Former Chronicle of the Horse journalist Sara Lieser attended the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris and wrote an interesting op-ed on the Games in relation to animal welfare.
Keeping equestrian sport Olympic "is a difficult needle to thread" because "if the IOC asks equestrian to make changes, we need to make sure those changes benefit the horse, first and foremost."
I picked out two paragraphs from a longer column which can be read in its entirety here.
She wrote: "I understand, from a human perspective, why it’s important to keep horse sports in the Olympics. They’re a major goal for the athletes, but even more, the Olympics are one of the best marketing tools for introducing new people to horse sport and growing the support base for expensive sports, the costs of which are soaring ever further into the stratosphere. If riding and training horses is going to continue to exist as a potential career rather than just a hobby for the uber-wealthy, then that support is essential."
Lieser hits the nail on the head when she states: "And it’s OK that equestrian sport changes. Horses are bred more specifically for certain jobs. Less open land exists. We know more about horse health and happiness now than we did 100 years ago. When we know better, we should do better. Tradition and “we’ve always done it this way” are poor excuses for resisting a change that might lead to healthier, sounder horses. But as we’ve learned once again to our dismay, the real threat to equestrian sport in the Olympics isn’t whether we have enough athletes from different nations or whether the scoring system parallels more popular sports. It’s whether the public believes we’re doing right by our horses."
Read the full op-ed here.
Related Link
Eurodressage Coverage of the Olympic Games