you yet other disciplines are not clean anybody who's been around has seen it and knows it when I look and I I showed raining horses for more than 40 years and it troubles me when I see a dead eyed dead tailed raining horse running down the ring dropping his backside and doing an admittedly impressive but totally artificial slide stop that is as unrealistic and as manufactured as a Big Lick Tennessee Walking Horse it troubles me when I see Western Pleasure horses moving around like lobotomized zombies who've given up on life and it troubles me to see the disturbing number of Dr horses whose heads are tucked to their chests in incredibly contorted positions whose eyes are rolled back in their head and who are slobbering like rabid wolves none of that is good all of it is visible all of it is Extreme and the techniques used to bring it about if exposed could absolutely damage each and every one of these Sports so the example of Charlotte djara should do better than the old days when there was a saying in oldtime law enforcement there is no better deterrent to Crime than a public execution well people are crying out to string up Charlotte duard now even if they do the thing to remember is in 19th or 18th century England where that statement about nothing to deter a crime like a public execution was made at those public executions for pickpockets which was a hanging offense at those hangings there were pickpockets working the crowd the rest of the horse industry is like the pickpockets while everyone is howling for the blood of this one particular young woman the rest of the world is going on as it always did and the difference is people are watching and it makes me sad to say this they should be watching they need to be watching and we need to clean our act up so that what they see doesn't lead to the public execution of horse Sports as a whole you could say that's an extreme position to take but consider the fact that there is a considerable outcry among animal rights groups and even some cooler heads to the effect that equestrian Sports should be removed from International competition and most particularly the Olympics so if it can happen there it can happen anywhere consider the cautionary tale of the Tennessee Walking Horse industry when the Big Lick walking horses that have the exaggerated motion became so popular back in the late 50s through the 60s it was common practice to soar these horses to use devices on their front legs and kept them raw and to rub diesel fuel or uh different irritants in there underneath anklets that caused them to elevate in an exaggerated fashion and again and again there were attempts to dissuade that industry from using those tactics and I'm sure not everyone did but a lot in fact soared their horses it got to the point where there was a federal statute enacted the horse protection Act of 1970 for the sole purpose of preventing monitoring and enforcing penalties Against The Soaring of walk walking horses and since that time 54 years ago the United States Department of Agriculture has been enforcing those rules because the Walking Horse industry would not self- enforce we could all go down that path and if we don't do something there's an argument to be made that we should because we need to change things for the better if we look around us and we see some of the things that happen anyone who has been around the horse world for a long time certainly as long as I have has seen worse things then emerged in the video of Charlotte du jardan at one time or another and I think almost without exception nothing was done about it and nothing changed the time has come for it to change and there doesn't have to be punishment people can do better there's a wonderful book by Jane Smiley who was a legitimate horsewoman and also a very gifted writer called Horse Heaven and she has conversation between two trainers and the one fella had just cautioned another trainer on one of his practices and suggested he was going to hurt a horse and the older trainer says to him you really maybe didn't want to do that because you have to understand that's the way things go he said it's not right he says I'm an old man and when I die and it's not so far off now I know that I'm going to be accountable not just for my own sins but for the sins I saw and did nothing about let's not go down that path let's do something about the things that we see let's do something about the things that we've done there are things in my past and I would redo differently but what I'm not doing is repeating some of those mistakes that I made before I knew better what's troubling is to see people who do know better who should know better not doing better because they're caught up in competition we have to decide do we like horse shows do we like horse competitions better than horses do we love horse shows or do we love horses we have to say to ourselves doesn't horsemanship matter doesn't sportsmanship matter doesn't common decency matter and what I'm saying is it damn well should thanks [Music]