I am grateful.
The 2024 Olympic Games in Versailles were magical from start to finish. They were my fourth Games; I started in London and went to Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo before Paris. Each cycle I seem to enjoy and appreciate them more as I get further established in my role as a professional equestrian journalist. After 25 years covering horse shows, I have reached a stage where I can relativize it all more and assess it all with a bird's eye view. I keep calm and carry on, even though the landscape of media publication is changing and equestrian sport is in rough waters.
Dressage sport at the Games was fabulous: four days of exciting competition in the most beautiful backdrop. I truly wonder if the setting can get any better than with the Palace of Versailles in the backdrop! I'm one of the very few reporters who works the Games as a journalist and photographer at the same, so it's always double duty for me, but I don't need much to be happy: no rain, good wifi, and cappuccinos. They were rather overpriced (7,50 euro) at the venue but I snuck in a Red Bull once in a while as Ersatz.
I delivered my freestyle report two days after competition. The freestyle finale left so many impressions and thoughts in my head that I felt a little overwhelmed to pour those into words straight away. Much happened in the Kur: of course there were great rides and good music, but it was interesting to see how the judges would reward the best riders in the world after a very tumultuous year in which the FEI has been put on high alert with a slew of animal welfare cases (Parra, Strasser, Helgstrand, Cassoe Kruth and Charlotte Dujardin).
Although there are clear rules in the FEI Judges Manual what to do with not so ideal bridle contact, these are all thrown overboard when it comes to celebrities of the sport. An overall picture of harmony or athleticism outweighs the observation of open mouths, stuck out or blue tongues. In the freestyle finale it even came so far that not even 10 (!!) judges (i.e. 7 panelists, 3 JSP members) saw a forbidden 2.5 pirouette in the test of one of the riders. Dressage is a microscopic analysis of the horse's legs, the mouth, the neck position, the rider's seat, hands, legs, aids. Die-hard dressage fans (over-)analyze it all and I believe that is also the reason why dressage and not the far rougher show jumping and the literally often cruel endurance or reining sport are the main target of the animal welfare activists right now.
I firmly believe that there is no place in the sport for riders who are cruel to their horses. It begs some self-reflection when your reaction is "Oh, it's not so bad" to a video of a person flogging a horse 24 times in 1 minute. If that's the response one belong to an old generation that has not kept up with new levels of knowledge, care and consideration for animals; out of touch with the sensitivities of an evolving society. I do believe there is middle road between horse patting/freedom riding and high performance sport, but it's now up to the FEI as well as the judges to clearly draw the lines in the sand and pave the path for a new version of equestrianism which can survive in the future and lead us towards Los Angeles 2028.
I would love to be there!
-- Astrid Appels
(Photo © Lily Forado)
Related Link
Eurodressage Coverage of the 2024 Olympic Games