In the heart of the Palace of Versailles, the residence built by Louis XIV, Team GB’s Tom McEwen reached for a royal analogy when question duly came about the horse abuse scandal that has rocked his sport. “I would invite any single one of you to come round and have a look at my yard for an hour, a week, or whatever it took,” said McEwen, who won an Olympic eventing team gold and individual silver medal in Tokyo. “What you see here is the beauty of what happens every single day at home.
These horses are looked after as kings and queens.” The 33-year-old also insisted that he was “shocked” when he saw the video of his Team GB teammate Charlotte Dujardin whipping a horse 24 times – apparently while teaching it the “piaffe”, the slow-motion trot technique dating back to the Renaissance. However it is common to do so by tapping the horse very lightly, to encourage it to lift its legs, not hard with a long stick.
“It’s obviously come to a massive shock for all of us,” he said, after taking an early lead in the three-day eventing competition with just 25.80 penalty points. “But actually I think it’s really important for the rest of us to put a shining light on our amazing sport.
I believe eventing is one of the great sports. We are the triathlon of the horse world. McEwen also promised that Dujardin’s behaviour was not truly reflective of what goes on behind when the cameras are on and no one is looking.
“I can only really speak for eventing,” McEwen said. “But if you come watch any of the three other girls on my team or any of the others working here, you can see that these horses are looked after beautifully. And they go lovely.
” There was, however, a small amount of sympathy for the 39-year-old Dujardin, who was bidding to become Britain’s most decorated female at these Games until she was suspended for six months after the incident came to light. Sign up to Olympic and Paralympic briefing Our daily email briefing will help you keep up with all the goings on at the Olympics and Paralympics after newsletter promotion “We are 110% behind horse welfare,” he said. “And these horses looked after incredibly.
I definitely don’t condone Charlotte’s behaviour. But she has put her hands up to it and she’s owned it. And realistically it’s for the courts, the process, and the people to decide what punishment she should be getting for her actions.
At the end of it she is a human being as well.” McEwen also promised the having equestrian thrust onto the front pages in the build up to these Olympics had not affected the team’s preparations. “To be honest it is all focused,” he said.
“It was a complete shock to begin with. We weren’t expecting it at all. But realistically we’ve come here to come and do our job, which is the eventing team.
“We have got dressage today, cross country tomorrow and jumping on Monday. So we’ve got our own focuses and with eventing you don’t really get too much time on your hands. There’s plenty to do with walking courses and other variables.
So we’ve seen the news, we’ve read it, it’s deeply sad for our sport. But at the same time I don’t believe our sport’s like it so we will move on.”.
