'I Can't Watch Anymore'

The Case for Dropping Equestrian from the Olympic Games.
 
Julie Taylor
 
‘Catalogues what happens to sport horses in plain sight … should be compulsory reading for all of us who care about horses.' — Professor Paul McGreevy BVSc, PhD, FRCVS, Professor of Animal Welfare and Behavioural Science, University of Sydney
 
Passionate, yet rigorous and meticulously researched, this eye-opening book holds equestrian sport up to Olympic standards and finds it sadly wanting.
 
Doping agents that used to cost Olympic medals, rebranded as benign ‘medication’. Shell federations with no riders or horses, propped up to make the sport seem ‘global’. Judging that favours spectacle over the welfare of the horse. From the failure to prevent rollkur, to the easing of the ‘blood rule’ to appease riders, to horses competing with the nerves in their legs cut to numb the pain of injuries: this is a tale of entitlement, privilege, and spineless regulation, always at the expense of the horse.
 
This compelling book challenges the reader to confront the reality of high-level equestrian competition today and say, along with so many others, ‘I can’t watch anymore’.