Why did the FEI’s horse abuse case against Andrew McConnon fall apart? Pippa Cuckson investigates...

In this exclusive H&H article, equestrian journalist Pippa Cuckson interrogates the FEI tribunal case of Andrew McConnon and considers whether the current process of holding sport horse abusers to account is fit for purpose

The eventing community was shocked by the apparently lenient treatment of Andrew McConnon, the US five-star rider who in October was suspended just 20 months for horse abuse.

Prior to the outcome of the FEI’s case and subsequent release of the 120-page Tribunal document on McConnon’s allegedly abusive practices, individuals had previously tried – unsuccessfully – to report him to US equestrian authorities.

Eventually, the FEI legal department thought it had a cast iron case, with eight witnesses testifying to the 39-year-old’s behaviour over many years. It sought a lifetime ban. Yet the independent FEI Tribunal found no proof of long-term abuse, and regarded the FEI’s witnesses as less convincing than the 10 people speaking to McConnon’s general character, irrespective of whether they were present when alleged incidents took place.

McConnon was sanctioned solely for three single incidents he admitted to, claiming he was under personal stress. These were all from February and March 2024, backed up with pictures from an employee who made a concerted effort to obtain usable evidence. Even though McConnon was guilty of some abuse, and of bringing equestrianism into disrepute, FEI Tribunal denied the FEI’s costs claim because it had wasted “too much time” with insufficient evidence.

Aside from the three incidents proved, McConnon said the other allegations “spiraled off” from videos that went viral on social media and were “demonstrably false”. While some video clips showed necessary “corrections” of horse behaviour, or rider actions to get the horse’s attention, they were not intended to cause pain and were not abuse.

As part of his lengthy final statement, McConnon said: “As a professional athlete and an upper-level competitor, it is my responsibility to set an example. However, in March 2024, I was extremely thankful to [witness name redacted] for kindly speaking with me after a difficult ride about what she had witnessed. That conversation helped me put my then current struggles into focus. I made the necessary changes that day and I was thankful for her forgiveness for my behaviour. This isn’t a case of I’m sorry I got caught. I’m genuinely sorry for my actions.” There was a lot of stress in his personal life at the time, but “being a private and independent person, I incorrectly tried to handle my struggles alone.”

How the Cesar Parra and Andrew McConnon cases differ

Only two months earlier a 15-year ban was handed to US-based dressage Olympian Cesar Parra, effectively ending his career at 65. Aside from the discussion still ongoing about McConnon, and the wider challenges of social licence, the McConnon decision is a huge setback for the FEI legal team. The FEI has, after all, declared zero tolerance for offenders, and encouraged whistleblowers to use its online reporting portal (which has only led to proceedings in four per cent of reported incidents so far.)

We have previously discussed the different ways FEI penalises horse abusers. Anything “on the field of play” is handled by the ground jury and the punishment is unappealable. But once the incident becomes “historic” or occurs away from competition, the emphasis shifts dramatically; it is now up to the whistleblower to prove the case. This is a very big “ask” for a non-lawyer, even when the FEI’s experienced litigators take the lead.

McConnon and Parra were charged with similarly egregious practices such as excessive use of whips and spurs (sometimes resulting in weals and blood), hyperflexion and other means of tying down a horse for prolonged spells, repeated jabbing of the horse in the mouth, working of horses known to be lame and withholding food and water as a punishment.

Two Tribunal members sat on both panels: Brian Ward, and Agustin Fattal Jaef. However, there were several distinct differences between the presentation which may explain some of the McConnon findings.

Against Parra, 29 videos and 25 photos clearly showed his involvement in incidents at issue. Some show prolonged abuse. The four witnesses took more of a complementary role to the extensive evidence that had been caught on camera. Only two of his claimed 54 supporters were actually prepared to speak up on the day. Parra also incriminated himself. While denying abuse (and not all allegations were proved) he clearly felt there was nothing unusual about his training methods. The Tribunal 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”.

By contrast, picture evidence against McConnon was limited, with videos lasting only a few seconds; in slow motion, one did not show what was described.

