Relief for Ludger Beerbaum: The association has dropped the case for animal cruelty against him. For the show jumper it is clear: It is a first-class acquittal.
The disciplinary committee of the German Equestrian Federation (FN) has dropped the case against four-time Olympic champion Ludger Beerbaum after more than a year. “I see this as a clear acquittal,” said Beerbaum: “The whole process took far too long and this decision was foreseeable.”
Beerbaum is currently recovering in a hospital in Doha from a femur fracture sustained in a fall from a horse during the weekend’s Global Champions Tour opener. The fracture was treated surgically, Beerbaum will probably have to stay in the hospital for another week.
Accusation: Illegal bars
The FN had initiated the said procedure after a broadcast by RTL in January 2022 was supposed to prove that the illegal bars were being used on Beerbaum’s property in Riesenbeck.
The 60-year-old Beerbaum, who also breeds and trades horses himself, was criticized in January 2022 after RTL secretly released film sequences from his riding stable. Among other things, there were scenes in which horses were allegedly tortured. “I’m definitely not an animal abuser,” Beerbaum told Der Spiegel. The post puts him in a completely wrong light. “I can well imagine that some of the images look ugly, especially to people who cannot assess what is going on.”
“Difficult to communicate boundaries”
The difference between touching and bars is complicated, the border is fluid. Touching, which is still permitted in January 2022, is “a professional sensitization of the horse by specifically touching the horse’s legs during the jump,” as the rules say. If the bar is not only touched, but hit, it is called parallel bars. It was “difficult to convey where the limits are,” said FN Secretary General Soenke Lauterbach at the time.
“Difficult case”
According to the FN’s justification, there is no evidence that the horse was inflicted with significant pain in the relevant video sequence. With this assessment, the Disciplinary Commission is in line with the decision of the Münster public prosecutor’s office, which had already discontinued the criminal proceedings pending there in September 2022.
It was a “legally very difficult case,” said the FN: “It was all about whether the video sequence violated the performance test regulations (LPO) and not whether the now banned method of touching applied as described in the guidelines.” The disciplinary commission “didn’t make it easy for itself” in assessing this question, explained FN legal advisor Constanze Winter.
