A 3-time pentathlon world champion says the Olympic horse-punch saga was just the latest incident in a long history of the sport neglecting horse welfare
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Barnaby Lane
Nov 4, 2021, 23:28 IST
Samantha Murray.
Getty/Ramsey Cardy
Modern pentathlon has a long history of neglecting horse welfare, three-time world champion Samantha Murray told Insider.
Murray detailed one event in 2014 when athletes were asked to ride "limping" horses with "open wounds."
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Modern pentathlon authorities have a history of neglecting animal welfare during the equestrian portion of events, says the former world champion pentathlete Samantha Murray.
The incident prompted backlash from animal rights activists and fans across the globe, however Murray, a three-time world champion and Olympic silver medalist, says horse welfare issues are not uncommon within the sport, and that the Tokyo incident was just the first to garner major international attention.
Speaking with Insider, the 32-year-old - who retired from elite pentathlon in 2018 - told of one particular incident at a World Cup event in Acapulco, Mexico in 2014, which she said highlighted the issues around horse welfare and safety in the sport.
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"The horses they had sourced were local carting horses," she said. "They had open wounds, they were limping. The course was very low, but none of the horses could get around it. They had never been schooled in show jumping.
"The result was that the athletes joined together and actually boycotted that competition and refused to compete because it was outrageous in terms of animal welfare."
Murray said that despite the boycott, the UIPM released a statement to say that the competition had been cancelled due to "extreme weather conditions."
"That is a total lie," she said, adding that a UIPM vet was on hand at the event and had declared the injured horses as eligible to compete.
"I said to her, 'Are you kidding me? There's a horse here that has an open wound, and you're going to pass that?'"
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A statement on the UIPM's website dated March 1, 2014 makes no reference to the specific phrasing of "extreme weather conditions" that Murray blamed for the event's cancellation, but does say it was axed because of conditions that were "unfavorable to the health of the horses."
The UIPM did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on Murray's statements.
While Murray agrees that removing the equestrian section from the modern pentathlon may be a useful temporary solution to the sport's animal welfare issues, she says it isn't the long term answer.
Instead, she suggests that the UIPM needs to make some simple changes that will benefit both the horses and the athletes.
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These include providing each athlete with their own horse during competitions - currently 36 riders share 18 horses.
Murray also suggested having global "minimum riding standards" athletes must meet in order to compete and standardized jumping heights in competitions so that horses aren't caught off guard by the height of fences.
She also said that the rules must be changed so that unsettled horses don't have to continue to jump.
Current rules state that a horse must refuse to jump a fence four times before it is eliminated. Murray says that number should be reduced so that the animal is not put under unfair stress.
"In showjumping, riders will pull their horses and say, 'Look, he's just not willing to jump today. He's not going to do it.' And that's accepted.
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"But in pentathlon, they don't. They view the animals as tools."
She added: "I blame the UIPM totally, for their poor governance and very limited approach to how they run and manage competitions.
"If they ran an effective sport, they would have the rules of each discipline and would manage them and implement them effectively. That's what they fail to do in equestrian over and over again."
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