July 20, 2025
Charlotte Dujardin’s suspension from horse sport competition ends Tuesday after the year-long ban kept her out of the Olympics in Paris and a chance last year to become Britain’s most decorated female Olympian.
The suspension of Charlotte from July 23 last year to Tuesday July 22, 2025 along with a fine of 10,000 Swiss francs (US$12,470) was imposed by the FEI–International Equestrian Federation–after a video appeared showing what was described as the rider “excessively” whipping a horse during a training session.
She admitted the incident and apologized for her behavior.
Charlotte, who turned 40 years of age earlier this month and is the mother of two children, had been selected for the Paris Games on Imhotep, a Dutch-bred gelding that she competed at the 2022 World Championships and the 2023 Europeans but was withdrawn ahead of the Olympics. Imhotep has since been sold to Diana Porsche of Austria.
Charlotte, mentored by Carl Hester, rode Valegro to win medals at Olympics in London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and on Gio at Tokyo in 2021. Valegro was her mount to earn medals at the Normandy World Equestrian Games in 2014 and World Cup victories in 2014 and 2015. She rode Mount St. John Freestyle to medals at the 2018 World Games in Tryon. Gio was sold of Annabella Pidgley of Britain. Freestyle was competed at Paris by Cathrine Laudrup-Dufour of Denmark.
Seven prominent international dressage riders–six of them Olympians–have been suspended within the past two years. Those riders are Andreas Helgstrand (2004, 2008 Olympics) and Carina Cassøe Krüth (2021) of Denmark, Charlotte Dujardin of Great Britain (2012, 2016, 2021), Cesar Parra of Colombia/USA (2004), Evi Strasser (1996) and Tanya Strasser-Shostak of Canada, and Heath Ryan of Australia (2008).
The most prominent still unresolved case is that of Cesar Parra, who rode for both his native Colombia and the United States.
The rider, now 62 years old whose farm in Jupiter, Florida is up for sale, was provisionally suspended Feb. 2, 2024. A two-day FEI Tribunal hearing by trans-Atlantic video was held in mid-March.
However, four months later no decision has been announced.
