“Please enjoy the music, which will be played by an, erm, house DJ during this break.”
As the three-day eventing finale paused against the backdrop of the Palace of Versailles, and its observers set off for a picnic lunch in the botanical garden, it was hard not to hear the announcement as more warning than invitation.
That equestrianism is a little different from most Olympic sports does not take much working out, the only one where the human athlete is not the only sentient force.
In recent days, that fact has been the subject of much scrutiny, with calls for the sport to be axed from the Games after Team GB’s second-most successful female Olympian, Charlotte Dujardin, was forced out for excessively whipping a horse in training.
Here, in the eyes of Team GB’s eventers and first gold medalists of these Games, was a riposte; the sport delivering a much-needed day in the blazing sun.
“Seeing our horses go in there looking a million dollars and performing like they have all week hopefully shows what goes in,” said Laura Collett, who added individual bronze to a second successive team title alongside Tom McEwen and Olympic debutant Ros Canter. “Horses don’t go like that if they’re not happy. We were here to do a job and show the world that the horses are the real stars of the show.”
This was a strong showcase, and a rare time when all three podium parties appeared lifted by a similar degree of ecstasy. In third, Japan claimed its first equestrian medal in 92 years. France took silver, already a better haul than the entire team brought home from Tokyo.
Equestrianism’s place at the Olympics is not only in question amid an animal rights storm, but also for being at odds with the Games’s general move towards more accessible, urban sports.
Collett’s pitch to “every child” that “you can never dream too big” did not feel from quite the same cloth as confirmation that her helmet was encrusted with Swarovski crystals, but there is still a tale of inspiration and resilience here.
In 2013, the rider, whose mother worked weekends in a petrol station to fund her hobby, had to be resuscitated and placed in a six-day coma after injuring half her bones and organs in an horrific fall. She remains blind in one eye.
Equestrianism, too, has taken a serious battering over the past week and had further work to do to heal the damage as the dressage in which Dujardin was due to compete got underway on Tuesday.
