Cesar Parra was ‘indifferent to horses’ suffering’ – full report on banned Olympic rider who abused horses for years

The panel who ruled on the case of horse abuser Cesar Parra was “amazed to see how creative [he] has been in trying to find techniques and practices that would hurt horses, in perfect indifference to their suffering”.

H&H reported in August that the US dressage rider had been suspended for 15 years by the FEI Tribunal, for repeatedly abusing multiple horses in his care. The full Tribunal report has now been published, detailing the many and varied methods he used.

The Tribunal panel found that Parra had excessively used the whip, and excessively and persistently used spurs. He caused damage to horses’ mouths by misusing his hands, used “abusive equipment” – metal nuts under the noseband – and elasticated hobbles and shackles.

“The respondent’s actions put the horses’ mental and physical health at risk,” the Tribunal report states. “Based on his own declarations, the respondent did not see any issue in his behaviour, considering it to be specific training techniques or practices. The panel strongly disagrees.

“On the contrary, the respondent adopted a behaviour aiming at obtaining complete submissiveness, in his pursuit of competition and commercial goals. The respondent’s practices included, in this sense, abuse through sheer force such as beating, whipping, abusing hand aids and spurs resulting in welts, swelling, open wounds, cuts, sores in the horses’ mouths to also more sophisticated abuse, such as elastics, pulley system, shackles, metal nuts under the noseband, etc.”

The FEI set out that Parra, 62, has been competing internationally since 1998, including at the 2004 Olympics, and is “an elite athlete who has reached the highest level of performance in dressage with considerable experience in equestrian sport”. He had been provisionally suspended since February 2024, when video clips of his training techniques were sent to US Equestrian (USEF), causing an FEI and USEF investigation.

Evidence

The FEI submitted 29 videos to the panel, 25 photographs and four witness statements.

The first witness, a rider who previously worked for Parra, said he saw him excessively using whips, spurs and his hands, causing open wounds, welts and mouth bleeding and sores.

He said he saw Parra using a “twisted wire headset” under the bridle and tied to the girth and a metal nut under the noseband to cause “pressure and pain” on the nasal bone. He also said he witnessed Parra using a “pulley system consisting of hoof shackles connected with a lunging girth via a long rope, used for the forced resistance of the legs and body”. The panel did not uphold the allegation of use of the wire headset, nor electric spurs as mentioned by another witness.

“The respondent’s philosophy was that by taking the horses’ legs away from them, he would make them submissive and humble,” the statement in the Tribunal report reads.

“Upon questioning from the FEI, the witness submitted that in general the horses were in a mental state of distress consecutively to the respondent’s behaviour, and they wanted to leave the arena.

“Sometimes, they would refuse to move, lean down or spin around, among other signs of stress. Upon questioning from Mr Parra’s counsel, the witness submitted that he had had multiple discussions with Mr Parra during the time he worked for him, in relation to the various issues raised, but that Mr Parra was not willing to listen to him or to the others.”

Another rider who worked for Parra said she saw excessive whip and spur use and resulting wounds, and horses left for hours with their heads tied down, as well as “tying the horse’s head down and at the same time excessively whipping the horse from the ground”.

“Whipping of horses was performed on a daily basis, to the extent that the sound of the whipping became almost normal,” the report on this witness’s evidence states.

“Upon questioning from the FEI, the witness testified that the horses were in a very bad mental state in consequence of the respondent’s behaviour. They urinated all over themselves, and their eyes became huge with fear when the respondent would approach them.”

Another witness said he saw Parra working horses in hyperflexion.

“Grave and extensive abuse”

The FEI submitted that Parra’s “grave and extensive abuse and abusive training practices” involved most if not all the horses he owned or trained, “continuously and repetitively throughout several years”, and that by doing so, and instructing employees to do so, he put horses’ and riders’ mental and physical health – and their lives – in danger.

Parra submitted 54 sworn declarations in his defence, from people including a reverend who went to Parra’s yard every day for four years.

“More than half of the 54 declarations come from clients, trainers, grooms, farriers, and friends who all had the opportunity to observe, in person, Mr Parra training horses, and for decades,” the report states. “In all these years, not one of them has ever witnessed Mr Parra abuse a horse, nor done any of the horrible things which the FEI witnesses accuse him of.”

Parra contested some of the videos, saying the horses did not show signs of stress, and that some were edited not to include “verbal and other rewards offered to the horse”.

He said allegations of electric spurs, twisted steel, beating a horse with a thick piece of wood and depriving horses of food and water were “pure fiction”, and pointed out that the FEI stewards’ manual says riding in hyperflexion is allowed for short periods of time.

One of his witnesses, his head groom for 20 years, said she had never seen him “abusing a horse, use electric spurs or whip a horse until he goes down”.

A second witness, Parra’s wife, said: “The respondent never abused any horse. There has been an accident once, but that’s all,” the report states. “Upon questioning from the FEI, the witness testified that it is not nice to hit horses. Similarly, horses’ wounds are not ok, but none of them were made by Mr Parra.”

Parra himself told the panel that “the horses are his life, he loves them”.

“If the panel does not believe that the respondent loves them, they should at least believe him when he says that they are worth a lot of money, and that it is his whole life,” the report states. “Why would he hurt or mark them? In relation to the spur marks, if the FEI considers him responsible for the marks to the horses which happened at his barn because he is the owner of the barn, he accepts it, but he never did those spur marks himself.

“The same goes for riding injured horses. It is unfortunate to ride injured horses, but the respondent never did so himself. It was actually FEI witness one and the others who did. The respondent insisted on never ever having hurt his horses intentionally and would never allow anybody to do so as well.”

The report adds: “Upon questioning from the panel, the respondent mentioned regretting having used some of his training methods and agrees that hitting a horse in the neck is not good, but he does not consider it to be abusive.”

“Bad training errors”

Parra said the FEI witnesses made false allegations, that “there is a difference between mistakes in training (bad training errors) and horse abuse”, and that the FEI’s picture and video evidence was “cherry-picked and taken out of context”.

The panel did not find Parra had used electric spurs or a twisted wire headset. It did not uphold allegations of overworking horses or leaving them without food or water.

But it was noted that Parra had been involved in the abusive practices for years.

“The case file, photographs and videos also show that various of the respondent’s horses were subjected to a repeated pattern of abuse,” the report states. “We are not in presence of only one horse or an isolated set of incidents, but instead it is a situation of several and repeated cases of abusive behaviors during an extended time. This constitutes, in the panel’s view, clear aggravating circumstances of the respondent’s misbehaviour.”

The panel noted that Parra had not previously been disciplined, but stated: “The respondent’s behaviour amounts to a clear abuse of horse as well as maltreatment of horses. These are among the most severe offences that can be committed in the context of equestrian sport.”

Parra was fined CHF 15,000 (£13,947) and ordered to pay CHF 10,000 in legal costs. He has submitted an appeal against the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

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