The Charlotte Dujardin scandal and a sport in crisis

At Carl Hester’s yard in Newent, Gloucestershire, Charlotte Dujardin still turns up regularly to ride her horses but by no kind of measure is she the star any more. Her head is down; her communication is truncated. She is a fallen icon living in a kind of purgatory.“Mentally they are crucifying her,” says one of the other riders who rides at the yard. “She’s got antis [anti-hunt saboteurs] outside the house, death threats. Farriers have had threats for going in and shoeing the horses. Horrific.”Within the safety of her home, she has been witnessing the structures in her life slowly being pulled apart. She cannot compete and she has lost all her support (coaching, sports science, medical) from UK Sport. In the year after the Tokyo Olympics, she earned £2.1million. In the immediate aftermath of the scandal of her withdrawal before the Paris Games, seven sponsors announced they were severing ties with her. Her earning ability has been decimated.Ever since Dujardin’s…