Moreover the rider gave alternative explanations for the picture content – which the Tribunal largely accepted. For example, he claimed a horse’s head was tied briefly to its forelegs to avoid use of sedation or twitch for mane-pulling; it was not a punishment.

He was also given considerable credit for fulsome expressions of remorse over the three 2024 incidents proved, which were hitting the horse seven times at the top of the neck, using the whip inappropriately on the shoulder and haunches, and using the reins “firmer than necessary” to ask the horse to bend and jabbing it in the mouth three times. He is only the second person in a Tribunal abuse case to say sorry; the first being Charlotte Dujardin in 2024. (Generally, riders vigorously defend their actions.)

The importance of witnesses in the Andrew McConnon case

Thus the McConnon case hung more on prosecution witnesses, much of whose testimony was disregarded due to ambiguities under cross-examination.

There will, to me, always be understandable memory gaps over historic events. It is no surprise that a groom who was only 17 at the time, and likely in awe of her employer, would stumble over exactly who was present 11 years ago for the alleged administration of anti-inflammatories to conceal abuse from a horse’s owner. This type of “wobble” when challenged by an experienced defence attorney can often negate the witness’s entire testimony, with no recognition that at least some of it occurred.

The same lack of weight was afforded to McConnon’s neighbour, who claimed to have watched a prolonged spate of abuse from her property. She said McConnon “unleashed” his whip on horse, getting it into such a state that it flailed around in a “drunken waltz”; but she later was found not to be able to see everything described from her vantage point. This undermined her account of the entire incident.

Horse abuse is defined under FEI General Regulations Art 142 as “an action or omission which causes or is likely to cause pain or unnecessary discomfort to a Horse.” It may be noted that the singular is used – “an action” – and that pain does not have to be proved.

There is nothing in Art 142 to suggest that abuse must be repeated or sustained to be an offence. Indeed, riders who whipped or violently kicked a horse in a single short outburst were handed significant sanctions in several cases before the pandemic. Some were cited in the McConnon decision. This included one case protested by me, against an endurance rider who whacked a horse twice at the top of the neck with a full plastic slosh bottle, with video evidence simply drawn from the official livestream of the race; he was banned for six months. None were deemed comparable to the McConnon allegations.

How Tribunal abuse decisions have shifted over time

Those reading all Tribunal abuse decisions chronologically may notice a few subtle shifts in its approach over time: we can speculate, albeit speciously, whether McConnon might have been suspended for longer if disciplined five or six years ago.

Tribunal seems more cautious nowadays, having accumulated a sizeable cache of “case law” (ie, precedent) on horse abuse since 2014. Before then, its work mostly related to doping, interpretation of sport rules or last-minute disputes over Olympic qualifications.

The Tribunal may also be more sensitive to potential appeals. In 2021 there was a devastating setback for the FEI when its record 20-year ban on an endurance rider was overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Regarding McConnon, Tribunal said: “the more serious the allegation and its consequences, the higher certainty (level of proof) the Panel requires to be comfortably satisfied.” It also referenced CAS’s ruling that sanctions must be proportionate and “must not exceed what is reasonably required in the search of a justifiable aim”.

But are sport rules the correct way to handle the equine equivalent of assault on a human, that might even mean jail when prosecuted by law enforcement? The horse is a truly awkward fit in the gamut of sport law.

Separate animal protection laws barely figure in current discussions. In any event, they differ widely in FEI member countries. Even in the UK they are generally more focussed on the neglect or starvation of leisure horses and ponies. The notion that things may be badly wrong in an elite equestrian yard or racing stable is generally off the police or RSPCA radar; they too would need witness corroboration.

Notably, in Switzerland, equestrian authorities were relieved when police took up the abuse case against showjumper Paul Estermann; once convicted, this gave the Swiss equestrian federation irrefutable grounds to ban him immediately for seven years. But this happens rarely.

A “flawed” procedure for dealing with horse abuse

The Editor asked me to consider what might have been done better in the McConnon case. Having reported on FEI disciplinary proceedings over 40 years, and had direct involvement in bringing four abuse allegations to Tribunal, I have thought about this a lot. My conclusion is that the procedure itself is flawed.

