Animal welfare at the 2024 Olympics: The horse comes first (2024)

FAQs

How do the horses get to the Olympics in 2024? ›

In short: Australian horses have flown to Paris in an air-stable to compete in the 2024 Olympic Games. The horses require a passport before travelling.

The horses competing at the Olympic Games make it to the venue in style: on airplanes! There's no better way for a horse to travel overseas. Each horse has a robust team to ensure their needs are meticulously attended to from the time they leave their home country to the time they return.

There are cases of harm to horses through neglect, ignorance or even intentional abuse. Nonetheless, the equine industry must be prepared to deal with these rare occurrences openly and honestly. The industry must be willing to take the initiative to remove horses from situations of neglect or abuse.

"It depends on the airline, the time you travel - it does vary, but between 70 and $80,000 for a horse return. "There is hay and stuff on the flight for them - no hostesses though! The companies have a groom that fly with them, and for an Olympic Games we actually send our team veterinarian with them."

If you own or are responsible for a horse, you have a duty to look after its basic welfare by: providing it with a suitable place to live. giving it a suitable diet. protecting it from pain, injury, suffering and disease.

Good animal welfare requires disease prevention and treatment, responsible care, proper housing, management, nutrition, humane handling, and—when necessary—humane euthanasia.

The 5 welfare needs

Feed a suitable diet. Allow the animal to be able to exhibit normal behaviour patterns. Allow any need it has to be housed with, or apart from, other animals. Be protected from pain, suffering, injury and disease.

“Speaking generally, during the Olympic Games, the high-speed, high-force and big-air or combat sports cause more injuries,” says Finnoff. During the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, BMX bikers topped the list at 38%, followed by boxing at 30%, mountain-bike cycling at 25%, and water polo and rugby both at 19%.

Why doesn't the Olympics let people ride their own horse in equestrian sports? They do. In most of the equestrian events the riders are riding their own horses and in fact both horse and rider have to qualify. However in the Modern Pentathlon they are only given 20 minutes to build a relationship with a horse.

What is horse Olympics called? ›

Equestrian sports were first included in the Olympic Games in the Summer Olympics of 1900 in Paris. They were again included in 1912, and have been included in every subsequent edition of the Games. Currently, the Olympic equestrian disciplines are dressage, eventing, and show jumping.

As horse owners, riders and keepers, it is our duty to provide the horses in our care with a species-appropriate life centred around their three essential needs: friends, forage, and freedom.

Racehorses are at risk of harm during races, training and trials with the main types of injuries involving muscle, bones, tendons and ligaments. Serious injuries such as fractures and ruptured ligaments or tendons which cause pain or distress, and cannot be treated should result in immediate euthanasia.

They proposed there are three major concepts of animal welfare: health and production; natural behavior; and feelings (affective states).

The animals were loaded into stalls at ground level, then levered up into the plane. Stalls are built to accommodate three horses, but as these are Olympians, they'll fly the equivalent of business class – just two animals per stall.

Teams qualify primarily through specific competitions (World Equestrian Games and continental tournaments), while individuals qualify through rankings. The host nation, France, automatically qualified a team in each discipline.

A whopping 19 airplanes and 185 truck journeys were commissioned to transport the top-flight equines to their own Olympic village in Japan. To ensure their comfort, the horses were afforded luxuries such as business class accommodations, in-flight meals, snacks, and grooming.

The equestrian events at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris were run from 27 July to 6 August at the Palace of Versailles, featuring 200 riders across three disciplines for both individual and team competitions, namely dressage, eventing, and jumping.