A small yet significant date appears in the sporting diary on Wednesday, July 23: the day that the one-year suspension being served on Charlotte Dujardin, the triple-Olympic gold medallist, is up. It is an understatement to say that there is considerable consternation in the equestrian world regarding what this means for the sport.
Dujardin was banned last year after a video was leaked of her whipping a horse 24 times. The video leak was timed for the eve of the Paris Olympics, which would trigger her immediate withdrawal from the Games, cause maximum publicity and the greatest possible damage to her reputation.
At the time it was therefore common to hear people saying “Dujardin is finished”, but that could not be more wrong. Dujardin, 40, is back and has every intention of picking up her career where she left off.
What she hasn’t declared yet, though, is where the comeback will start. She certainly hasn’t discussed it with the British Equestrian Federation. It seems most likely that she will choose a small event.
What is certain is that animal welfare activists will be watching closely, that every tug or slight kick on her horse will be given the utmost scrutiny. The publicity could therefore be damaging to a sport that is paranoid about horse welfare issues and whose continued inclusion in the Olympic Games remains under threat.
There is a minority who see Dujardin’s comeback as a kind of “royalty returns” story. There are plenty of others who believe that she wasn’t...
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