06/09/2019

(6 September 2019)

These data have been made public by Clean Endurance, a voluntary organisation dedicated to improving regulations governing this discipline.

The trigger for this comes from three recent FEI (International Equestrian Federation) judgements, where the riders involved were suspended for between 12 and 30 months and fined between 4.000 and 9.000 CHF.

In all three of these cases it was demonstrated that the horses had been harried, whipped and kicked to increase their speed in some competitions of the last winter season, even though they were showing clear signs of stress and exhaustion. An example case was that of Castlebar Nato, who was ridden so hard that he sustained a fracture in the fetlock. Instead of being euthanised on the spot, to save him from further senseless suffering, he was simply logged as ‘lame’ and quickly removed from the venue.

In this YouTube video you can see Castlebar Nato (bib 89, go to minute 3:00) and also a horse named Songbird (bib 32) ridden into the ground during the same event.

The third case concerns the abuse of Radja D’Altus (Sarab), and can be seen here.

Judging by the debates going on among experts in the sport, these cases are just the tip of the iceberg: there have been controversies about endurance competitions for years now, in particular since this equestrian discipline attracted the interest or the UAE (United Arab Emirates) royal families. Huge investment and mind-boggling prizes swiftly raised the demands on the horses to intolerable levels. As a consequence there has been a growing rise in accidents and deaths, some of which are truly horrible: in 2015 pictures of a race in Abu Dhabi went viral, when Splitters Creek Bundy waited in agony with both forelegs fractured, for a full 20 minutes, before the arrival of the vets.

We have very little official news of these incidents. The majority of cases which then do result in sanctions are reported after the event and thus out of the control of the competition judges on the spot.

The litmus test of this heinousness, if we may call it that, is that at a certain point even the officials involved in the competitions become disgusted, strongly requesting that the FEI put in place urgent modifications to the regulations to put a stop to these barbaric incidents. Added to this, it is not just the accidents that have been on the increase, but also cases of doping.

However, the regulations have not yet been changed, and the proposals put forward for debate to come into effect in 2020, have been deemed ‘inadequate’. But why this delay, this dithering, when it is clearly simply a case of limiting the speed; guaranteeing proper checks where the animals’ welfare is an undisputed priority; bringing in transparency about the horses, the stabling, the judges and the vets; the imposition of adequate sanctions such as disqualification for life, all in place of the current, frankly pathetic, sanctions?
Could it be something to do with the rich and powerful sheikhs, who own 50% of the FEI registered endurance horses?
According to published data from the FEI’s “antidoping programme and control of drugs” (EADCMP), the positive results of tests carried out during competitions held in the UEA is 11.9% - that is, a full ten times the level found in all equestrian sports in the rest of the world. And yet, even though the United Arab Emirates are considered “high risk” by the FEI, last year fewer than 4% of the competitions held in that country were subject to inspection.

Turning from doping to physical mistreatment, examining the videos of the competitions, a number of serious behaviour breaches are clear, and all have been reported to the FEI: use of extra-long reins, used to whip the horses (whips crops and spurs are not permitted by FEI rules); ‘wringing’ or twisting the ears shortly before a vet gate (this is supposed to reduce heart rate); the practice of having more than one jockey per horse (in some cases more than five on one horse in the same ride).
And the cherry on the cake is the ’30 minute rule’: if an abuse of the rules is not contested within half an hour of being committed it goes unpunished (with the exception of mistreatment). In an Endurance ride, due to the nature of the competition itself, it might be that the judges, vets and officials are 20 kilometres away from any particular incident.

Clean Endurance states that it has provided the FEI with proof of 26 horses, from 2014 to 2018, whose deaths following a race have not been logged in the official records. From that we can deduce that official mortality figures are but a small statistic, and that many horses suffering fatal injuries are removed from the venue before being euthanised, in order to avoid penalties.

To illustrate the extent of this, we quote two recent rulings: in 2015 the FEI suspended the European Equestrian Federation for four months, also suspending two of its managers for falsification of results of at least 15 rides.
In 2016, the FEI cancelled the World Endurance Championship in Dubai, on the basis of concerns about horse welfare which was not guaranteed there.

Link to FEI Tribunal rulings

Link to final report of ESPG (Endurance strategy planning group created by the FEI in 2013 to study the disturbing data and propose reform)

(photos taken by Clean Endurance YouTube channel)

RELATED ARTICLES:

Euston (GB), horse dies after endurance ride

Endurance, another atrocious death of a horse (February 2015)

Equestrian Sports: another two horses dead (August 2014)

IHP demands an investigation into the death of Django (September 2013)

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