{"id":872678,"date":"2026-08-29T13:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T13:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/872678\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T13:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T13:00:12","slug":"equestrian-news-2026-australias-heath-ryan-cops-18-month-ban-for-animal-abuse-horse-whipping-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/872678\/","title":{"rendered":"Equestrian news 2026 | Australia\u2019s Heath Ryan cops 18-month ban for animal abuse; horse whipping video"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s Heath Ryan has been hit with an 18-month ban by the international equestrian association (FEI) for animal abuse following a lengthy investigation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Olympian<\/a> was stood down from the sport last June after leaked footage of him whipping a horse 42 times emerged online.<\/p>\n

\"v\"<\/p>\n

Heath Ryan representing Australia in dressage at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

A narrator of the video described Ryan to be \u201csavagely\u201d whipping the horse, but the now 68-year-old later said he was acting in \u201cthe horse\u2019s best interest\u201d.<\/p>\n

An investigation into the leaked video has now come to an end with the tribunal in Switzerland concluding he had brought the sport into disrepute with his actions.<\/p>\n

An 18-month suspension was then directed to Ryan, with the 12 months of his provision suspension he received last year accounting for time he has served. <\/p>\n

Ryan will therefore not be able to return to competition until December. <\/p>\n

Along with the suspension, Ryan was hit with a $5170 fine and ordered to contribute a further $5170 towards the FEI\u2019s legal costs. <\/p>\n

Ryan has not publicly commented on his ban. <\/p>\n

Horse whipping has is heavily regulated against in the equestrian world and is not allowed at elite levels. Suspensions are common for those who are found guilty. <\/p>\n

Ryan had instigated proceedings against the national federation Equestrian Australia in the NSW Supreme Court in July in attempt to clear his name. <\/p>\n

But according to the FEI veterinarian\u2019s report, the whips were delivered at an average of 1.3 strikes every 0.75 seconds. <\/p>\n

The FEI took into account Ryan\u2019s unblemished record when finalising his ban.<\/p>\n

\u201cWeighing against the respondent are the gravity of the conduct as shown by the number and force of the strikes delivered to the horse,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s Heath Ryan has been hit with an 18-month ban by the international equestrian association (FEI) for animal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-872678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}