Korean rider's Olympic hopes stay alive years after alleged horse feud

Hwang Young-shik, who will be a first-time Olympian, earned the spot after Palestine, South Africa and Qatar were unable to send a rider to the Games for either not meeting the minimum requirements or not having a contender.

Hwang Young-shik, pictured in a photo shared on Instagram, will be Korea's lone equestrian at the 2024 Paris Olympics. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Hwang Young-shik will be Korea’s lone representative in equestrian at the Paris Olympics, competing in the dressage event after getting a call a month before the opening ceremony.

Hwang, who will be a first-time Olympian, earned the spot after Palestine, South Africa and Qatar were unable to send a rider to the Games for either not meeting the minimum requirements or not having a contender.

According to a detailed profile on the official Olympics site, Hwang “packed up within one week to travel back to Germany where he had left his horse Delmonte in training with Swedish rider Michelle Hagman because he had lost hope that his Olympic dream could be realised.”

Hwang, 34, qualified for the Tokyo Olympics with a horse leased from two-time Olympic medalist Martin Schaudt but “after a quarrel with Schaudt, he relocated... and bought another horse, Bluebarry Dream. The new pair did not gel quickly enough to be ready for the Games and Bluebarry Dream died of colic a year later,” according to the profile.

Hwang Young-shik poses with a horse in 2011. [JOONGANG ILBO]

Hwang is a four-time gold medalist at the Asian Games, in the men’s and team events in 2010 and in 2014. He skipped the 2018 Games in the build-up to Tokyo and was not among the nine Korean equestrians who went to the delayed Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023 — even after the Korean Equestrian Federation told its athletes they would have to contribute 100 million won ($75,000) of their own funds to transport their horses.

The domestic equestrian federation has been strapped for cash since funds dried up after it was revealed in the lead up to Park Geun-hye's impeachment that Samsung had donated large amounts of money to the federation and to then-equestrian Chung Yoo-ra, the daughter of Park's imprisoned confidante Choi Soon-sil.

Equestrian, or horse riding, is separated into three disciplines.

Staff members arrange the landscape at the equestrian arena at the Chateau de Versailles near Paris on July 17. [XINHUA/YONHAP]

The first is a jumping event where the athlete and the horse must go through a course, where the horse leaps over obstacles. Penalties are imposed if a horse knocks over an obstacle.

The second discipline is dressage, where the horse must perform maneuvers that match with music played during the event.

Judges then evaluate the horse and the rider’s performance by the fluidity of the motions.

The last discipline combines the two and adds a cross country event where the horse and the rider must complete a course with solid and natural obstacles to evade.

Dressage horses are often found to be the warmblood breed due to their calm nature and incredible concentration.

For the dressage event, there can be a maximum of seven judges around the arena to view the spectacle from different angles.

Equestrian relies on the rider’s ability to connect with the horse and move with speed and accuracy.

A mistake in any of the disciplines could lead to the competitor and the horse having no chance to win the event.

The men’s individual dressage event begins on July 27.

Korea has not won a medal in equestrian in Olympics history.

BY MARY YANG, KEVIN CHUNG [mary.yang@joongang.co.kr]