Few days ago, I watched a couple of videos of Olympic Equestrian games taking place in Versailles. Crowds gathered along the fences made of wooden posts and lines. They stood either under the sun or the shades of towering poplar trees, forming an undulating scene that was probably never seen before here, something Louis XIV would be shocked to see. The cheering sounds repeated like slow tides, each one of them crashing into the warm summer air as the horse and the rider appeared. They ran through several obstacles of different heights scattering on the track, before jumping through the tallest one marked by additional posts(but certainly not the fake castle tower). The obstacles were mostly potted plants, or specially designed ones that had them on sides. When the competitors jumped, they were either in the middle of the lawn or on the edge of the water, and as I watched them running through the fields, I couldn’t help but being bothered by something hard to describe. It could be the fact that I did not get to experience the game on site, to feel again the breeze running across the Grand Canal and licking on my face. It could be the the slightest irony that the riders had to cross the intricately-designed, sometimes cute obstacles, for example the one that was probably meant to be a treasure chest for books but somehow looks like a coffin, to win an award or the crowd’s favorite. After throwing all these nonsense away, I guessed that maybe it was just because I saw a brown horse stopped in front of a dried hedge along the water, refusing to cross it no matter how mant times the rider attepmted to turn back and head for it. The disappointment of the crowd and probably rider the most could be heard in the air, and somehow that irritated me, and suddenly I realized that throughout the game I did not enjoy it at all.
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After some research online, I found the reason to be the horse welfare, which has been a controversy in recent years, and debates are held between the general public, the professionals and amateurs, and related associations such as Internation Olympic Committee(IOC) and Fédération Equestre Internationale(FEI). I am not a professional in equestrian sport(We don’t have many horses here in Taiwan), so regarding the details of horse injuries and anxiety caused by improper training or the game itself, I would like to share an article by Elaine Pascoe on September 2016 issue of Practical Horseman. It’s called Hyperflexion: Going to Extremes. You can find there the definition of horse hyperflextion, the potenntial causes backed by studies of scientists, and how they affect the horses in negative ways. I originally planned to post an article about my shallow research, but found my notes to be pages and decided to give it up. But anyway it always feels good when some inexplicable feelings are eventually explained somewhere else, despite having to spend the whole day dealing with terms of equestrian and the dark side of human nature, and instead of simply saying, “The whole scene looks stupid to me."
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I started the Olympic series to force myself to engage in different kinds of sports, spiritually and poetically, so I can have a different conversation with friends someday. As you can see, the alphabetical order stops at E, so I guess this means it will start again four years later, in Los Angeles. Maybe the equestrian sport will be totally different then. So will you and I. 🙂
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p.s. You can also watch a youtube video by Shelby, who is a professional horse trainer and specialist in Horse Behaviour. In the video, she helped us capture pictures of the Paris Olympics Equestrian games and explained her concerns on horse welfare. Check it out if you’re interested! Have a nice day.
River on Baltic Sea 
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