PETA Statement: UIPM’s Removal Of Horse Riding

For Immediate Release:
November 2, 2021

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Please see the following statement from PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo regarding reports that UIPM, the modern pentathlon’s governing body, has voted to replace the horse-riding portion of the event with cycling, after a competitor at this year’s Tokyo Olympics was caught on camera whipping a terrified horse and trying to force him onto the course:

It doesn’t hurt a bicycle to hit it or kick it, so this is an Olympic-size win for horses and cyclists. PETA thanks UIPM for acting swiftly on our recommendation to drop the horse component from the pentathlon and replace it with cycling. The world’s attitude toward the exploitation of horses has evolved, and there’s no room for punishing terrified animals in the show ring. PETA looks forward to the new cruelty-free pentathlon.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information on PETA’s newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.