For sure the FEI witnesses were not as robust as some. There was albeit understandable prior discussion between some of them, which fed the defence’s argument of collusion to bring McConnon down; more photographic evidence would have supported their case. But the alternative would have been concentrating on the three incidents from early 2024 – or dropping the case entirely. Doing nothing would have resulted in more reputational damage for equestrianism at this critical time.

The current system for disciplining out of competition abuse tries to shoehorn a criminal court-style legal process into the functions of a sporting regulatory body with limited resources to investigate anything, never mind what goes on behind closed doors. The FEI is not the police; it cannot enter private premises; it cannot sequester documents, CCTV footage, phones, devices, emails or social media accounts; it cannot compel anyone to testify.

Worse still, the victim – the horse – cannot speak and thus a third party must try on its behalf – often someone young and afraid to confront their boss. (In an alleged incident from 2019 in the McConnon case, an experienced vet decided not to report concerning whip marks, hoping someone else would do so.) Younger staff members may think abusive treatment is quite normal until discussing it much later with others.

It is hopelessly unrealistic to expect anyone to video riders at close quarters 24-7 in the expectation they will err, but this is in effect required for successful prosecution of out of competition abuse. (On the field of play, official livestream footage when available ticks the “authenticity” box and has generally sufficed.)

Those brave enough to try inevitably end up filming covertly, from long distance. Matters of identification then arise, and exactly what happened is difficult to pick out. Witnesses must also be prepared for tough interrogation from the rider’s defence team. I have been there; it is not for the faint-hearted!

What is the solution?

I do not know the solution – but one must be found. It may not help short term, but I believe anything related to welfare and horse abuse should be re-worked into a new and extended welfare and abuse section in FEI General Regulations, and applied uniformly on the field of play in all sports. Quentin Simonet, new president of the European Equestrian Federation recently proposed a similar move.

More effective jurisdiction over out of competition abuse may be a challenge too far. The FEI has asked all member federations to align their horse abuse rules and processes with the FEI’s by 1 January, 2027, which may mean handling more of these complex cases themselves instead of referring them to the FEI. How a modestly-resourced national governing body will fare remains to be seen.

How to report horse abuse

Under FEI rules, there is no statute of limitations in reporting abuse, though the sooner the better. The FEI has a new abuse online portal, the FEI Reporting Hub, but you can still email the FEI secretary-general with allegations and evidence.

Anything witnessed at an FEI event, at a national show or away from competition involving a FEI registered person: report to FEI and copy to the national federation as back-up, ie British Equestrian (BEF.)

Anything witnessed at a national show or away from competition involving a non-FEI registered person: report to that national governing body and copy to BEF.

Express concerns to officials on the day, but don’t assume they will follow up; go ahead with written complaints as above. Even if you want to think about reporting an incident for a few days, write down your detailed account while it is fresh; more weight is given to contemporaneous notes.

Include:

• Your full contact details, and those of other potential witnesses.

• Detailed written account of what happened in exact order, giving dates, time and locations. If you know your sport rules, cite those allegedly breached, and explain why this constitutes abuse.

• Some cases stall due to difficulty confirming identity. Don’t leave it to the governing body to do this. Supply the rider’s registration number if you can find it (FEI database is publicly available) and include (if at a show) a running order to prove they were present.

• Video and still images from any device are acceptable to FEI. They like extracts from official livestreams where feasible. Video back-up with still images from the same incident in high resolution are the ideal. An interrupted sequence of still photos with no corresponding video may be interpreted as a “moment in time” or met with accusations of photoshopping.

• Imagery must clearly show the accused rider actually committing the offence. Separate images of the horse showing injuries or other aftermath, are important – but as stand-alone items, they are not evidence. Neither are images shot from behind, or with the rider’s face or any other identifying features pixilated. Capturing the number worn by horse/rider is also useful.

• Ensure date and time are encrypted in digital images.

• Resist the temptation to post on social media.

• You may request anonymity – but be aware that a FEI Tribunal case may ultimately rely on your willingness to testify in person.

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