“There is no excuse,” Charlotte Dujardin said. “I am deeply ashamed and should have set a better example in that moment.”
Charlotte Dujardin, winner of three gold, a silver and two bronze medals in Olympic equestrian events for Britain, will not compete at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, because of a video that showed an undisclosed “error of judgment” of which she said she was “deeply ashamed.”
Dujardin said on Tuesday that the video, from four years ago, showed “an error of judgment during a coaching session.” The precise contents of the video were not immediately known, but Dujardin said in a statement on social media, “What happened was completely out of character and does not reflect how I train my horses or coach my pupils.”
“There is no excuse,” she said. “I am deeply ashamed and should have set a better example in that moment.” Dujardin said she would not comment beyond her statement.
Later on Tuesday, the International Federation for Equestrian Sports said it had provisionally suspended her from all competitions for six months. The British Equestrian Federation also suspended her, making her ineligible for international or national events.
The international federation did not specifically describe the contents of the video but said it “condemns any conduct contrary to the welfare of horses and has robust rules in place to address such behavior.”
“It is our responsibility and crucial that we address any instances of abuse, as equine welfare cannot be compromised,” said Ingmar De Vos, the president of the federation, which said it would continue to investigate.
Dujardin, 39, is a star of dressage, the event in which horses are judged on how well they perform sets of prescribed movements to music.
She won the individual and the team event at the 2012 Olympics in London aboard Valegro; she was once again the individual champion and won the team silver at Rio 2016. After Valegro retired, she switched to a horse named Gio and won bronze in both events at Tokyo in 2021. She had been expected to ride Imhotep in the events at the Paris Games, which open on Friday.
Her six medals tie her with the cyclist Laura Kenny for most won by a British woman. In 2017, Dujardin was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, an honor given to reward people for their achievements.
Her first two gold medals, at age 27, came despite the fact that she had competed for only 18 months at the top level in a sport in which many competitors have 20 years of experience or more.
She said on Tuesday that she would withdraw from all other equestrian competitions as well while the investigation continued.
