Olympic horses ruining people at the Olympics

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The Olympics can be a grueling affair. In some cases, athletes compete on and off for the entirety of the games. The toll that it takes on the body is immense, and by the end of the games these competitors can get sick of the grind.

Even the four-legged ones.

If you thought athletes like Michael Phelps and Simone Biles had it tough, they never had to carry someone on their back. Horses that compete in the Olympics not only have to prance in rhythm and jump over six feet high, they have to do it with grown men and women pulling and slapping them around.

It’s not hard to see why they would get a little frustrated.

By the end the time of the modern pentathlon event near the end of the Olympics, the horses appeared to have been on their last leg. Add in some unfamiliarity, and you have a recipe for unintentional, high-flying equestrian action.

In addition to fencing, swimming, cross-country running and pistol shooting, modern pentathlon athletes have to participate in show jumping. Unlike the riders in the individual and team jumping events at the Olympics, modern pentathletes only have 20 minutes before the competition to get familiar with their horses.

This supposedly was the intent of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the Modern Olympics. While modern pentathletes were allowed to ride familiar horses for the events debut in the 1912 Olympics, de Coubertin believed that the real test for the athlete was their ability to handle a horse they have never met. From 1920 on, modern pentathlon participants rode the unfamiliar horse.

Imagine meeting someone in line at the grocery store, having a 20-minute conversation and then attempting to hop on their back to ride them back home. See how that works out for you.

The results ran a gamut of emotions that went from head-shaking disbelief to wide-eyed anxiety. Riders had to navigate unwilling horses who refused to jump the obstacles, even getting thrown off every so often.

Justinas Kinderis of Lithuania was one of the unfortunate souls that fell and was dragged by this horse before he let go. The Czech Republic’s Jan Kuf was also thrown from his horse when his momentum carried him over the brick wall obstacle after his horse stopped completely.

To be fair, most of the other athletes were able to ride these horses relatively unscathed. A couple of riders like Shohei Iwamoto of Japan, Arthur Lanigan-O’Keeffe of Ireland and Max Esposito of Australian came away with the full 300-point allotment.

Aleksander Lesun won the modern pentathlon gold Saturday despite finishing 21st in the show jumping portion of the competition. Lesun may just be happy for staying on his horse after all the thrills and spills of his fellow competitors.