Carl Hester: Charlotte Dujardin video was a shock and she has paid heavily

Carl Hester says his protege Charlotte Dujardin has “paid very heavily” following the publication of a video which resulted in her withdrawing from the Olympic dressage competition and being handed a provisional suspension from the sport.

Dujardin dropped out of Paris last week and was suspended by equestrian’s governing body, the International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI), pending an investigation into a video from four years ago which showed her repeatedly hitting a student’s horse with a whip from the ground during a coaching session.

Dujardin embarked on her dressage career under the tutelage of Hester, who part-owned Valegro, the horse that propelled the rider on to the front pages when the duo secured team and individual gold in London back in 2012.

Hester, speaking publicly for the first time about the controversy, admitted he was shocked by the video, but insists it is not reflective of the Dujardin he knows.

As the dressage competition got under way at the Chateau de Versailles, he said: “The video was a huge shock to me, I didn’t know it was there – it’s not from my property.

“Charlotte has made her statement, she has apologised and given her thoughts on it, I respect she has done that. It’s now an ongoing investigation with the FEI and I’m not going to go any further with it.

“It’s difficult, of course it is. I have known her for 17 years, she’s a mum, she has a small child. She has paid very heavily for this in a way that you wouldn’t believe.

“She will have to accept what the FEI gives her and she will, and I just hope she is strong enough to be able to come back from that.”

Hester was a signatory to a statement from the board members of the International Dressage Riders Club last week that “universally condemned” Dujardin’s actions and he underlined the importance of horse welfare.

He said: “In the UK you don’t see that sort of video, I have never seen that before.

“We were all in shock and we are all making an effort now to show how much we love our horses, how we train them.

“Isabell (Werth) is the head of the Riders Club, she’s absolutely right and we all know it needs to change if this is out there, we are going to have to do that but as we have seen from the last few days of sport (eventing) here, we’ve seen the care, the grooms who work incredibly hard, how they love and look after the horses and I hope that starts to show how that works.”

When asked about Dujardin, Hester said: “I’m here, I haven’t seen her and I know things are very, very difficult but she’s surrounded by people who are trying to help her.

“She obviously accepts what she did, which she had to do and I am glad she has done that, for her. This is four years ago, people do make mistakes – what do we do, never forgive people for all the things that have happened?

“Right now, it’s going to be a long road for her and a lesson, for everybody really in the horse world. We have got to put horses first and show that.

“That is not my opinion of Charlotte. That video is fairly obvious and nobody is going to support that, you can’t, but my personal opinion of Charlotte over 17 years, I have not seen that, that is not her.”

As well as securing double gold in London, Dujardin and Valegro won individual gold and team silver in Rio, before partnering with Gio to win bronze in both competitions in Tokyo.

Had Dujardin won a medal of any colour in Paris, she would have become the most successful British female Olympian of all-time, surpassing retired cyclist Dame Laura Kenny.

Becky Moody was the reserve rider who got the call up when Dujardin withdrew and she too felt the video was not representative of either the rider or dressage itself.

She said: “My overriding emotion was sadness because it is not a reflection of our sport, but also for me it is not a reflection of what I know about Charlotte.

“I have seen her compete a lot, I have seen her train horses a lot and that is not a side I saw. Fundamentally it did just make me sad.

“Her statement said everything she needed to say, she has owned that and I think that everyone just has to remember the human in this situation.”

Moody enjoyed a dream Olympic debut, securing a score of 74.938% for her qualifying test, winning her group and securing her place in the individual final, the Grand Prix Freestyle on Sunday.

Hester registered 77.345% which left him third in his group, with the top two from each automatically going to Sunday’s event, plus the six next best scores.

Britain currently sit in second in qualifying for the team final, Saturday’s Grand Prix Special, with third athlete Charlotte Fry to compete tomorrow.